From the Typing Pool to Motown Stardom
Martha and the Vandellas were one of Motown’s great groups. Between the early 1960s and the beginning of the ’70s, they delivered a string of songs that became essential parts of the Motown sound:
But their story didn’t begin with fame. In fact, Martha Reeves was initially working behind the scenes at Motown as a secretary.
The group also worked as backing singers for some of the label’s other artists, including Marvin Gaye. Then came one of those moments where a career can change completely by accident.
Martha Gets Her Chance
The group was supposed to be backing Mary Wells at a recording session. Mary didn’t turn up. Martha stepped in.
She impressed Berry Gordy enough that the group was signed, and suddenly the woman who had been working in Motown’s typing pool was on her way to becoming one of the label’s biggest stars.
It’s a great story because it says something about Motown itself. There were talented musicians and singers everywhere. You had to be ready when the opportunity appeared. And Martha certainly was.
Heat Wave
The breakthrough came in 1963 with Heat Wave, sometimes known as (Love Is Like a) Heat Wave.
Written by Motown’s legendary songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland, the tune became a major hit and established Martha and the Vandellas as a force within the label.
Listen to it today and it’s immediately obvious why it worked. The rhythm section is driving. The backing vocals are tight. The arrangement keeps pushing forward. And Martha’s lead vocal has an urgency that fits the song perfectly.
This is classic Motown. It’s polished, but it doesn’t feel polite. There’s energy everywhere.
For guitarists, Heat Wave is a great reminder that soul rhythm guitar is often about momentum rather than complexity.
You don’t necessarily need a difficult chord progression. You need to make the simple things feel good. That means tight rhythm, controlled muting, consistent time and knowing when to leave space.
Heat Wave remains a brilliant tune for a Motown/Soul band, and it’s worth studying as much for the groove as for the chords.
Dancing in the Street
Then came the song that would become inseparable from Motown itself, Dancing in the Street.
Released in 1964, it became Martha and the Vandellas’ defining song and eventually one of the most recognisable songs in the entire Motown catalogue.
The songwriting is credited to Marvin Gaye, William “Mickey” Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter, while the recording features the musicians who formed Motown’s legendary house band, The Funk Brothers.
And what a combination it was. The song has that unmistakable Motown propulsion. The drums push it forward. The bass keeps everything moving. The percussion adds another layer of excitement.
And the guitars don’t need to dominate. They simply help make the whole thing move. That’s a very important lesson for a guitarist. The groove is bigger than your part.
If you’re playing in a Soul band, the audience doesn’t care whether your guitar part is complicated. They care whether the band makes them want to dance.
A Song Everyone Knows
The great thing about Dancing in the Street is that it works almost anywhere. It’s been covered by artists including David Bowie, Mick Jagger, The Kinks, The Grateful Dead, The Mamas & The Papas, and even Van Halen!
And, of course, practically every Soul and Motown band that has ever played a Saturday night has had to deal with it. They might not reproduce exactly what The Funk Brothers did on the original recording. That’s fine.
With a song this strong, you can put your own arrangement around it. For a professional guitarist, this is one of those must-know songs. Not because the guitar part is necessarily difficult, but because it teaches you how a rhythm section creates excitement.
Nowhere to Run
In 1965 we got Nowhere to Run. Once again, Holland-Dozier-Holland supplied the songwriting and The Funk Brothers the musical backing.
If you compare Nowhere to Run with Dancing in the Street, you’ll hear similarities. That’s not surprising. Same songwriting team. Same singers. Same extraordinary studio musicians. And the same Motown production machine.
Nowhere to Run is also interesting because its promotional film is often cited among the early examples of what we would now call a music video. But for me, the bigger lesson is what was happening behind the scenes.
Motown had found a combination that worked. When you have the right songwriters, singers, producers and musicians working together, you don’t necessarily need to reinvent everything for every single release.
You can develop a sound. And The Vandellas became one of the groups that defined that sound.
Jimmy Mack
Next, we had Jimmy Mack in 1967. Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland (again!), it became another major hit.
By this point, they had built an extraordinary run: Heat Wave. Dancing in the Street. Nowhere to Run. Jimmy Mack.
And that’s where the repertoire angle becomes really interesting. If you’re putting together a female-fronted Motown/Soul band, you don’t need to stop with a few Martha and the Vandellas song. You can build an entire set around artists from the same world.
