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Gordy G 7048 (A), January 1966
b/w Never Leave Your Baby’s Side
(Written by Ivy Jo Hunter, Sylvia Moy and Mickey Stevenson)
Tamla Motown TMG 549 (A), February 1966
b/w Never Leave Your Baby’s Side
(Released in the UK under license through EMI/Tamla Motown)
And so to 1966, Motown Year Eight, although really the dividing line is no kind of marker at all; the winter of ’65/’66 saw the label at an all-time high, with new potential star names coming off the production line all the time, and the big bankable headline acts cranking out timeless classic after timeless classic, everyone involved on the form of their lives. Peak Motown.
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas had had as much of an impact as anyone on Motown’s ultra-high quality threshold, coming up with two of their best records to date, Nowhere To Run and You’ve Been In Love Too Long, and yet they’d also endured a frustrating year; those were the only two singles the Vandellas had seen released in 1965, with a six-month gap of radio silence after each of them. What gives?
It’s not as if they weren’t making great records, and it’s not as if those great records weren’t selling. Rather, supposedly “personal issues”, that catch-all descriptor for any fashion of behind-the-scenes shenanigans (used to spark fans’ imaginations in the absence of hard information), were involved in the delay. The result saw one of Motown’s biggest ever acts, in Motown’s biggest ever year, release the same number of singles as the Lewis Sisters. And it’s almost as if nobody noticed.
Even this “comeback” has more than a whiff of stopgap about it. Originally written for Kim Weston (one of the co-writers was her then-husband Mickey Stevenson, whose generous “gifting” of the song to Martha apparently didn’t go down tremendously well over the breakfast table), and featuring no Vandellas other than Martha herself, this had been recorded back in the summer of 1965 and held back until a suitable release slot became available. Quite the slap in the face when you consider Martha had been Motown’s queen for a day back in 1963, and when you realise we’ve had not one but four Supremes 45s here on Motown Junkies since we last heard from the Vandellas.
So, there are behind-the-scenes problems and drama aplenty surrounding My Baby Loves Me alright. But then the needle drops, and the groove strikes up, and all is well in Motownworld once again.
I’ve been asked more than once why Martha is my favourite Motown female vocalist (and she is – guess what I named my baby daughter), but it’s hard to explain; she just has something about her, something difficult to pin down but somehow inestimable. I think, if I were to try and articulate it, it’s her way of not ever quite fitting to a given tune – I don’t mean she can’t hold the tune, or get her note, I mean that with every vocal she ever turns in, there’s almost a feeling that she wants to explore the boundaries, that the melody is there as a safety net, a sketched line on a canvas, and that for her, exploring the boundaries is what singing is about; just sticking closely to it isn’t really enough of a challenge for a singer or a treat for a listener. So, she doesn’t sing songs so much as inhabit them, unmistakeable and irresistible, the free spirit of jazz and the sweetness of pop and the grunting drive of dirty, sexy soul all fighting in her blood, all seeking an escape into the nearest microphone before the whole thing’s going to blow.
Anyhow, that’s why I love Martha’s voice. And I’m telling you all this because really, for all the fantastic Vandellas hits we’ve had so far (Motown could, and pretty much did, compile a fine Greatest Hits LP made up of the excellent Martha & the Vandellas 45s and albums up to 1965), for me My Baby Loves Me is when we really meet Martha Reeves in full effect. I’ve said already that from here on in – and the start of 1966 is as good a place to mark that border as any other – recording for Motown is a statement in its own right, the brand and the history of the label arguably stronger than those of the individual artists. I think it’s also true of the artists themselves, though: in the mid-Sixties, the recording industry in America had changed, one-time teen sensation acts were achieving a newfound longevity, and here Martha Reeves is playing to her own audience. Join me, she’d exhorted the youth of America on Dancing In The Street, follow me, with the promise of new and exciting worlds to come. Now, a year and a half later, it’s time to make good on those promises; for those who are still listening, she’s no longer that new singer trying to ensnare you, she’s Martha being Martha. And it’s magnificent.
The best thing about this song, I think, is that it gives Martha so much room to stretch out at her leisure, without ever losing the push and snap and flex of earlier, more energetic Vandellas 45s, without slipping into sappy ballad territory. A simple enough declaration of love and trust on the face of it, like the Elgins’ immediately-preceding Darling Baby there’s much more going on beneath the surface – equally excellent, except this one has Martha, too. It’s both seductive and romantic all at once: one reading can make it undeniably sexy, and yet it’s also among my daughter’s favourite lullabies, another reading rendering the song courtly and chaste in its faith and devotion.
