The Supremes saw love come and go and turned it into The Number One Record On the R&B Charts with “Love Is Here And Now You're Gone”
Also on the R&B Chart:
On that same date, Another group of Motown Sweethearts reminded us what it was like when “The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game” by The Marvelettes...
And, Aretha Franklin, yet another of Detroit’s own, scored with “I Never Loved A Man (the way I love you)”
They were diggin’ Sister ‘Reath in Stockholm, too!
We were also listening to Philly’s Brenda Payton’s group, Brenda & The Tabulations, doing “Dry Your Eyes”
And of course “Jimmy Mack” by MOTOWN’S Martha Reeves & The Vandellas was on the R&B chart, too!!!
Cannonball Adderly was on the charts with “Mercy Mercy Mercy”
“With This Ring” by The Platters was on the R&B Chart on March 11, 1967...
As was “Why Not Tonight” by Jimmy Hughes
Sam & Dave had their soulful, bluesy “When Something’s Wrong With My Baby” on the R&B Chart that week...
And more MOTOWN LOVE was ON the air too with “It Takes Two”
by Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
And Washington D.C. was represented on the R&B Chart with “Let's Fall In Love” by Peaches & Herb...
MARCH 11, 1967: NOT A BAD DAY ON THE R&B CHARTS, NOT BAD AT ALL...
Thanks goes out to The National R&B Music Society Inc. for some of the research and, OF COURSE, to the featured artists for
ANOTHER GREAT DAY
on the R&B Music Scene!!!
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It was 1961 when Gladys Horton gathered some of her high school friends into a singing group that became the Marvelettes, laying the groundwork for her to sing lead vocals on a number of hits, including ”Please Mr. Postman” which became Motown Records’ first No. 1 hit.
Gladys died on January 26, 2011 in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Ms. Horton was in a high school glee club in Inkster, Mich., outside Detroit, when she recruited three of her classmates — Katherine Anderson (now Schaffner), Georgeanna Tillman and Juanita Cowart — as well as a friend who had recently graduated, Georgia Dobbins, and formed a quintet. They called themselves the Casinyets (“Can’t Sing Yets”)
The “Casinyets” auditioned for Motown executives, including Berry Gordy Jr., the label’s founder, who were impressed but said the girls needed to come up with original material.
Berry Gordy at Motown
A friend of Ms. Dobbins, William Garrett, had just written a blues song, and with his permission Ms. Dobbins rewrote the song, about a girl aching for mail from her far-away boyfriend, casting it in a pop vein, though she kept the title, “Please Mr. Postman.”
Prior to recording for Motown, Ms. Dobbins left the group because her mother was ill and her father wanted her at home.
She was replaced by Wanda Young, another graduate of the same high school in Inkster, leaving Gladys to sing the lead vocals, including the memorable line “De-liver de let-ter, de sooner de bet-ter.”
Gladys Horton stayed with the group until 1967, when she became pregnant with her first child. She sang on a number of hit recordings, including “Playboy”
“Beechwood 4-5789”
and this reviewer’s favorite, the ballad “Forever.” Check out this version done as a duet with Marvin Gaye…
The girls had hits with several of Smokey Robinson’s tunes:
“Don’t Mess With Bill”
“The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game”
The origin of the Marvelettes is variously recounted in music encyclopedias and other sources, and they usually describe Gladys as a co-founder of the group. But in a New York Times interview with Katherine Anderson Schaffner, one of the original Marvelettes, Gladys was given full credit as being the founder…
“We only started singing together because Gladys asked us. Usually we’d go to Georgeanna’s house and play canasta.”—Katherine Schaffner
