Podcast appearances and mentions of gloria williams

Gloria Williams has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after abandoning her children in an apartment with her dead son's body.  Nicole Partin reporting. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Author, mentor, and founder of Grandparents N Charge Empowering Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, Gloria Williams took on the role of guardian for her granddaughter at just 2 years old when her daughter relinquished her parental responsibilities. Determined to provide a stable and loving home for her granddaughter, Gloria navigated the legal process of obtaining guardianship on her own, without the help of an attorney. Despite the challenges, she persevered and successfully gained legal guardianship, ensuring the well-being of her granddaughter. Her selfless actions demonstrate her unwavering commitment to her family and her determination to do whatever it takes to protect and care for her loved ones. Now, Gloria uses all of her life's PhD to empower other grandparents who are raising their grandchildren through her business. You can learn more about Gloria at GrandparentsNCharge.com.

Join us Live this Sunday night at 9pm EDT/6pm PDT for a conversation with Gloria Williams, The Foot Nanny.  Gloria, a Pedicure Therapist,  is Founder  of Foot Nanny and Owner of Footnanny Foot Spa in Beverly Hills.  Gloria joins us to talk about Footcare wellness, The Foot Nanny brand, and her career in Hollywood as a Pedicure Therapist.  You don't want to miss Oprah's manicurist talk all thinks footcare. Tell a friend and join us for Beauty Talk, The hottest beauty conversation online.  

BTGO welcomes author, musician, educator, and presence advocate, Gloria Williams (Instagram: @iamgloriawilliams), who discusses how to help kids build confidence through songwriting, the significance of building safe spaces and community, and tips on how to help your child conquer fear.Need help with your own situation? Go to our website BeenThereGotOut.com and sign up for a free Discovery call (click the top red button on the homepage), and/or check out our weekly Legal Abuse Support Group (bottom blue button).If you are struggling in a high-conflict relationship, divorce, custody battle, or co-parenting hell which requires PERSONALIZED attention, let us HOLD YOUR HAND along the way, while providing EXPERT, STRATEGIC guidance based on one's years of success (representing myself in court!), coupled with the other's High Conflict Divorce Coach certification.Recorded: January 24th,2023

On July 10th, 1998, 15-year-old Shanara Mobley gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in Jacksonville, Florida. Less than 12 hours later, her sweet girl had been abducted from the hospital and disappeared without a trace. Several hours later, 32-year-old Gloria Williams knocked on her mother's door in Ruffin, South Carolina. When her mother opened the door, she found Gloria standing there with a newborn baby in her arms. Gloria said that she'd given birth in a Charleston hospital earlier that day. For the next 18 years, Gloria raised her daughter in South Carolina, in a loving and nurturing home, until one day, investigators received a tip that the young lady that Gloria Williams was raising, wasn't actually her child at all. TRIGGER WARNING: miscarriage, domestic violence, kidnapping Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/ogto download and binge all the archived episodes today! © 2023 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon YouTube Editing by Jennifer Da Silva

Adam has worked as a creative director in the world of magazines and home design and landed 20 years ago at Oprah's O Magazine. He is also a correspondent for the daily magazine show, Extra. You can find him commenting on the fashion at big event awards shows and more . This year's filter for Favorite Things was small businesses and made in the USA: Family run, BIPOC, women, and lgbtq. Hear some inside tales of curating the items and the stories behind the creators. This years amazing picks are available now and can be seen online @oprahdaily and in the quarterly Oprah Magazine out now. www.oprahdaily.com Some of the gifts Heather and Adam talk about include: Words of Encouragement soap set. With amazing messaging (Kindness, Hope, etc). Bodynanny Eucalyptus Sugar Scrub Set - by Gloria Williams, aka the Foot Nanny. The Eve Art Puzzle Kit. as stress reliever. 800 pieces. Features the art of emerging women artists. And comes in a reusable glass jar. Comes with glue, etc. to mount as art piece. PJ's for the family- Organic cotton holiday family jammies. by Jessica Alba… from Honest Baby organic products. Sustainably made from organic cotton. There's even a bandana for the family dog! And many more!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TW/CW: Child abuse, child deathA fifteen year old boys calls the police and has a horrific story to tell. For nearly a year, their mother Gloria Williams and her boyfriend Brian Colter, left her children aged 15, 10, and 7 alone in an apartment without electricity with the decomposing body of their 8 year old, autistic brother Kendrick. The apartment was full of trash and insects. The boys were beaten when they were given food every two weeks and had no beds to sleep on. Please reach out and talk to someone if you see abuse happening. Please reach out if you're being abused.Cruel Tea is a part of the PodMoth Network!Please consider donating to a trans person facing homelessness: https://gofund.me/52c30b39Sources: Kendrick Lee disability memorial.  https://disability-memorial.org/kendrick-leeinformation on daryl towner https://nypost.com/2021/11/04/ex-husband-of-houston-horror-house-mother-cared-for-her-children/10 to life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Adkeb7iqoStephanie Harlow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZXDCDTfc0&t=2567sthe norman nicks showhttps://youtu.be/f9EngrU1BaEthe daily beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/kendrick-lee-boy-killed-in-houston-house-of-horrors-was-autistic-family-sayshow to help? https://www.khou.com/article/features/how-you-can-help-houston-area-children-in-the-cps-system/285-f7bfcbeb-70c4-438a-9a6a-9d45badce836oak forest foster closet https://www.oakforestfostercloset.org/houston chronicle https://www.pressreader.com/usa/houston-chronicle/20211106/281612423632155Family member speaking outhttps://youtu.be/oJO0rMNMJcYSupport the show

As broadcast September 30, 2022 with three of the best around.  Tonight we are very proud to welcome Say She She to the show as our guest artist selectors.  The seven piece Chic-centric band are fronted by three amazing vocalists in Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik, and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham, and it was brilliant to have all three of these sirens on the show to chat their favorite tunes and what's coming up on their debut album Prism.  An interview not to be missed for those of you that love music and fighting the good fight, Prism drops everywhere next Friday October 7 via Colemine's Karma Chief Imprint.  Pre-order here#feelthegravityTracklist (st:rt)Part I (00:00)Patrice Rushen - Remind MeGhost Funk Orchestra - Why?79.5 - Sisters UnarmedCortex - La RueSay She She - NORMASay She She - Pink Roses Part II (33:33)Yusef Lateef - Love Theme from SpartacusHailu Mergia & The Walias - EndegenaBettye Swan - Make Me YoursDonnie & Joe Emerson - Thoughts In My MindThe Olympians - Pluto's LamentBenny Trokan - Get It in the EndThe Diasonics - Andromeda Part III (62:08)Say She She – PrismGloria Williams – Sister FunkJalen Ngonda – Just like you used toRotary Connection – Sunshine of Your LoveDorothy Ashby – Cause I Need ItRamsey Lewis – Les FleurYusef Lateef – The Plum Blossom Part IV (1:45:31)Say She She – Forget Me NotAltin Gun – Goca DunyaEbo Taylor – Will You PromiseJoe Meek – I Hear A New WorldEsmeray – Oylum OylumKim Jung Mi 김정미 – Ganadaramabasa 가나다라마바사

BBFI Missionaries Oliver and Gloria Williams along with David and Tonya Liles discuss Peru's past, present, and future harvest with Brian Garrison. Go to Project938.world for more information.

This month, we learn about the Inaugural Gloucester Day, which will be celebrated Sept. 3. As part of the newly founded Gloucester Collaboration, this is a day to celebrate our own “Land of the Life Worth Living,” and the many aspects of our community that make it special to YOU!We chat with Gloria Williams, Gloucester's Community Engagement & Public Information Manager and Susan Ammons, Gloucester's Tourism Coordinator about this exciting event.To learn more and to find out details on how you can participate in this inaugural event, visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/1043607733250654. 

Evie tells the tale of two girls, Alexis and Kamiyah, while Christina covers the abduction of Bryan Dossantos-Gomes. And stay tuned for our first voicemail at the end - hi Denise!Story Begins: 14:30Content Warnings: Domestic violence, child abuseReach out to us at LifeWithoutPodcast@gmail.com or with a text or voicemail to (970) 315-2724.Music: “Cloud City” by Neon BeachSources:Court Junkie “The Abduction of Kamiyah Mobley” from Sep 3, 20185 things to know about the true story behind Lifetime's 'Stolen by My Mother: The Kamiyah Mobley Story' - Article by First Coast News - Erica SantiagoStats from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children First Coast News Article by Heather Crawford and Anne Schindler - “‘I need my mother home' Kamiyah Mobley tells judge she supports early release for her mother, kidnapper” 

2021 yılının ekim ayı. ABD Houston'daki bir apartman dairesinden polise bir telefon geliyor. Sonrasında yaşananlar ve öncesinde olanlar akıllara durgunluk verici nitelikte. 35 yaşındaki Gloria Williams ve 32 yaşındaki sevgilisi Brian Coulter'ın hayatlarına uzanıyoruz.