Kim Weston was apparently angry with Martha for singing the song the same way Kim had wanted to, but without hearing Kim’s original take, it’s difficult to argue the song didn’t benefit from the change of singer; even if Kim has the technically “better” voice, Martha is no slouch when it comes to hitting the cheap seats in the back, and she sends this one straight from her heart to yours.
Writing about individual highlights in Martha’s vocal here seems like a fool’s errand, because there are so many of them, almost too many to count; the way she revs up and powers down so brilliantly, one minute battering the outer limits (I’ll come runnin’ on the… DOU-BLE!), the next matter-of-factly outlining this is just the way things are (‘Cause I know he NEEDS me), a hint of purr and a glow of satisfaction about it. She puts this character over so completely that it took me several listens before I even considered the narrator might be unreliable, that this account of the perfect relationship might be defiantly wishful, rather than true – this is romance writ large and Martha sounds like a woman in love, in her way as lovestruck as Diana Ross on the Supremes’ I Hear A Symphony.
In fact, if anything, the relationship is actually more believable here, because while Martha’s narrator doesn’t ascribe her guy with any special attributes, achievements or abilities – unusually, unlike a lot of female R&B narrators, she doesn’t even lionise him for basic “least-you-could-expect” faithfulness, all the promises as to future fidelity and loyalty are on her side, not his – her voice makes that irrelevant. We take it as read the relationship is in a blissfully happy place because not only does Martha sound like she’s in a blissfully happy place –
Now, nobody can tell me
The place where I’m going WRONG, oh no!
– but because Martha sounds like if something was amiss, she’d tell us, and she can stick up for herself. Just take it as read: he’s great, but this song is about me, not him.
Oh, and just as with Darling Baby (only more so), this is extremely catchy, too; for the longest time I thought it was actually the B-side, but it makes perfect sense as a topside too, Martha taking a fine but tightly-contained band track and pumping it full of hooks with her voice alone, just as she always does. By the time we get to the call-and-response bit in the coda, Yeah yeah yeah, YEAH yeah!, it’s like we’ve never even heard any of her other songs; this isn’t by the woman who sang Come And Get These Memories, but rather that one’s by the woman who sang My Baby Loves Me. We love it for what it is, not because we already love Martha Reeves. And yet she couldn’t have done this without the confidence already gained from all those achievements so far; she couldn’t have done this if she wasn’t already Martha Reeves, star performer.
Usually, it should be me writing about what makes Martha a star, but My Baby Loves Me is the sort of performance that makes the case on my behalf better than I ever could – I find it hard to put into words just what it is she does, but she does it here better than ever before.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
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Martha & the Vandellas “Never Leave Your Baby’s Side” |
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Another great essay, and one that very much describes my feelings about Martha and this song. When I first heard it in 1966, two thoughts came immediately to mind: 1) Why did it take so long for a new Martha & Vandellas disc to come out? and 2) Wow! I’ve never heard Martha like this! The answer to the first, I reasoned, was that Motown was being careful not to flood the market with too much product that would simply get lost in the shuffle. One only has to look at the quality of what they DIDN’T release to see what they held back. And I think they wanted their “girl group” focus in 1965 to be on The Supremes.
But the record itself is marvelous, and one of my two favorite Martha performances. I didn’t know (or had forgotten) that this was intended originally for Kim Weston, and can totally see it. She would have done a great job, but Martha nails it. She coaxes the meaning from every line but never oversells it. The second “YEAH yeah yeah yeah yeah!” at the end always slays me. And, not surprisingly, the production and arrangement are impeccable. This would probably merit a “10” from me, but a “9” works just fine!
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The arrangement is sexy, sassy, sweet, sentimental, and swings one into bad health. Ms. Reeves finest moment IMO. She is confident, assured, has obviously been around the block a bit, but not to jaded, to not appreciate the “real thing”. And as an everyman, I can relate to her singing the song about me, since I “may not be a movie star”…
With regards to this song,I remember getting into a Stones vs. Beatles discussion with regards to M&TV vs. The Supremes with an dear, fellow, self styled, “Motown Expert” during the mid seventies which was before the first Motown Revival Period. He was selling, and I purchased the idea that Dr. Reeves could do “My Baby Loves Me” convincingly, while Ms. Ross could not. And the opposite is true as well. Dr. Reeves could not have taken ” I Hear A Symphony” into the Iconic status that it enjoys, (with me at least), though it would have been a solid, though not great record. What is interesting to me is at the time, I had not met a bigger Diana Ross devotee than he.
The real hero of the song is the Quality Control Dept. When listening to the Top 40 at the time, there was nothing in the same neighborhood as this. So for it too be released at all, and not on the Cellarfull Series almost 50 years after the fact is a miracle.
