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Saturday 18 December 2021

R.I.P. - Wanda Young (The Marvelettes) (9 Aug 1943 - 16 Dec 2021)


The longest serving member of The Marvelettes, Wanda LaFaye Rogers aka Wanda Young, died on Thursday (16 Dec 2021) aged 78. She was one of the original quintet who signed to Motown in 1961 and was the only remaining original member when the group disbanded in 1969. In fact she was the only Marvelette to sing on their final album "The Return Of The Marvelettes" in 1970 which was really a Wanda Young solo album.
It's almost inconceivable to learn that The Marvelettes had only one chart entry in the UK. "When You're Young And In Love" peaked at #16 in it's sixth week of ten on the chart in July 1967. It certainly surprised me when I checked!

Many of their records were favourites on the Northern Soul scene, songs like "Too Many Fish In The Sea", "I'll Keep Holding On" (first time with Young on lead), "Danger! Heartbreak Dead Ahead", "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game", "My Baby Must Be a Magician", "Destination: Anywhere" and "Reaching For Something I Can't Have"

They were the first all female group to have a #1 hit in the US and were the first Motown act to score a #1 hit in 1961 with "Please Mr. Postman" later covered of course by The Beatles.

I guess they were vey much in the shadow of The Supremes once they emerged?  I have only selected tracks from 1965 onwards as Wanda Young didn't take over lead vocal duties until then. Only one album was released between 1963 and 1967 and it was a UK only album "The Marvellous Marvelettes" and is pretty rare, a near mint one sold for nearly £400 in 2018!

Ian Levine got his hands on them in the 90s and they recorded two albums for his Motorcity enterprise. The first one "Now!" in 1990 being re-workings of many of their hits and the next in 1996 was (mis)titled  "The Best Of" as it consisted of mainly new  Levine compositions (six of them written with Junior Giscombe).

Ian posted up a video on Wanda singing Don't Mess With Bill" in 1989 and relayied quite a tragic story of her life .. read the video's comments.



1 comment:

USMAN47 said...

Very bad period at the moment. Another one more that took part in my youth of the 60's. It must also be said that all this does not make us younger.

Yves