2021 yılının ekim ayı. ABD Houston'daki bir apartman dairesinden polise bir telefon geliyor. Sonrasında yaşananlar ve öncesinde olanlar akıllara durgunluk verici nitelikte. 35 yaşındaki Gloria Williams ve 32 yaşındaki sevgilisi Brian Coulter'ın hayatlarına uzanıyoruz.

Today I bring you an update on Gloria Williams and Brian Coulter - the monsters who killed one child and left 3 others to fend for themselves. In this quick, mini episode, I answer what's the latest going on with the case and where are the kids. Let's talk about it on Love and MurderWant to hear us talk about a specific true crime story? Email us at noconductradio@gmail.comJoin us, hosts Ky & Char, every Thursday for new episodes.YouTube: https://bit.ly/LoveMurderYouTubeBonus episodes: www.patreon.com/loveandmurderFan page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/landmfanpageTrue Crime Merch: https://loveandmurder.threadless.com/Follow us:www.facebook.com/relationshipcrimeinstagram.com/loveandmurderpodcastGo to our website www.murderandlove.comIntro music by:Shalash by Alexander NakaradaLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/4899-shalashLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Become a Patron at: http://patreon.com/isthemicstillon  If you are a new listener to ITMSO, we would love to hear from you. Please visit our Reddit and let us know your thoughts on this week's topics or the show! You can subscribe to the show here: http://bit.ly/isthemicstillon  In this episode, we discuss: Topic 1, Astroworld at 13:25 Topic 2, Stigma Breakers at 52:50 Topic 3, DaBaby's Approval at 67:00 Topic 4, Gloria Williams at 73:45 Topic 5, This Is America at 90:30 Check Out More Dead End Podcast Network Programming Hold It Down: https://spoti.fi/391q9ay  Dead End Gaming: http://bit.ly/deadendgaming  The Benjamin Dixon Podcast: http://bit.ly/benjamindixon  Frames Per Second: http://bit.ly/fpspodcast  NoDissRespect: http://bit.ly/nodissrespect  lowmid: http://bit.ly/lowmiddehh  Chris Platte Strictly Hip-Hop and Strictly Hoop Talk: http://bit.ly/chrisplatte  Any Given Sunday: http://bit.ly/anygivensundaypod  The 12Kyle Podcast: http://bit.ly/12KylePodcast  Dead End Sports: http://bit.ly/deadendsports   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gloria Williams is a Mother of 6 from Houston, TX. On October 24, 2021 a dark secret she was hiding came to light, click to listen NOW! thetoxicmompodcast@gmail.com @toxicmompodcast (IG/Twitter) --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/toxic-mom/support

Aunque el programa de asistencia para el pago de rentas de Texas, ha cerrado sus inscripciones. Aun el programa tiene 680 millones de dólares para continuar con la ayuda, a quienes se acerquen a solicitarla.Gloria Williams la madre de los 3 niños en abandono en un departamento del condado Harris, enfrenta graves acusaciones y el incremento en los últimos días de su fianza.Comenzó el Astro World y miles de fanáticos lograron burlar la seguridad del evento para ver a Travis Scott.

Couple Out Of Houston Tx Kill 8 Year old boy and leave the body locked in the room with the rest of the lkids make it make sense lets talk!!! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rexitrucrime/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rexitrucrime/support

Gloria Williams and Brian Coulter have been charged with multiple counts of abusing her children. Williams is charged with injury to a child by omission and tampering with evidence. Her bond is set at $900,000: $350,000 for injury to a child, $300,000 for tampering with evidence and $250,000 for injury by omission. Her boyfriend, 31-year-old Brian Coulter, is charged with 8-year-old Kendrick Lee's murder. His bond is set at $1 million. 3 of Gloria's children have been living alone in an apartment with the decaying body of Kendrick for the last year. Gloria's oldest daughter Has been listed as a missing person by the center for missing and exploited children. Her name Jasmin Wittaker. She is she is 17. Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code truecrimeparanormal at Manscaped.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at manscaped.com and use code truecrimeparanormal. Experience premium grooming with MANSCAPED. #sponsored Source Material: https://abc13.com/gloria-williams-brian-coulter-deadly-child-abandonment-kendrick-lee-houston/11187669/?fbclid=IwAR2RvS-XSzg7RgmCop0mwdw5sN4C4RdFBOS_QaY7MlTZLKegGFV4rfHbzvU https://www.whattolaugh.com/brian-coulter-surviving-children-t-mich/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-children-who-lived-with-their-8-year&fbclid=IwAR2rOz88TfRbADEwG6353nP1opPN3FNN4H6Bqqo5Otx2MsoqRvG7l3zdr1w https://abc7news.com/brian-coulter-gloria-williams-houston-child-abuse-children-abandoned-in-apartment/11177879/?ex_cid=TA_KGO_FB&utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A%20Trending%20Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1dIbPQCmWW0DYA4rPuIDLaRzzniPBWj4HF92mg_2uwwC8zbCdrA1qG2Ss SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd85RJRW6kn51aM2un6ButA/featured *Social Media Links* Facebook: www.facebook.com/truecrimeparanormalTPS Facebook Discussion Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/215774426330767 Website: https://www.truecrimeparanormalpodcast.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@truecrimeparanormal? Our Latest Video: https://youtu.be/wxTXNtzmG94 Check Out Some of Our Previous Uploads! Cassidy Rainwater: More Questions Than Answers https://youtu.be/3EtP15r2eug Jana Williams was Pregnant https://youtu.be/Hb3TDx4PxJc Who Kidnapped Anthonette? https://youtu.be/X-AVpQ837xk True Crime Paranormal on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/5gIPqBHJLftbXdRgs1Bqm1 True Crime Paranormal on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-paranormal/id1525438711?ls=1

Gloria Williams madre de los cuatro menores que vivían abandonados en un apartamento en Houston enfrentará cargos por homicidio de uno de los niños.Crímenes violentos siguen al alza en Houston, Dos jóvenes hispanos perdieron la vida en diferentes incidentes que involucraron armas de fuego.Los Astros de Houston ya están en casa y están preparándose para el 6to juego de la serie. 

Three Scared Children A Skeleton of a Young SoulLiving alone in the House of HorrorsAbandoned HungryConfusedWhere are the Parents?This remains of our most baffling Cases. It's The Case of Gloria Williams and Brian Coulter right now on Love and MurderWant to hear us talk about a specific true crime story? Email us at noconductradio@gmail.comJoin us, hosts Ky & Char, every Thursday for new episodes.YouTube: https://bit.ly/LoveMurderYouTubeBonus episodes: www.patreon.com/loveandmurderFan page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/landmfanpageTrue Crime Merch: https://loveandmurder.threadless.com/Follow us:www.facebook.com/relationshipcrimeinstagram.com/loveandmurderpodcastGo to our website www.murderandlove.comIntro music by:Shalash by Alexander NakaradaLink: https://filmmusic.io/song/4899-shalashLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Gloria Williams allowed her boyfriend Brian Coulter to kill her 8 year old son in Houston, Texas. *Topic Requests or Direct Question:* If you have a topic you want me to discuss or direct question for me, send *$10* to my Cash App at $LightSkinHero --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/biracial-babbler/support

Brian Coulter is charged with the death of his girlfriend's, Gloria Williams, 8 year old son Kendrick Lee out in Houston, Texas. *Topic Requests or Direct Question:* If you have a topic you want me to discuss or direct question for me, send *$10* to my Cash App at $LightSkinHero --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/biracial-babbler/support

In this Expect a Miracle podcast, you will be encouraged that the unique specifics of your life experience, upbringing and education can be used to reach your community in a special way. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” God created you to make a difference in the world around you! Join Richard and Dr. Gloria Williams for this powerful podcast.   -To learn more about Oral Roberts Ministries, go to www.oralroberts.com         -For prayer, go to www.oralroberts.com/prayer or call 1-918-495-7777 -To learn more about Dr. Gloria Williams or Jesus People Ministries Church Int'l, go to www.jesuspeoplemiami.church/