While my Favorite Motown song writing teams are Smokey et al and alone. HDH. I had always put Ashford and Simpson at #3. Bubbling just under would be Hunter and Stevenson. I now feel on a good day they could edge into my top 3, especially with a song such as this. I wonder however, about Sylvia Moy’s contribution to the tune. It seems to me that a female would have had to have been very involved with the writing. and perhaps is worthy of more credit.
A solid 9! sadly if you mentioned this as one of Martha and The Vandellas hits, I am not sure a lot of folks would know the song. Therefore while I feel a little odd rating it so highly, it is most definitely a 9 for me.
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It’s not terribly well-known in the UK either, in my own personal experience; it crops up on the lavish 1971 narrated LP box set The Motown Story, and my dad said it was one of the only songs on there he didn’t recognise.
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I forgot to mention, another triumphant essay!
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The first time I heard this, I woke to it. I had purchased A Package Of 16 Original Hits, Volume 6, put it in a stack on my turntable one sunny summer Sunday morning and proceeded to nod off. (Considering that the recording followed Jr. Walker’s Shake and Finger Pop and The Four Tops’ It’s The Same Old Song, which I slept through, on that LP, I must have been very tired.)
But suddenly, about three or four bars in, the sound slipped into my drowsy state and slapped me like a big wet friendly kiss and the wrapping of someone’s arms around me in a warm, comfortable embrace. In fact, I wasn’t really at all sure that I was awake. It was like being in a place that was at once familiar and unfamiliar. The sound seemed wonderfully hypnotic, both paralleling and building upon some vague dream I may have been inhabiting a moment or two earlier and paralyzing me. In short, the words seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside me.
Until that time, Martha’s recordings had been exciting surfaces of things around me. If I danced around listening to them, I was one of a hundred people feeling the beat while dancing in the street with Martha. I was hearing her observation about an event we both attended. Or I was hearing her narration about having nowhere to run, and I witnessed her dilemma but didn’t feel her pain, confusion or whatever; it was just me watching her go through an experience of her own.
With this song, though, somehow, Martha insinuated herself into my inner reaches, just as Diana Ross and The Supremes or The Four Tops often did in those days. The lyrics, the music. the sense of wondrousness and so on all seemed to be an expression of what I felt or wanted to feel; they emerged from inside of me.
And to this day, this recording always strikes me as a personal thing, a very natural, easy statement. I may identify with the message of other Martha songs, such as I’m Ready For Love, on occasion. Or I may simply enjoy those songs without feeling immediate involvement with them. They’re pleasant and nothing more. However, My Baby Loves Me always feels like it’s wrenched from within me, like, for example, Lionel Richie’s You Are or The Spinners’ I’ll Be Around, and it’s good and I feel alive again.
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I heard this great Motown production for the first time on the Motown 16 Big Hits Volume 6 and also, Kim Weston’s “Helpless”! “My Baby Loves Me” beginning with that rolling piano intro had me hooked right off and yes, this about favorite Martha Reeve’s vocal performance. I had also heard over the years, that call and response with the yeah, yeah, yeahs, was The Four Tops doing the responding! Thank you so much for your essay’s on here. Also, wishing all Happy Holidays
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I remember buying this in the New Year….going into my record store and the owner would have a pile of DJ copies for 33 cents. Didn’t even know there was a new Martha record. Scarfed it up without listening to it. Took it homeand put it on my record player….. and was sooooo disappointed. Awwwww, it’s was slow (where was the driving beat I expected?), where are the Vandellas and who are those guys in the bg? So much was wrong with this record. So wrong for a 14 year old boy. I ignored it. It became the suspicious Gordy record with a white label sitting on the bottom of my pile of recent 45s.
A couple of weeks later I played it to see if I liked it any better. And (as with anything good), it started growing on me. Until it became one of my favorite Martha & Vdels records. Love the final “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahs.” Those “guys in the bg” now remind of the Love Tones (who I know were long gone by now). Love the arrangement on it. Love Martha’s singing. There’s so much that’s good about this record.
Didn’t know it was originally slated for Kim Weston but it makes sense. Strikes me as a song she would do well with. Did she actually record it? DFMC doesn’t list her as doing so. Too bad. Would love to hear it.
Now, in my maturity it’s one of my top Martha records.
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The male background vocalists are none other than the Four Tops. Now that you mention it, they do kind of sound reminiscent of The Love-Tones here. I agree, this song just grows on you. It wasn’t in my Top 5 Martha & the Vandellas Songs when I first heard it, but I’ve grown to appreciate it, to love it.
