Artist of the Month: Marvelettes

Mostly popular in the early to - mid 60’s,they were the first successful act of Motown Records after the Miracles and it’s first significantly successful girl group after the release of their 1961 single, one of the first #1 singles recorded by an all female vocal group and the first by a Motown recording act.
In the early years of Motown everybody that worked there would help one another in every which way they could, whether it was Smokey Robinson writing songs for some of the artists or Marvin Gaye playing drums and even Berry Gordy himself playing piano and also the countless times the girls would do back ground vocals, from the Supremes to the Marvelettes.
The Marvelettes were over shadowed by the Supremes, more attention was paid to the Supremes than the Marvelettes as Berry Gordy was already having an affair with Diana Ross, so the Marvelettes were put on hold and very little was done to promote them. But still they came up with some great songs, like Please Mr. Postman, Playboy, Twistin Postman, and Beechwood 4-5789 a song that was co-written by Marvin Gaye.
You never really know if and when you’re gonna have a hit record, it’s all chance and promotion, and sometimes artists pass on a song and then some one else has a hit with it. In this case the Marvelettes passed on the song “Where did our love go” and gave it to the Supremes. But then if you go the web-site “Artist Facts” it says that the Marvelettes passed up on the song “Baby Love” not “Where did our love go”, so who knows. The Marvelettes best hit is of course “Mr. Postman” but did you know that it was actually co-written by a real postman who helped complete the lyrics, his name was Freddie Gorman, he also sang with the Motown group called the “Originals”, he passed away in 2006.
Find out more about the Marvelettes as they are featured as Artist Of The Month on the Little Red Rooster Show and KWMC 1490 AM. Still all information and known facts on all artist of the month are by Wendy Johnson and all shows are produced by Javier Martinez.