Martha Reeves on Motown, Dancing in the Street and Dusty Springfield

William Stevenson discovered me after I had won an amateur contest, Reeves recalls, and she went to Hitsville, USA the next day unannounced and was immediately placed as a secretary at Motown. It felt like being in the right place at the right time, she says, and the whole experience was “just a glorious ride.” Motown’s production was linked to Detroit’s motor industry: her father worked for Ford and Berry Gordy had been an employee there, she explains.

Gordy learned how to organise and assign work, and even called the label Motown or Motortown, making music with an assembly-line discipline born of the Motor City. The story of Dancing in the Street began with Reeves peering through a studio window at Marvin Gaye.

He asked her to sing the song, played keyboard and drums and even a melodica, and Reeves says you can hear his touch in the piano solo.

USA, Detroit

martha reeves, motown, dancing, street, marvin gaye, william stevenson, hitsville usa, berry gordy, detroit, ford