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Never even knew this was a single until years later. The radio station where I live never played it at all. It was when I purchased Martha and the Vandellas Greatest Hits that I first heard it. Since then it has become one of my favourite songs by Martha Reeves, (she nails it) along with In My Lonely Room and Love Makes Me Do Foolish Things. I find as time has gone by these songs along with a lot of the Motown catalogue sound just as good today as they ever did back then.
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I seem to keep repeating myself when writing my opinions on Motown’s output at this period, because around 90% of their releases during the years 65 thru 67 were damn near perfect examples of popular music. Once again I find myself handing out another 9+ score for this magnificent performance. There’s nothing I can criticize about this recording. Every element in the finished product is near perfect. The melody is beautifully structured, the lyrics are meaningful and mature, presumably we have Sylvia Moy to thank for that. The arrangement is stunningly powerful and exciting. Martha’s lead vocal was never better (and that’s saying something) and the backing voices are an absolute knockout! Stevenson and Hunter were simply wonderful together as writers/producers. Listen to this, and then listen to any pop recording of recent times, everything produced nowadays pales into insignificance when compared with masterpieces like this.
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This is why a copy of the Complete Motown singles circa 1966 from Hippo-Select has an asking price of up to $500 US on US Ebay. By 1966 there was an unending amount of masterpieces.
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This song always sounded awkward to me as a youth; I was just turning 6 years old at its release but it was connecting with the age group 10 years or so older than me. Slow records didn’t always resonate with me then, (For instance “My Girl” met with my indifference while “Ooh, Baby Baby seemed awesome). It seems that Martha is really coming into her own at interpreting songs around this period though,and in hindsight with maturity this track fits right in with the ascendance of Motown. It is an “8” for me but if someone gives it a “9”, so be it.
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The Andantes are the female background singers on this record.
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Thanks for this review, Nixon. Martha Reeves is my favorite Motown vocalist, period. In most cases, she was able to effortlessly glide from one producer to another, her style always remaining constant. My favorites are ” I’m Ready For Love,” (10) “Honey Chile,” (9) “Third Finger, Left Hand” (10) . I also love this one. My one complaint with The Vandellas was with the back-up vocals sounding tinny and flat. With The Andantes backing this one, the song sounds lush and compliments Martha perfectly. She also was down to earth, jamming with the Funk Brothers in “Standing In the Shadows Of Motown,” or being politically realistic in an interview on Motown 40, ” Diana Ross is talented and beautiful. If Berry Gordy had taken my arm and said Baby, I’m gonna make you a star, I would have gone with him.” Anyway, I loved all her songs — a great talent.
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It was a new year alright, and something of a new Motown with this one, the most sexually frank statement Berry would let leave the house so far. Tasteful of course, but never to this moment had Motown lyrics so knowingly acknowledged the physical component of being head over heels in love. This guy is doing everything for her, which Martha states with unalloyed gratitude. We don’t begrudge her, but envy and anticipate such a blissed-out state for ourselves. I love this record.
Maybe my favorite part is where Martha pledges never to give the man ‘no trouble,’ and giddy-up as soon as he calls her name; if that’s not a symptom of finding the most perfectly compatible soulmate in life, the years have taught me nothing. I’ve always felt, with “My Baby Loves Me,” Martha cracked a door open for Aretha to charge through a year later with even bolder statements and less patience about it.
Satisfactorily climbing to number 22 Pop, and number 3 R&B, the record also provided the moment to package up Vandellas Greatest Hits and get it in stores that May. Gathering eleven other goodies all the way back to “Memories,” few Motown albums were more eagerly awaited and instantly essential.
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Agreed, though your “9s'” for such masterpieces are gonna burn me for a little while…
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Wow! I love this song. I first heard it when I purchased the Greatest Hits album in 1968. Of course, this was the first song I heard. At that point I was more into uptempo songs but this song has grown on me over the years. As great as she is, I don’t think Kim Weston would have done this song as well as Martha Reeves.
Has anyone heard Barry Manilow’s horrendous remake of this? Yes, it is bad.
Jazz/soul songbird, Jean Carne, did a nice version on her only Motown album in the early 80s. Of course, Martha’s version is the best, but Jean gives the song a good shot – upping the tempo a bit.
A most blessed & happy new year to my Motown friends!
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If we were rating your reviews, Steve – a task as arduous as the one you set yourself – this would be a certain 10. Your response to the question of why Martha is your favourite is so eloquent, precise and moving that we can’t help responding to it – art in the praise of art. It particularly delighted me because it was Martha who broke down the walls for me, letting in that fresh soulful breeze that just keeps on blowing. Thank you Steve and thank you Martha!