Dig into these incredible artists repertoire:
Add Martha and the Vandellas to that list and you’ve got the beginnings of a seriously useful Soul repertoire.
I spent about a decade playing in that sort of band, and it was always a crowd-pleaser.
You could even take the concept further. There are tribute and theatre productions built around exactly this kind of repertoire, touring constantly, appearing on cruise ships and sometimes developing into full West End-style shows.
And there’s one thing you need before any of that works. Tunes. You need a repertoire.
The Motown Work Ethic
There’s another reason I like the Martha and the Vandellas story. It reminds us that Motown didn’t simply stumble across a magic formula and turn every song into a hit.
There was an enormous amount of work going on. In 1965 alone, Berry Gordy’s Motown released a huge number of singles.
Obviously, not all of them became classics. We remember the ones that survived. Apart from the previously mentioned, you also had: I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) Stop! In the Name of Love, and How Sweet It Is.
Behind those records was an organisation constantly writing, recording, rehearsing, arranging, testing and releasing music.
For every song that became part of the permanent soundtrack, there were plenty that disappeared.
And I think there’s a useful lesson here for musicians. We sometimes wait for inspiration. We wait until we feel ready. We wait for the perfect song. Motown’s approach was rather different: Get to work.
Write another song. Record another take. Learn another tune. Play another gig. Keep going. Eventually, something sticks.
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas After Motown
The group’s peak Motown period eventually came to an end, but Martha Reeves and the Vandellas continued performing long after their classic recording years.
Their legacy has been recognised with inductions into both the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Martha herself continued performing for decades. In fact, she was still performing professionally well into her seventies. That feels appropriate. Because Dancing in the Street isn’t really a song you retire from. It belongs to the audience as much as it belongs to her.
The Guitar Lesson
Martha and the Vandellas are a fantastic band to study if you’re learning guitar for a working soul or Motown band.
Don’t listen only to the guitar. Listen to everything. The bass. The drums. The handclaps. The percussion. The backing vocals. The horn parts.
Then listen to where the guitar sits inside all of that. You’ll notice that the guitar often isn’t trying to be clever. It’s helping the rhythm section create a machine.
That’s why these songs can be deceptively difficult to play well. Anybody can learn the chords. The hard part is making them groove. That’s the real lesson.
Building a Motown Repertoire
The beauty of learning Martha and the Vandellas is that one song naturally leads to another. Learn Dancing in the Street and you discover The Funk Brothers. Learn The Funk Brothers and you find the rest of the Motown catalogue.
Learn Jimmy Mack and you’re suddenly looking at The Supremes, The Ronettes, Mary Wells and Freda Payne. Before long, you’re not learning individual songs anymore, you’re building a working repertoire.
And that’s really what Motown was so good at creating. Tunes that musicians could play, singers could perform, audiences could dance to—and that still work decades later.
So start with Heat Wave. Learn Dancing in the Street. Add Nowhere to Run. Then finish with Jimmy Mack.
You’ll have four great songs under your fingers—and, more importantly, you’ll have taken another step towards building a repertoire that can actually be used on stage.
Martha and the Vandellas Tunes | Related Pages
(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave | Martha & the Vandellas
You can learn Heat Wave by Martha Reeves & the Vandellas using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| Eb N.C (Bb C Bb G) | Fm (Gbm) | Gm (Bm) | Cm (Bm) | Cm |
Whenever I’m with him, (oh, oh, oh, oh) something inside (inside)…
Dancing In The Street | Chords + TAB
You can learn Dancing In The Street by Martha and the Vandellas using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| E7 | E7 (D/E) | E7 | E7 (D/E) |
Callin’ out around the world, are you ready for a brand new beat…
Jimmy Mack | Chords + TAB
You can learn Jimmy Mack by Martha and the Vandellas using chords, lyrics, a chord chart, backing track, and Spytunes video guitar lessons.
| Ebm | Gbmaj7 | Dbmaj7 | Gb |
Jimmy Mack, Jimmy. Oh, Jimmy Mack, when are you comin’ back…
Start learning with the full lesson series: Jimmy Mack – Guitar Lessons with TAB.
Nowhere To Run | Chords + TAB
You can learn Nowhere To Run by Martha and the Vandellas using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, TAB, and backing tracks.
| G | F Em C/E | G | F Em C/E |
Nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide…
Martha and the Vandellas on the web