2:34 - History with Grandmother4:08 - Influence from Mother/Grandmother5:19 - Becoming a professional7:19 - Massages9:37 - The Gold is in the Struggle10:00 - Getting into Oprah show11:56 - First time with Oprah14:47 - Oprah's Feedback18:07 - Oprah's tweet about Gloria19:13 - First time on Camera21:17 - Handmade products24:30 - Hardest part  / Early Lessons24:58 No Compromise on Quality and Experience28:27 - Product Marketing/Branding29:44 - Brand in 10 years30:37 - Advice to Struggling Entrepreneurs31:35 - The word ' Authentic'32:51 - The greatest piece of Advice33:36 - Gloria's North Star 

1 Hold Him Joe Rico Rodriguez 03:47 Rico / Order of Distinction (JA-13 Cooperative Presents) 2 People Get Ready Chambers Brothers 03:53 The Time Has Come 3 Shout It Out Roy Tyler & New Directions 04:41 Three Way Calling 4 A Shell Of A Woman Doris Allen 03:00 A Shell Of A Woman 5 Doin' Our Thing Dillard Crume And The Soul Rockers 02:41 6 The 81 Candy & The Kisses 02:34 Do The 81 and Other Soul Classics 7 baby boy Fred Hughes 02:50 Baby Boy 8 Don't Talk About Jody Jean Knight 02:47 Mr.Big Stuff 9 Baby Don't Do It To Me Jerry Washington 02:42 Right Here Is Where You Belong 10 Girl on the Phone Aaron Frazer 03:28 Introducing... 11 Fever Dreams Mia Borders 04:57 Fever Dreams 12 Sometimes A Song Bill Withers 04:41 Making Music 13 01 Better Remember (They're Controlling You) Gizelle Smith 05:39 14 you spanky wilson 02:13 doin' it 15 If Not Now (Then When) feat. Durand Jones The Bamboos 04:12 16 01 Bloodstains and Teardrops Monk Boudreaux 04:18 17 Beware The Drunken Master Kaya Project 05:12 18 Justice (Get Up, Stand Up) - Edited Nakia 03:19 19 Balazurka Balaphonics 05:09 Spicy Boom Boom 20 One Inna Million (feat. LAVA LA RUE) Tony Allen LAVA LA RUE 03:21 There Is No End 21 Free Your Mind Made Kuti 05:21 Legacy + 22 Can't Nobody Get Down Hot 8 Brass Band 06:40 Can't Nobody Get Down EP 23 Give Me A Chance, Pt. 1 Lee Fields 03:11 Daptone 7 Inch Singles Collection, Vol. 1 24 Right On Barbara & Gwen 02:47 Absolute Funk Vol 4 25 Bootzilla Bootsy's Rubber Band 05:42 Bootsy? Player Of The Year 26 Improve Darrow Fletcher 02:52 What It Is!: Funky Soul and Rare Grooves (Disc 4) 27 Stuff Dyke and The Blazers 03:28 We Got More Soul - The Ultimate Broadway Funk (1966-1970) 28 Sister funk Gloria Williams 03:52 Sister funk 29 I Kicked the Habit (of Loving You) Simpson (Sarah) 02:43 Pure, Tighten Up Tighter 30 Cigarettes & Coffee Etta James 06:21 The Dreamer