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If this was made for Kim Weston i can hear her doing it, of course. But that will be the second time Kim lost out to Martha on “Dancing In The Street”. Kim was scheduled to cut the demo with Mickey as producer budt Marvin Gaye strongly recommended it. For the full story read “Are You Ready For a Brand New Beat” a wonderful book about how that song became the “anthem” of the 1960’s civil rights movement in America.
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Lots more entries coming soon, chaps!
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Can’t wait!!
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I’m still waiting!
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No, no, that’s not until 1971… 🙂
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I don’t get it…
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Never mind, I figured it out.
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I give you all the best feedlines!!!
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It’s very selfless of you! 🙂
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This is my favorite performance by Martha Reeves. I can hear Kim Weston, who I think was Motown’s best pure female singer, doing this song also. There are similarities between Kim and Martha’s voices. I have a good catalogue of Motown songs sung by other groups within the company. Where Kim sings Martha and vice versa, you can hear how interchangeable a song could be between them. I would love to hear Kim’s version. The backstory on the song getting to Martha is priceless. Martha & Vandellas body of work was very good during their run when stacked against the Supremes and the Marvelettes. They held their own. I always wondered who did the angelic background vocals. I wasn’t surprised that it was the Andantes, but now I can hear the Four Tops too. It warrants a 9.
Harry Weinger has been finding and issuing compilations of unreleased songs, alternate takes and extended vocals of Motown stuff for a long time. I would love to hear an extended vocal or an alternate take of My Baby Loves Me. There’s gotta be one. I discovered this website about two weeks ago and I love it, since I’m a Motown era baby!
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As a gay man, I connect particularly to the lines “Now nobody can tell me the place where I’m going wrong, oh no / Nobody could ever erase (embrace?) a love SOOO STRONG!”
I love Martha’s voice because she often sounds so vulnerable, so emotionally honest (yet so assertive/confident in saying what she feels). Was listening to “Can’t get along without you” from the Sugar n Spice album and almost cried because her vocal sounded so heartfelt!
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I agree with the award of a 9 rating. This is one of their best recordings. Somehow I overlooked not having responded to this thread over the years.
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Motown should have kept this style when recording Martha Reeves she would’ve had more hits. “My Baby Loves Me,” “Love Makes Me Do Foolish Things,” was the sound that was making noise why Motown changed her style and sound was a mistake.
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My Fav Martha and the Vandellas ( well Martha and the Andantes/Four Tops) A side
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I agree with your pisitive review of “My Baby Loves Me,” but not your score. This is Martha Reeves at her very best. The song is terrific, it is perfectly suited to Ms. Reeves’ voice & she knocks it out of the park. How is that not a 10?
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I think “My Baby Loves Me” is the very best work Martha Reeves has done. Kim Weston or no Kim Weston, from the first word to the last, this song was a perfect fit for Martha’s voice & she turned it into her masterpiece. While I understand that 9/10 is a great score, your deduction of one point may well represent your greatest injustice on this site. I have a list of perfect Motown recordings & this recording is high on that list.
Martha Reeves was terrific on many, many recordings. But, I disagree with your assessment that she was Motown’s best female vocalist. The main reason I disagree is that Martha did not develop the different aspects of her voice & use them to deliver the different messages or emotions of her songs. She did not expand her range, try new styling or vary her repertory. She was terrific at what she did, but she really did one thing. Mary Wells did use the different aspects of her voice to make her interpretations more interesting. From the limited sound of the Supremes’ early hits, Diana Ross added layer after layer to her interpretations & her voice & her recordings got better & better. After becoming a solo artist, she continued that work, developing a sensational lower register that seemed impossible in 1964. She also pays attention to the lyrics & message & takes any song she is given — even great ones — and elevates them with hee readings.
She has never stopped working on improving & expanding her range and her abilities. Compare “Where Did Our Love Go” to “Touch Me In The Morning” then to “It’s My Turn” then to “I Still Believe.” Martha Reeves reached outside the niche into which she had settled with “My Baby Loves Me” & the result was magnificent. I wish she had done more in this style & I wish she had tried other different expansions of her repertory. The raw talent was there.
Sadly, the other thing that Martha (& lots of other singers, both male & female) did not do was take proper care of her voice. A decade or two after she recorded them, even her readings of the familiar hits had become difficult for her & sounded strained. So, there were not more styles or hits & that is a shame, because the one thing she did not lack was talent.
“My Baby Loves Me” shows us Martha at her peak & provides a glimpse of what might have been. For both reasons, it deserves a 10!
I love the website & could spend months reading every word (& we mostly agree).
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