No Vandellas solos at all?

[TheMotownManiac]

based on the various Motown history books, Berry was desperately in search of the "elusive female star." one that could appeal to black and white audiences, be mistress of ceremonies, cover all genres of music, etc etc. He tried to sign Freda Payne, was having some success with Mary Wells. perhaps he was experimenting and wanted to keep exploring who that perfect fit would be. berry has said that he always loved Martha's soulfulness and how she put everything into her singing.

not to be crude but maybe Berry sort of saw the women at Motown as a buffet lol. sample the talents of this one, that one, try another dish. see which really fit most perfectly with his dream of cross-over success.

People have theorized what might have happened had Mary stayed with Motown. would the Sups and Diana still have gotten the push? I think so. I think berry was exploding options and Martha was another one. he saw many things in her that he liked. but then also saw that she was quite opinionated and not as pliable as he might have liked. so she was one of his many choices. the Vandellas were just along for the ride.

i don’t think Berry ever thought of Martha as his cross-over possibility. Her voice was too soulful, she had no stage presence or real style and with the better distribution in 1963 for albums, she sold very poorly with her first two, and not impressive with her others. General audiences were not responding to her sound enough to buy an album. Queen Mary, on the other hand, went top 50 with her Two Lovers album, while Heat Wave peaked at 125. I think Berry would still have worked with Queen Mary while working the same as he did with The Supremes. Once the WDOLG album took off out if the gate, and Liverpool outselling everything else on the label, he knew he had found his person. Mary, great as she was, didn’t have ‘it’

Martha certainly developed into an entertainer, but she was quite plain for years. That Ed Sullivan clip and Ready Steady Go pretty much tell the story. She could always sing, however - and how!