Intro: Hello, and welcome to episode 128 of the Childless not by Choice Podcast. My name is Civilla Morgan. My mission is to recognize and speak to childless not by choice women and men around the world, reminding you that you can live a joyful, relevant, fulfilled, childless not by choice, life.   I also welcome you if you are not childless not by choice. Maybe you did not want children, maybe you have children. Thank you for tuning in.     Correction: I would like to issue a correction:    In episode 125--Are We Being Good Ancestors, the January 2021 episode; I made the comment that ‘only in America’, in reference to Kamala Harris becoming the first woman in such a high leadership role. I should have specified that for the first time in American history, Kamala Harris is the first woman to reach that level of leadership, Vice President of The United States of America, as there are obviously quite a few women running countries all over the world.  A listener brought that to my attention and even sent me a really cool video highlighting these wonderful female world leaders.  My apologies for the misspeak, and be sure to check out the really cool video. I watched it twice!  I’ve also put a PEW Research article link here in the show notes, that discusses amongst other things, childless women, and women in leadership roles. It’s a great article.   Body of episode content: WARNING: This episode may cause all types of triggers. I mean just look at the title. So please listen in a safe place.  In fact, I will give you some time to hit the pause button or to get to a safe place, by telling you about my new habit.  So, I was Googling what we, the general human beings, celebrate in the month of April, and well, it’s a lot. Some things are like, really? Others are quite serious:  Here are some examples: Fresh Florida Tomato Month National Fresh Celery Month National Soft Pretzel Month National Straw Hat Month  Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month National Autism Awareness Month Stress Awareness Month Black Women's History Month  Celebrate Diversity Month National Arab American Heritage Month Sexual Assault Awareness Month  Sexually Transmitted Infections Awareness Month There are tons more, but I wanted to give you a list from the mundane to the quite serious. What stood out for me though, was National Take a Chance Day. I want to ask you to take a chance. It’s April, the beginning of the second quarter of 2021. Things are still iffy with the pandemic, but our governments are trying. And remember, none of us have been down this road before. We are all trying to figure things out. But even so, I believe there is something you can take a chance on. Why not start that book, that newsletter, a new exercise regimen, a food you have never had before. Talking to that person you are crushing on, or even talking to someone, a co-worker, someone you attend religious services with, who does not share your skin color or race.  There are so many things we can take a chance on, that really do not include too much risk. What’s the worst that could happen? We may find that we don’t like that food we’ve always wanted to try, although it may have been the way it was prepared. We may find that the person we were crushing on felt the same about us, or that maybe they are not a good fit after talking to them. We may find that starting that book or newsletter was easier than we thought. Or that co-worker or fellow churchgoer is really nice, or maybe not. But how would we know if we don’t take a chance? So, National Take a Chance Day is April 23rd. And maybe you’re listening after the 23rd, but I say take that chance. If you decide to, let me know! Now, onto our story.  Remember, this may be a tough one.       You may ask, ‘why does she talk about mental health so much?’ But the fact is, I hear quite a bit that regardless of what subject matter you are teaching, helping, coaching on; you do not have to be perfect to teach or lead others. You just have to be slightly ahead of them on the journey. Well, I’ll let you in on a secret: most days I feel slightly ahead like I am really helping you. But some days, my heart feels a little sad over the things that did not happen for me. I think it’s natural. And what’s even more natural is to recognize those days and then keep moving.  I don’t think we should ignore our hearts when they are feeling sad or retrospective.  The reason I talk about mental health so much is because as childless not by choice women, we can often find ourselves inside our heads.  And as we all know, inside our heads is not always the best place to be. It's the reason journaling is suggested whenever we have been through a traumatic experience or when we just need to get something off of our chest. I believe we should journal even if there is not much going on in our lives. Journaling is healthy for our minds and for our souls.  Keeping things, anythings, bottled up inside is never a good idea. It will manifest either in a complete meltdown, usually at the wrong time, or a literal change in our personalities, and how we manage life.  If you need help, ask a trusted person in your life to assist you in getting that help. Journal. Continue to tune into this podcast. Join our Facebook groups. Interact with the childless not by choice in the groups. Realize that you are not the only one. You are not on an island by yourself. It may sound trite. I know every situation is different. But I know community helps take us out of our own heads.  So, back in 2004, Lisa Montgomery concocted a plan that would end in the murder of the just 23-year-old Bobbi Jo Stinnet. Link in the show notes to the article on the story.  It sounds like yet another terrible murder until you realize that Lisa Montgomery drove several hours to Bobbi Jo Stinnett’s house under the guise of purchasing puppies, to carry out her plan. What she actually did when she got there was horrendous. What she did put her on death row.  On January 13, 2021, she was put to death for what she did.  The first woman in 60 years to be put to death in her state. I was initially not going to cover this story because Lisa had children, four of them. But I decided to go ahead. Because here’s the thing. Mental health is mental health. Lisa committed this horrendous murder in an attempt to manipulate a certain situation that was going on in her life. Her attorneys’ defense was that she had gone through a terrible childhood which included terrible abuse by her stepfather.  Lisa needed help. The level of abuse she endured from the very young age of about eight years according to some accounts, led her to do what she did.   According to one article, link in the show notes, Her second husband Kevin Montgomery noted that "The only thing I can think of is she wanted a baby so bad,"   It’s true, not everyone asks for help. In fact, most people believe they are just fine even though the entire world can see they clearly need help. And the fact is, in this world, you will seldom receive help if you do not ask for it.  Unfortunately, even when you ask you may not get the assistance you need. Sometimes it is because you are asking the wrong people. But I strongly suggest that you ask, and you keep asking.  When we do not have an advocate, and many of us do not; we will have to advocate for ourselves. Now I know, that is a learned behavior for many of us.  It can be difficult, especially as women and in some societies, to stick up for ourselves. But please know, especially once you are an adult and no longer under the hand of those who should protect you but choose to abuse you instead, that you are worthy. You are worthy of obtaining the mental health you need. You are worthy of stopping the abuse that can continue from your parent’s home to your husband’s home.  You deserve advocacy, even and especially self-advocacy.  I have had the opportunity to interview several authors on this podcast. There is a book list on our Community page on the website, www.childlessnotbychoice.net.  I have also created guides on the Childless not by Choice with Civilla Morgan Facebook group. Guide number five is a list of podcast episodes where I have interviewed childless not by choice authors. Please tune into these episodes. Please get these author’s books. Reading books written by women like us helps us to realize and maintain good, positive mental health.  It is a type of advocacy when we can see ourselves in books and hear ourselves on podcast episodes.     Look, we have all been through some type of trauma in our lives. If we haven’t we will. I’m not wishing you ill will. But the fact is, life is hard. It’s filled with difficulty. It is filled with broken hearts, unfulfilled dreams, and unfulfilled plans. What do we do with all of that sadness?            In 1998, Gloria Williams dressed up as a nurse and walked into a Jacksonville, FL hospital.  Her mission: steal a baby. She was almost caught as two other nurses ran down the hall with another patient who was in labor. They reminded the ‘nurse’ that she was not supposed to be arm carrying a baby. The rules were that medical staff were supposed to move babies by bassinet only.  Ms. Williams went back into the mother’s room, chatted her up some more, until the coast was clear, and walked out with the baby. She raised the baby as hers for the next 18 years, until the lie was finally brought to light in 2016.           She was facing 22 years in prison. She got 18. Her daughter still sees Ms. Williams as her mother, in fact asking that they not toss her in jail and throw away the key.  Well, Ms. Williams got 18 years, which she said was ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’  According to the ABC News article, link in the show notes: The NCMEC--National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says: ‘Many women who steal babies do so in a desperate attempt to keep a boyfriend or husband they fear may leave them if they don’t have a child to bind them together, analysis of past abduction cases has found. They are of child-bearing age and may already have children at home, the group says. They may pretend to be pregnant, they may have recently lost a baby due to miscarriage or they may suffer from a medical condition that prevents them from becoming pregnant themselves…’  So you see the profile the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children research proves. It is quite evident that not all baby abductions are done by childless not by choice women. Like any diabolical plan, there are different reasons people do these things.   But the bottom line is that we have the research to prove that childless not by choice women don’t go around stealing babies. But we already knew that, didn’t we?  The key for us is as I said before if we need help, we need to admit it and seek the help we need: therapy, journaling, Community.     You know, as I researched for this episode I came across a Reddit post where a woman said that her co-workers were telling her she should not babysit because she might be tempted to steal the baby, something like that. There are all types of really silly people out there saying things to hurt people. Sometimes they mean to, sometimes they do not. Either way, the hurt happens.  What will you do about it? Start now, therapy, journaling, Community.        Patreon: I would like to take a moment to thank the people who send me money every month.  My Patreon Contributors.  Your contributions help pay my podcast producer, my podcast host, Zoom, where I interview most of my guests, etc. So thank you very much!      If you are not yet a Patron and would like to join in, visit patreon.com/childlessnotbychoice to set up your monthly contribution for as little as $5.00 per month! No matter your giving level, I have a gift for you, so be sure to leave your address. It is secure on the Patreon platform.   If you prefer to give via PayPal, you can find me there at booksbycivillamorgan@gmail.com.  Your contributions to the platform are greatly appreciated! Thank you! https://www.patreon.com/Childlessnotbychoice  Jordan Morgan The Knights Your Name Here https://www.patreon.com/Childlessnotbychoice Questions or comments? Contact me at:   Email: Info@civillamorgan.com                                                  Or   Visit the website at www.childlessnotbychoice.net, look to the left on the home screen and click on the link below the telephone to leave me an up to 90-second voicemail.   ***Suicide prevention phone number: 800-273-8255   Research links: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/25/in-vice-president-kamala-harris-we-can-see-how-america-has-changed/   This is the link to the video I mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUujjBqpxOg   This is episode 125--Are We Being Good Ancestors https://childlessnotbychoice.net/episode-125-are-we-being-good-ancestors/   https://childlessnotbychoice.net/episode-98-pet-therapy-for-the-childless-not-by-choice-demographic-3/ The following links are stories and articles related to our discussion on theft of babies: https://www.tristatehomepage.com/news/indiana-news/woman-convicted-of-killing-pregnant-woman-stealing-baby-set-to-be-first-woman-executed-in-nearly-70-years/   https://www.smh.com.au/world/unborn-child-theft-ex-husband-steps-in-20041223-gdkd8e.html   https://abcnews.go.com/Health/baby-abductors-gloria-williams-fit-similar-profile/story?id=53081106   https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2019/post-update/who-would-steal-a-baby Articles of interest:   https://www.thejc.com/comment/opinion/large-families-should-be-seen-as-a-modern-sensible-way-forward-1.512292   https://www.thebalanceeveryday.com/april-is-national-month-calendar-3514983 Episodes and articles of interest:   https://childlessnotbychoice.net/episode-89-unexplained-infertility-aka-idiopathic-infertility/   This is the Instagram interview from Macbeth.childfree.childless: https://www.instagram.com/p/CMw7oF-lpa_/?igshid=oz6d42xzm66j   https://www.thesun.ie/fabulous/6840289/kids-one-question-never-ask-woman-michelle-keegan/ Special thank you to: My Patreon Patrons. To become a patron, please visit https://www.patreon.com/Childlessnotbychoice  If you would like to make a donation without becoming a patron, visit my Paypal account at booksbycivillamorgan@gmail.com . My contact information:Website: www.childlessnotbychoice.net and www.civillamorgan.comFacebook: booksbycivillamorganTwitter: @civilla1Instagram: @joyandrelevancePinterest: Civilla M. Morgan, MSMLinkedIn: Civilla Morgan, MSMhttps://www.teepublic.com/stores/childless-not-by-choice If you would like to become a one-time or ongoing sponsor, or if you would like to advertise your business or an upcoming event, contact me at info@civillamorgan.com for details.    Remember, subscription or following the podcast is free. Simply go to Apple Podcast, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Search for Childless not by Choice, and hit the subscribe button. It’s that easy!  Well, thank you for listening to this episode of Childless not by Choice! Until next time! Bye!      

In this episode I have the most amazing, uplifting conversation with Gloria Williams. She is an artist, author, children's content creator and presence advocate. Growing up she was insecure and people called her a mute. It's been a process, but she has stepped into her purpose, built her confidence and now her platform is Unmute Me. During the pandemic she published her first book, Don't Forget to Be and has started a movement to empower others to show up and be present. I know you will get something out of this episode, enjoy! Connect with Gloria Williams: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamgloriawilliams/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iamgloriawilliams Website: https://www.iamgloriawilliams.com/ Purchase her book, Don't Forget to Be Connect with me: www.instagram.com/beyoutifulchick www.beyoutifulchick.com Email me your questions and comments - podcast@beyoutifulchick.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/beyoutiful/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/beyoutiful/support

