While Martha Reeves and Diana Ross staged their fierce rivalry for the title of Queen of Motown during the Detroit label’s successful early years, the other members of their groups, the Vandellas and the Supremes respectively, happily socialized together on tours that took them across the United States.
Among them was Rosalind Ashford, founding member of Martha and the Vandellas, who sang on hits such as Heat Wave, Dancing in the Street, Nowhere to Run and Jimmy Mack.
Ashford, who died aged 83, participated in the label’s golden era, when it became, as its own slogan claimed, “the sound of young America,” attracting white teenagers to black music and helping create a soundtrack to the 1960s civil rights movement.
While Ross ultimately won the battle to become the label’s leading female star, aided by her affair with its founder and president, Berry Gordy Jr, many Motown fans felt that Martha and Vandellas’ recordings were truer to the label’s core sound, retaining something of the raw fervor of the gospel music they had grown up with.
Born in Detroit to Mary (née Buckley) and John Ashford, respectively a teacher and a worker at the Ford Motor Company, Rosalind sang in church and in the choirs at Wilbur Wright High School.
In 1957, she participated in a talent audition at the local YMCA, where her soprano voice impressed an agent, Edward “Pops” Larkins, who brought her together with two other girls, Annette Beard and Gloria Williams, to form a vocal group he called Del-Phis, with Williams as lead singer.
After Ashford graduated in 1961, they recorded their first records for two Chicago labels, Checker and Checkmate, without success. Williams left to start a family and Reeves took over lead vocals.
The group’s fortunes were drifting when Reeves joined Motown as secretary to Motown A&R chief Mickey Stevenson. But the temporary absence one day in the summer of 1962 of the label’s usual female backing vocalists, a trio known as Andantes, prompted her to convene her own group to sing harmonies for what turned out to be Marvin Gaye’s first hit, Stubborn Kind of Fellow.
Gordy offered them a contract and a few weeks later they recorded their own first single, a Stevenson song called I’ll Have to Let Him Go, under their new name, which Reeves invented by combining the Van from Van Dyck Street in Detroit, where her family lived, and Della from Della Reese, a singer she admired.
This first effort was not a success, but six months later they worked with the writing and production team of Lamont Dozier and brothers Eddie and Brian Holland on a song called Come and Get These Memories, whose combination of danceable rhythm and poignant lyrics propelled them into the US Top 10 R&B and Top 30 pop charts. Cholly Atkins.
This was the prelude to a magnificent series of successes with the Holland-Dozier-Hollande team. Their next album, Heat Wave, defined the Motown Sound: a driving beat, strong gospel piano chords, ecstatic vocals, and a wailing baritone saxophone solo took it to No. 1 and No. 6, respectively, on the R&B and pop charts in the fall of 1963. The combination of ingredients was so potent that their next two albums, Quicksand and Live Wire, were carbon copies.
In 1964, Stevenson, Gaye and Ivy Jo Hunter wrote a song for them called Dancing in the Street. Tacitly addressing the rising temperature of the civil rights summer, with a backbeat bolstered by Hunter banging a tire chain against a piece of wood, it reached number two on the pop charts and became one of the label’s immortal hits.
Ashford was around for other hits, including Nowhere to Run in 1965, I’m Ready for Love in 1966 and Jimmy Mack in 1967. But having succeeded the Marvelettes as Motown’s leading female vocal group, the Vandellas had in turn been eclipsed by the Supremes and were no longer among Gordy’s top priorities.
Beard had left in 1964 to raise a family, replaced by Betty Kelly in time for the group’s arrival in the UK in the spring of 1965 with fellow Motown artists the Supremes, the Miracles and Stevie Wonder. A national tour included a Ready Steady Go! TV special hosted by Dusty Springfield.
In 1969, Ashford was abruptly asked to leave, apparently at Reeves’ instigation, and given a severance package. While many of her Motown associates moved with the label to Los Angeles, a move motivated by Gordy’s desire to conquer Hollywood, she remained in Detroit and took an office job at the local telephone company.
Over the next few years, Ashford and Beard toured occasionally under the name Original Vandellas. Once the ill will was overcome – and Motown had been sued for unpaid royalties, leading to an out-of-court settlement – they were sometimes joined by Reeves, and in 1989 the trio recorded several tracks for British disc jockey Ian Levine’s Motorcity label. The members of Martha and the Vandellas were collectively inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
Ashford was married and took the surname Holmes. She is survived by her son, Damon Holmes, and four grandchildren.
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