Martha Reeves is 80 - Ten of her best solo recordings

Yesterday was Martha Reeves' 80th birthday which I wanted to commemorate with some of her solo releases but didn't have time to post yesterday. Her Motown hits as Martha (Reeves) & The Vandellas are well known. Her solo recordings after they disbanded in 1972 after Motown's relocation to L.A. are less well known and only three of them entered, not very highly, the US R&B charts.

Her first 'solo' recordings were on four tracks on the soundtrack to "Willie Dynamite" in 1974 credited to J. J. Johnson. She was backed by The Sweet Things (of "I'm In A World Of Trouble" fame, one of who's members was Francine Barker (Hurd) aka Peaches of Peaches & Herb). "Keep On Movin' On" is the best of the four.

Her first full solo album was a self-titled album released on MCA in 1974 which spawned two R&B charting singles: Gamble & Huff's "Power Of Love" and a cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Night". The album is a bit of a disappointment with only one track which I personally rate which is another cover, Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers To Cross".

The sophomore album, "The Rest Of My Life", from 1976 was much better (and I would consider as easily her best solo album), but again contained several covers. Discounting the covers, all tracks were written by Gwen Guthrie and Patrick Grant or General Johnson except the funky "Love Blind" (her third and last R&B charting solo single) which she wrote herself,  which starts off similar to Diana Ross' "Love Hangover". The standout tracks are two modern soul dancers "Second Chance" and "Thank You" and the ballads "(I Want To Be With You) The Rest Of My Life"., "This Time I'll Be Sweeter" along with her cover of the Gamble & Huff song originally recorded by The O'Jays in 1973 "Now That We Found Love".

Her third album arrived in 1978 ("We Meet Again") which was a collection of disco and MOR ballads with not much of interest to soul listeners. Her 1980 set "Gotta Keep Moving" was marginally better with an obligatory disco version of "Dancing In The Streets" retitled "Skating In The Streets" as lead track to 'sell it'. The album was somewhat saved by two Lamont Dozier penned tracks "I Really Like Your Rap"  and "Gotta Keep Moving", the former being the better of the two. "Then You Came" is not a bad 70s style disco/soul dancer.

She released two further albums in the 80s which were generally full of cover versions and two more in the 90s of the same ilk. Here first album of semi-original material since 1980 surfaced in 2001 "Home To You" but sounds very dated even for 2000. 

She hasn't released much since then but a 'faithful' cover of Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love" came out in 2015 along with an horrendous club oriented remix of it, and of course we had that odd release earlier this year from The Vandellas "I'm Movin' On" which shows her on the cover but doesn't sound like her on vocals.