Episode one hundred and eleven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Heat Wave" by Martha and the Vandellas, and the beginnings of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ ----more----   Resources As usual, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.  For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I've used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown.  To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy's own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown, including Martha and the Vandellas. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown's thirty-year history. How Sweet It Is by Lamont Dozier and Scott B. Bomar is Dozier's autobiography, while Come and Get These Memories by Brian and Eddie Holland and Dave Thompson is the Holland brothers'. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 694 tracks released on Motown singles. Girl Groups by John Clemente contains potted biographies of many groups of the era, including Martha and the Vandellas. And Dancing in the Street: Confessions of a Motown Diva  by Martha Reeves and Mark Bego is Reeves' autobiography. And this three-CD set contains all the Vandellas' Motown singles, along with a bunch of rarities.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today we're going to take a look at the career of one of the great girl groups to come out of Motown, and at the early work of the songwriting team that went on to be arguably the most important people in the definition of the Motown Sound. We're going to look at "Heatwave" by Martha and the Vandellas, and the beginning of the career of Holland, Dozier, and Holland: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Heatwave"] By the time she started recording for Motown, Martha Reeves had already spent several years in groups around Detroit, with little success. Her singing career had started in a group called The Fascinations, which she had formed with another singer, who is variously named in different sources as Shirley Lawson and Shirley Walker. She'd quickly left that group, but after she left them, the Fascinations went on to make a string of minor hit records with Curtis Mayfield: [Excerpt: The Fascinations, "Girls Are Out To Get You"] But it wasn't just her professional experience, such as it was, that Reeves credited for her success -- she had also been a soloist in her high school choir, and from her accounts her real training came from her High School music teacher, Abraham Silver. In her autobiography she talks about hanging around in the park singing with other people who had been taught by the same teacher -- Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, who would go on to form the Supremes, Bobby Rogers and Claudette Robinson, who were founder members of the Miracles, and Little Joe Harris, who would later become lead singer of the minor Motown act The Undisputed Truth. She'd eventually joined another group, the Del-Phis, with three other singers -- Gloria Williams (or Williamson -- sources vary as to what her actual surname was -- it might be that Williamson was her birth name and Williams a stage name), Annette Beard, and Rosalind Ashford. The group found out early on that they didn't particularly get on with each other as people -- their personalities were all too different -- but their voices blended well and they worked well on stage. Williams or Williamson was the leader and lead singer at this point, and the rest of the DelPhis acted as her backing group. They started performing at the amateur nights and talent contests that were such a big part of the way that Black talent got known at that time, and developed a rivalry with two other groups -- The Primes, who would later go on to be the Temptations, and The Primettes, who had named themselves after the Primes, but later became the Supremes. Those three groups more or less took it in turns to win the talent contests, and before long the Del-Phis had been signed to Checkmate Records, one of several subsidiaries of Chess, where they released one single, with Gloria on lead: [Excerpt: The Del-Phis, "I'll Let You Know"] The group also sang backing vocals on various other records at that time, like Mike Hanks' "When True Love Comes to Be": [Excerpt: Mike Hanks, "When True Love Comes to Be"] Depending on who you believe, Martha may not be on that record at all -- the Del-Phis apparently had some lineup fluctuations, with members coming and going, though the story of who was in the group when seems to be told more on the basis of who wants credit for what at any particular time than on what the truth is. No matter who was in the group, though, they never had more than local success. While the Del-Phis were trying and failing to become big stars as a group, Martha also started performing solo, as Martha LaVelle. Only a couple of days after her first solo performance, Mickey Stevenson saw her perform and gave her his card, telling her to pop down to Hitsville for an audition as he thought she had talent. But when she did turn up, Stevenson was annoyed at her, over a misunderstanding that turned out to be his fault. She had just come straight to the studio, assuming she could audition any time, and Stevenson hadn't explained to her that they had one day a month where they ran auditions -- he'd expected her to call him on the number on the card, not just come down. Stevenson was busy that day, and left the office, telling Martha on his way out the door that he'd be back in a bit, and to answer the phone if it rang, leaving her alone in the office. She started answering the phone, calling herself the "A&R secretary", taking messages, and sorting out problems. She was asked to come back the next day, and worked there three weeks for no pay before getting herself put on a salary as Stevenson's secretary. Once her foot was in the door at Motown, she also started helping out on sessions, as almost all the staff there did, adding backing vocals, handclaps, or footstomps for a five-dollar-per-session bonus.  One of her jobs as Stevenson's secretary was to phone and book session musicians and singers,  and for one session the Andantes, Motown's normal female backing vocal group, were unavailable. Martha got the idea to call the rest of the DelPhis -- who seem like they might even have been split up at this point, depending on which source you read -- and see if they wanted to do the job instead. They had to audition for Berry Gordy, but Gordy was perfectly happy with them and signed them to Motown. Their role was mostly to be backing vocalists, but the plan was that they would also cut a few singles themselves as well.  But Gordy didn't want to sign them as the Del-Phis -- he didn't know what the details of their contract with Checkmate were, and who actually owned the name. So they needed a new name. At first they went with the Dominettes, but that was soon changed, before they ever made a record What happened is a matter of some dispute, because this seems to be the moment that Martha Reeves took over the group -- it may be that the fact that she was the one booking them for the sessions and so in charge of whether they got paid or not changed the power dynamics of the band -- and so different people give different accounts depending on who they want to seem most important. But the generally accepted story is that Martha suggested a name based on the street she lived on, Van Dyke Street, and Della Reese, Martha's favourite singer, who had hits like "Don't You Know?": [Excerpt: Della Reese, "Don't You Know?"] The group became Martha and the Vandellas -- although Rosalind Ashford, who says that the group name was not Martha's work, also says that the group weren't "Martha and the Vandellas" to start with, but just the Vandellas, and this might be the case, as at this point Gloria rather than Martha was still the lead singer. The newly-named Vandellas were quickly put to work, mostly working on records that Mickey Stevenson produced. The first record they sang on was not credited either to the Vandellas *or* to Martha and the Vandellas, being instead credited to Saundra Mallett and the Vandellas – Mallett was a minor Motown singer who they were backing for this one record. The song was one written by Berry Gordy, as an attempt at a "Loco-Motion" clone, and was called "Camel Walk": [Excerpt: Saundra Mallett and the Vandellas, "Camel Walk"] More famously, there was the record that everyone talks about as being the first one to feature the Vandellas, even though it came out after "Camel Walk", one we've already talked about before, Marvin Gaye's "Stubborn Kind of Fellow": [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow"] That became Gaye's breakout hit, and as well as singing in the studio for other artists and trying to make their own records, the Vandellas were now also Marvin Gaye's backing vocalists, and at shows like the Motortown Revue shows, as well as performing their own sets, the Vandellas would sing with Gaye as well. While they were not yet themselves stars, they had a foot on the ladder, and through working with Marvin they got to perform with all sorts of other people -- Martha was particularly impressed by the Beach Boys, who performed on the same bill as them in Detroit, and she developed a lifelong crush on Mike Love. But while the Vandellas were Motown's go-to backing vocalists in 1962, they still wanted to make their own records. They did make one record with Gloria singing lead, "You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)": [Excerpt: The Vells, "You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)"] But that was released not as by the Vandellas, but by the Vells, because by the time it was released, the Vandellas had more or less by accident become definitively MARTHA and the Vandellas. The session that changed everything came about because Martha was still working as Mickey Stevenson's secretary. Stevenson was producing a record for Mary Wells, and he had a problem. Stevenson had recently instituted a new system for his recordings at Motown. Up to this point, they'd been making records with everyone in the studio at the same time -- all the musicians, the lead singer, the backing vocalists, and so on. But that became increasingly difficult when the label's stars were on tour all the time, and it also meant that if the singer flubbed a note a good bass take would also be wrecked, or vice versa. It just wasn't efficient. So, taking advantage of the ability to multitrack, Stevenson had started doing things differently. Now backing tracks would be recorded by the Funk Brothers in the studio whenever a writer-producer had something for them to record, and then the singer would come in later and overdub their vocals when it was convenient to do that. That also had other advantages -- if a singer turned out not to be right for the song, they could record another singer doing it instead, and they could reuse backing tracks, so if a song was a hit for, say, the Miracles, the Marvelettes could then use the same backing track for a cover version of it to fill out an album. But there was a problem with this system, and that problem was the Musicians' Union. The union had a rule that if musicians were cutting a track that was intended to have a vocal, the vocalist *must* be present at the session -- like a lot of historical union rules, this seems faintly ridiculous today, but no doubt there were good reasons for it at the time.  Motown, like most labels, were perfectly happy to break the union rules on occasion, but there was always the possibility of a surprise union inspection, and one turned up while Mickey Stevenson was cutting "I'll Have to Let Him Go". Mary Wells wasn't there, and knowing that his secretary could sing, Stevenson grabbed her and got her to go into the studio and sing the song while the musicians played. Martha decided to give the song everything she had, and Stevenson was impressed enough that he decided to give the song to her, rather than Wells, and at the same session that the Vandellas recorded the songs with Gloria on lead, they recorded new vocals to the backing track that Stevenson had recorded that day: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "I'll Have to Let Him Go"] That was released under the Martha and the Vandellas name, and around this point Gloria left the group. Some have suggested that this was because she didn't like Martha becoming the leader, while others have said that it's just that she had a good job working for the city, and didn't want to put that at risk by becoming a full-time singer. Either way, a week after the Vandellas record came out, Motown released "You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)" under the name The Vells.  Neither single had any chart success, but that wouldn't be true for the next one, which wouldn't be released for another five months. But when it was finally released, it would be regarded as the beginning of the "Motown Sound". Before that record, Motown had released many extraordinary records, and we've looked at some of them. But after it, it began a domination of the American charts that would last the rest of the decade; a domination caused in large part by the team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland. We've heard a little from the Holland brothers and Lamont Dozier, separately, in previous episodes looking at Motown, but this is the point at which they go from being minor players within the Motown organisation to being the single most important team for the label's future commercial success, so we should take a proper look at them now. Eddie Holland started working with Berry Gordy years before the start of Motown -- he was a singer who was known for having a similar sounding voice to that of Jackie Wilson, and Gordy had taken him on first as a soundalike demo singer, recording songs written for Wilson so Wilson could hear how they would sound in his voice, and later trying to mould him into a Wilson clone, starting with Holland's first single, "You": [Excerpt: Eddie Holland, "You"] Holland quickly found that he didn't enjoy performing on stage -- he loved singing, but he didn't like the actual experience of being on stage. However, he continued doing it, in the belief that one should not just quit a job until a better opportunity comes along. Before becoming a professional singer, Holland had sung in street-corner doo-wop groups with his younger brother Brian. Brian, unlike Eddie, didn't have a particularly great voice, but what he did have was a great musical mind -- he could instantly figure out all the harmony parts for the whole group, and had a massive talent for arrangement. Eddie spent much of his early time working with Gordy trying to get Gordy to take his little brother seriously -- at the time,  Brian Holland was still in his early teens, and Gordy refused to believe he could be as talented as Eddie said. Eventually, though, Gordy listened to Brian and took him under his wing, pairing him with Janie Bradford to add music to Bradford's lyrics, and also teaching him to engineer. One of Brian Holland's first engineering jobs was for a song recorded by Eddie, written as a jingle for a wine company but released as a single under the name "Briant Holland" -- meaning it has often over the years been assumed to be Brian singing lead: [Excerpt: Briant Holland, "(Where's the Joy) in Nature Boy?"] When Motown started up, Brian had become a staffer -- indeed, he has later claimed that he was the very first person employed by Motown as a permanent staff member. While Eddie was out on the road performing, Brian was  writing, producing, and singing backing vocals on many, many records. We've already heard how he was the co-writer and producer on "Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, "Please Mr. Postman"] That had obviously been a massive hit, and Motown's first number one, but Brian was still definitely just one of the Motown team, and not as important a part of it as Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, or Mickey Stevenson. Meanwhile, Eddie finally had a minor hit of his own, with "Jamie", a song co-written by Barrett Strong and Mickey Stevenson, and originally recorded by Strong -- when Strong left the label, they took the backing track intended for him and had Holland record new vocals over it. [Excerpt: Eddie Holland, "Jamie"] That made the top thirty, which must have been galling at the time for Strong, who'd quit in part because he couldn't get a hit. But the crucial thing that lifted the Holland brothers from being just parts of the Motown machine to being the most important creative forces in the company was when Brian Holland became friendly with Anne Dozier, who worked at Motown packing records, and whose husband Lamont was a singer. Lamont Dozier had been around musical people all his life -- at Hutchins Junior High School, he was a couple of years below Marv Johnson, the first Motown star, he knew Freda Payne, and one of his classmates was Otis Williams, later of the Temptations. But it was another junior high classmate who, as he puts it, "lit a fire under me to take some steps to get my own music heard by the world", when one of his friends asked him if he felt like coming along to church to hear another classmate sing. Dozier had no idea this classmate sang, but he went along, and as it happens, we have some recordings of that classmate singing and playing piano around that time: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood"] That's fourteen-year-old Aretha Franklin, and as you can imagine, being classmates with someone who could perform like that caused Lamont Dozier to radically revise his ideas of what it was possible for him to do. He'd formed a doo-wop group called the Romeos, and they released their first single, with both sides written by Lamont, by the time he was sixteen: [Excerpt: The Romeos, "Gone Gone Get Away"] The Romeos' third single, "Fine Fine Fine", was picked up by Atlantic for distribution, and did well enough that Atlantic decided they wanted a follow-up, and wrote to them asking them to come into the studio. But Lamont Dozier, at sixteen, thought that he had some kind of negotiating power, and wrote back saying they weren't interested in just doing a single, they wanted to do an album. Jerry Wexler wrote back saying "fair enough, you're released from your contract", and the Romeos' brief career was over before it began. He joined the Voice Masters, the first group signed to Anna Records, and sang on records of theirs like "Hope and Pray", the very first record ever put out by a Gordy family label: [Excerpt: The Voice Masters, "Hope and Pray"] And he'd continued to sing with them, as well as working for Anna Records doing odd jobs like cleaning the floors. His first solo record on Anna, released under the name Lamont Anthony, featured Robert White on guitar, James Jamerson on bass, Harvey Fuqua on piano, and Marvin Gaye on drums, and was based on the comic character "Popeye": [Excerpt: Lamont Anthony, "Popeye the Sailor Man"] Unfortunately, just as that record was starting to take off, King Features Syndicate, the owners of Popeye, sent a cease and desist order. Dozier went back into the studio and recut the vocal, this time singing about Benny the Skinny Man, instead of Popeye the Sailor Man: [Excerpt: Lamont Anthony, "Benny the Skinny Man"] But without the hook of it being about Popeye, the song flopped. Dozier joined Motown when that became the dominant part of the Gordy family operation, and signed up as a songwriter and producer. Robert Batemen had just stopped working with Brian Holland as a production team, and when Anne Dozier suggested that Holland go and meet her husband who was just starting at Motown, Holland walked in to find Dozier working at the piano, writing a song but stuck for a middle section. Holland told him he had an idea, sat next to him at the piano, and came up with the bridge. The two instantly clicked musically -- they discovered that they almost had a musical telepathy, and Holland got Freddie Gorman, his lyricist partner at the time, to finish up the lyrics for the song while he and Dozier came up with more ideas. That song became a Marvelettes album track, "Forever", which a few years later would be put out as a B-side, and make the top thirty in its own right: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, "Forever"] Holland and Dozier quickly became a strong musical team -- Dozier had a great aptitude for coming up with riffs and hooks, both lyrical and musical, and rhythmic ideas, while Brian Holland could come up with great melodies and interesting chord changes, though both could do both. In the studio Brian would work with the drummers, while Lamont would work with the keyboard players and discuss the bass parts with James Jamerson. Their only shortfall was lyrically. They could both write lyrics -- and Lamont would often come up with a good title or hook phrase -- but they were slow at doing it. For the lyrics, they mostly worked with Freddie Gorman, and sometimes got Janie Bradford in. These teams came up with some great records, like "Contract on Love", which sounds very like a Four Seasons pastiche but also points the way to Holland and Dozier's later sound: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "Contract on Love"] Both Little Stevie Wonder and the backing vocalists on that, the Temptations, would do better things later, but that's still a solid record. Meanwhile, Eddie Holland had had a realisation that would change the course of Motown. "Jamie" had been a hit, but he received no royalties -- he'd had a run of flop singles, so he hadn't yet earned out the production costs on his records. His first royalty statement after his hit showed him still owing Motown money. He asked his brother, who got a royalty statement at the same time, if he was in the same boat, and Brian showed him the statement for several thousand dollars that he'd made from the songs he'd written. Eddie decided that he was in the wrong job. He didn't like performing anyway, and his brother was making serious money while he was working away earning nothing. He took nine months off from doing anything other than the bare contractual minimum, -- where before he would spend every moment at Hitsville, now he only turned up for his own sessions -- and spent that time teaching himself songwriting. He studied Smokey Robinson's writing, and he developed his own ideas about what needed to be in a lyric -- he didn't want any meaningless filler words, he wanted every word to matter. He also wanted to make sure that even if people misheard a line or two, they would be able to get the idea of the song from the other lines, so he came up with a technique he referred to as "repeat-fomation", where he would give the same piece of information two or three times, paraphrasing it.  When the next Marvelettes album, The Marvellous Marvelettes, was being finished up by Mickey Stevenson, Motown got nervous about the album, thinking it didn't have a strong enough single on it, and so Brian Holland and Dozier were asked to come up with a new Marvelettes single in a hurry. Freddie Gorman had more or less stopped songwriting by this point, as he was spending most of his time working as a postman, and so, in need of another writing partner, they called on Eddie, who had been writing with various people. The three of them wrote and produced "Locking Up My Heart", the first single to be released with the writing credit "Holland-Dozier-Holland": [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, "Locking Up My Heart"] That was a comparative flop for the Marvelettes, and the beginning of the downward slump we talked about for them in the episode on "Please Mr. Postman", but the second Holland-Dozier-Holland single, recorded ten days later, was a very different matter. That one was for Martha and the Vandellas, and became widely regarded as the start of Motown's true Golden Age -- so much so that Brian and Eddie Holland's autobiography is named after this, rather than after any of the bigger and more obvious hits they would later co-write. The introduction to "Come and Get These Memories" isn't particularly auspicious -- the Vandellas singing the chorus: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Come and Get These Memories"] Hearing all three of the Vandellas, all of whom have such strong, distinctive voices, sing together is if anything a bit much -- the Vandellas aren't a great harmony group in the way that some of the other Motown groups are, and they work best when everyone's singing an individual line rather than block harmonies. But then we're instantly into the sound that Holland, Dozier, and Holland -- really Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, who took charge of the musical side of things, with Eddie concentrating on the lyrics -- would make their own. There's a lightly swung rhythm, but with a strong backbeat with handclaps and tambourine emphasising the two and four-- the same rhythmic combination that made so many of the very early rock and roll records we looked at in the first year of the podcast, but this time taken at a more sedate pace, a casual stroll rather than a sprint. There's the simple, chorded piano and guitar parts, both instruments often playing in unison and again just emphasising the rhythm rather than doing anything more complex. And there's James Jamerson's wonderful, loping bass part, doing the exact opposite of what the piano and guitar are doing. [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Come and Get These Memories”] In almost every record in the rock and roll, soul, and R&B genres up to this point -- I say "almost every" because, as I've said many times before, there are always exceptions and there is never a first of anything -- the bass does one of two things: it either plods along just playing the root notes, or it plays a simple, repeated, ostinato figure throughout, acting as a backbone while the other instruments do more interesting things. James Jamerson is the first bass player outside the jazz and classical fields to prominently, repeatedly, do something very different -- he's got the guitars and piano holding down the rhythm so steadily that he doesn't need to. He plays melodies, largely improvised, that are jumping around and going somewhere different from where you'd expect.  "Come and Get These Memories" was largely written before Eddie's involvement, and the bulk of the lyric was Lamont Dozier's. He's said that in this instance he was inspired by country singers like Loretta Lynn, and the song's lyrical style, taking physical objects and using them as a metaphor for emotional states, certainly seems very country: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Come and Get These Memories"] "Come and Get These Memories" made number twenty-nine on the pop charts and number six on the R&B charts. Martha and the Vandellas were finally stars. As was the normal practice at Motown, when an artist had a hit, the writing and production team were given the chance to make the follow-up with them, and so the followup was another Holland/Dozier/Holland song, again from an idea by Lamont Dozier, as most of their collaborations with the Vandellas would be. "Heat Wave" is another leap forward, and is quite possibly the most exciting record that Motown had put out to this point. Where "Come and Get These Memories" established the Motown sound, this one establishes the Martha and the Vandellas sound, specifically, and the style that Holland, Dozier, and Holland would apply to many of their more uptempo productions for other artists. This is the subgenre of Motown that, when it was picked up by fans in the North of England, became known as Northern Soul -- the branch of Motown music that led directly to Disco, to Hi-NRG, to electropop, to the Stock-Aitken-Waterman hit factory of the eighties, to huge chunks of gay culture, and to almost all music made for dancing in whatever genre after this point. Where "Come and Get These Memories" is mid-tempo, "Heat Wave" races along. Where "Come and Get These Memories" swings, "Heat Wave" stomps. "Come and Get These Memories" has the drums swinging and the percussion accenting the backbeat, here the drums are accenting the backbeat while the tambourine is hitting every beat dead on, four/four. It's a rhythm which has something in common with some of the Four Seasons' contemporary hits, but it's less militaristic than those. While "Pistol" Allen's drumming starts out absolutely hard on the beat, he swings it more and more as the record goes on, trusting to the listener once that hard rhythm has been established, allowing him to lay back behind the beat just a little. This is where my background as a white English man, who has never played music for dancing -- when I tried to be a musician myself, it was jangly guitar pop I was playing -- limits me. I have a vocabulary for chords and for melodies, but when it comes to rhythms, at a certain point my vocabulary goes away, and all I can do is say "just... *listen*" It's music that makes you need to dance, and you can either hear that or you can't -- but of course, you can: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Heat Wave"] And Martha Reeves' voice is perfect for the song. Most female Motown singers were pop singers first and foremost -- some of them, many of them, *great* pop singers, but all with voices fundamentally suited to gentleness. Reeves was a belter. She has far more blues and gospel influence in her voice than many of the other Motown women, and she's showing it here. "Heat Wave" made the top ten, as did the follow-up, a "Heat Wave" soundalike called "Quicksand". But the two records after that, both still Holland/Dozier/Holland records, didn't even make the top forty, and Annette left, being replaced by Betty Kelly. The new lineup of the group were passed over to Mickey Stevenson, for a record that would become the one for which they are best remembered to this day. It wasn't as important a record in the development of the Motown sound as "Come and Get These Memories" or "Heat Wave", but "Dancing in the Street" was a masterpiece. Written by Stevenson, Marvin Gaye, and Ivy Joe Hunter, it features Gaye on drums, but the most prominent percussive sound is Hunter, who, depending on which account you read was either thrashing a steel chain against something until his hands bled, or hitting a tire iron.  And Martha's vocal is astonishing -- and has an edge to it. Apparently this was the second take, and she sounds a little annoyed because she absolutely nailed the vocal on the first take only to find that there'd been a problem recording it. [Excerpt: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, "Dancing in the Street"] That went to number two in the charts, and would be the group's cultural and commercial high point. The song also gained some notoriety two years later when, in the wake of civil rights protests that were interpreted as rioting, the song was interpreted as being a call to riot -- it was assumed that instead of being about dancing it was actually about rioting, something the Rolling Stones would pick up on later when they released "Street Fighting Man", a song that owes more than a little to the Vandellas classic. The record after that, "Wild One", was so much of a "Dancing in the Streets" soundalike that I've seen claims that the backing track is an alternate take of the earlier song. It isn't, but it sounds like it could be. But the record after that saw them reunited with Holland/Dozier/Holland, who provided them with yet another great track, "Nowhere to Run": [Excerpt: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"] For the next few years the group would release a string of classic hits, like "Jimmy Mack" and "Honey Chile", but the rise of the Supremes, who we'll talk about in a month, meant that like the Marvelettes before them the Vandellas became less important to Motown. When Motown moved from Detroit to LA in the early seventies, Martha was one of those who decided not to make the move with the label, and the group split up, though the original lineup occasionally reunited for big events, and made some recordings for Ian Levine's Motorcity label. Currently, there are two touring Vandellas groups. One, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, consists of Martha and two of her sisters -- including Lois, who was a late-period member of the group before they split, replacing Betty in 1967. Meanwhile "The Original Vandellas" consist of Rosalind and Annette. Gloria died in 2000, but Martha and the Vandellas are one of the very few sixties hitmaking groups where all the members of their classic lineup are still alive and performing. Martha, Rosalind, Betty, Annette, and Lois were all also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming only the second all-female group to be inducted.  The Vandellas were one of the greatest of the Motown acts, and one of the greatest of the girl groups, and their biggest hits stand up against anything that any of the other Motown acts were doing at the time. When you hear them now, even almost sixty years later, you're still hearing the sound they were in at the birth of, the sound of young America.  

Episode one hundred and eleven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Heat Wave” by Martha and the Vandellas, and the beginnings of Holland-Dozier-Holland. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “My Boyfriend’s Back” by the Angels. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—-   Resources As usual, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.  For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I’ve used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown.  To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy’s own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown, including Martha and the Vandellas. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown’s thirty-year history. How Sweet It Is by Lamont Dozier and Scott B. Bomar is Dozier’s autobiography, while Come and Get These Memories by Brian and Eddie Holland and Dave Thompson is the Holland brothers’. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 694 tracks released on Motown singles. Girl Groups by John Clemente contains potted biographies of many groups of the era, including Martha and the Vandellas. And Dancing in the Street: Confessions of a Motown Diva  by Martha Reeves and Mark Bego is Reeves’ autobiography. And this three-CD set contains all the Vandellas’ Motown singles, along with a bunch of rarities.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today we’re going to take a look at the career of one of the great girl groups to come out of Motown, and at the early work of the songwriting team that went on to be arguably the most important people in the definition of the Motown Sound. We’re going to look at “Heatwave” by Martha and the Vandellas, and the beginning of the career of Holland, Dozier, and Holland: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Heatwave”] By the time she started recording for Motown, Martha Reeves had already spent several years in groups around Detroit, with little success. Her singing career had started in a group called The Fascinations, which she had formed with another singer, who is variously named in different sources as Shirley Lawson and Shirley Walker. She’d quickly left that group, but after she left them, the Fascinations went on to make a string of minor hit records with Curtis Mayfield: [Excerpt: The Fascinations, “Girls Are Out To Get You”] But it wasn’t just her professional experience, such as it was, that Reeves credited for her success — she had also been a soloist in her high school choir, and from her accounts her real training came from her High School music teacher, Abraham Silver. In her autobiography she talks about hanging around in the park singing with other people who had been taught by the same teacher — Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, who would go on to form the Supremes, Bobby Rogers and Claudette Robinson, who were founder members of the Miracles, and Little Joe Harris, who would later become lead singer of the minor Motown act The Undisputed Truth. She’d eventually joined another group, the Del-Phis, with three other singers — Gloria Williams (or Williamson — sources vary as to what her actual surname was — it might be that Williamson was her birth name and Williams a stage name), Annette Beard, and Rosalind Ashford. The group found out early on that they didn’t particularly get on with each other as people — their personalities were all too different — but their voices blended well and they worked well on stage. Williams or Williamson was the leader and lead singer at this point, and the rest of the DelPhis acted as her backing group. They started performing at the amateur nights and talent contests that were such a big part of the way that Black talent got known at that time, and developed a rivalry with two other groups — The Primes, who would later go on to be the Temptations, and The Primettes, who had named themselves after the Primes, but later became the Supremes. Those three groups more or less took it in turns to win the talent contests, and before long the Del-Phis had been signed to Checkmate Records, one of several subsidiaries of Chess, where they released one single, with Gloria on lead: [Excerpt: The Del-Phis, “I’ll Let You Know”] The group also sang backing vocals on various other records at that time, like Mike Hanks’ “When True Love Comes to Be”: [Excerpt: Mike Hanks, “When True Love Comes to Be”] Depending on who you believe, Martha may not be on that record at all — the Del-Phis apparently had some lineup fluctuations, with members coming and going, though the story of who was in the group when seems to be told more on the basis of who wants credit for what at any particular time than on what the truth is. No matter who was in the group, though, they never had more than local success. While the Del-Phis were trying and failing to become big stars as a group, Martha also started performing solo, as Martha LaVelle. Only a couple of days after her first solo performance, Mickey Stevenson saw her perform and gave her his card, telling her to pop down to Hitsville for an audition as he thought she had talent. But when she did turn up, Stevenson was annoyed at her, over a misunderstanding that turned out to be his fault. She had just come straight to the studio, assuming she could audition any time, and Stevenson hadn’t explained to her that they had one day a month where they ran auditions — he’d expected her to call him on the number on the card, not just come down. Stevenson was busy that day, and left the office, telling Martha on his way out the door that he’d be back in a bit, and to answer the phone if it rang, leaving her alone in the office. She started answering the phone, calling herself the “A&R secretary”, taking messages, and sorting out problems. She was asked to come back the next day, and worked there three weeks for no pay before getting herself put on a salary as Stevenson’s secretary. Once her foot was in the door at Motown, she also started helping out on sessions, as almost all the staff there did, adding backing vocals, handclaps, or footstomps for a five-dollar-per-session bonus.  One of her jobs as Stevenson’s secretary was to phone and book session musicians and singers,  and for one session the Andantes, Motown’s normal female backing vocal group, were unavailable. Martha got the idea to call the rest of the DelPhis — who seem like they might even have been split up at this point, depending on which source you read — and see if they wanted to do the job instead. They had to audition for Berry Gordy, but Gordy was perfectly happy with them and signed them to Motown. Their role was mostly to be backing vocalists, but the plan was that they would also cut a few singles themselves as well.  But Gordy didn’t want to sign them as the Del-Phis — he didn’t know what the details of their contract with Checkmate were, and who actually owned the name. So they needed a new name. At first they went with the Dominettes, but that was soon changed, before they ever made a record What happened is a matter of some dispute, because this seems to be the moment that Martha Reeves took over the group — it may be that the fact that she was the one booking them for the sessions and so in charge of whether they got paid or not changed the power dynamics of the band — and so different people give different accounts depending on who they want to seem most important. But the generally accepted story is that Martha suggested a name based on the street she lived on, Van Dyke Street, and Della Reese, Martha’s favourite singer, who had hits like “Don’t You Know?”: [Excerpt: Della Reese, “Don’t You Know?”] The group became Martha and the Vandellas — although Rosalind Ashford, who says that the group name was not Martha’s work, also says that the group weren’t “Martha and the Vandellas” to start with, but just the Vandellas, and this might be the case, as at this point Gloria rather than Martha was still the lead singer. The newly-named Vandellas were quickly put to work, mostly working on records that Mickey Stevenson produced. The first record they sang on was not credited either to the Vandellas *or* to Martha and the Vandellas, being instead credited to Saundra Mallett and the Vandellas – Mallett was a minor Motown singer who they were backing for this one record. The song was one written by Berry Gordy, as an attempt at a “Loco-Motion” clone, and was called “Camel Walk”: [Excerpt: Saundra Mallett and the Vandellas, “Camel Walk”] More famously, there was the record that everyone talks about as being the first one to feature the Vandellas, even though it came out after “Camel Walk”, one we’ve already talked about before, Marvin Gaye’s “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”] That became Gaye’s breakout hit, and as well as singing in the studio for other artists and trying to make their own records, the Vandellas were now also Marvin Gaye’s backing vocalists, and at shows like the Motortown Revue shows, as well as performing their own sets, the Vandellas would sing with Gaye as well. While they were not yet themselves stars, they had a foot on the ladder, and through working with Marvin they got to perform with all sorts of other people — Martha was particularly impressed by the Beach Boys, who performed on the same bill as them in Detroit, and she developed a lifelong crush on Mike Love. But while the Vandellas were Motown’s go-to backing vocalists in 1962, they still wanted to make their own records. They did make one record with Gloria singing lead, “You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)”: [Excerpt: The Vells, “You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)”] But that was released not as by the Vandellas, but by the Vells, because by the time it was released, the Vandellas had more or less by accident become definitively MARTHA and the Vandellas. The session that changed everything came about because Martha was still working as Mickey Stevenson’s secretary. Stevenson was producing a record for Mary Wells, and he had a problem. Stevenson had recently instituted a new system for his recordings at Motown. Up to this point, they’d been making records with everyone in the studio at the same time — all the musicians, the lead singer, the backing vocalists, and so on. But that became increasingly difficult when the label’s stars were on tour all the time, and it also meant that if the singer flubbed a note a good bass take would also be wrecked, or vice versa. It just wasn’t efficient. So, taking advantage of the ability to multitrack, Stevenson had started doing things differently. Now backing tracks would be recorded by the Funk Brothers in the studio whenever a writer-producer had something for them to record, and then the singer would come in later and overdub their vocals when it was convenient to do that. That also had other advantages — if a singer turned out not to be right for the song, they could record another singer doing it instead, and they could reuse backing tracks, so if a song was a hit for, say, the Miracles, the Marvelettes could then use the same backing track for a cover version of it to fill out an album. But there was a problem with this system, and that problem was the Musicians’ Union. The union had a rule that if musicians were cutting a track that was intended to have a vocal, the vocalist *must* be present at the session — like a lot of historical union rules, this seems faintly ridiculous today, but no doubt there were good reasons for it at the time.  Motown, like most labels, were perfectly happy to break the union rules on occasion, but there was always the possibility of a surprise union inspection, and one turned up while Mickey Stevenson was cutting “I’ll Have to Let Him Go”. Mary Wells wasn’t there, and knowing that his secretary could sing, Stevenson grabbed her and got her to go into the studio and sing the song while the musicians played. Martha decided to give the song everything she had, and Stevenson was impressed enough that he decided to give the song to her, rather than Wells, and at the same session that the Vandellas recorded the songs with Gloria on lead, they recorded new vocals to the backing track that Stevenson had recorded that day: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “I’ll Have to Let Him Go”] That was released under the Martha and the Vandellas name, and around this point Gloria left the group. Some have suggested that this was because she didn’t like Martha becoming the leader, while others have said that it’s just that she had a good job working for the city, and didn’t want to put that at risk by becoming a full-time singer. Either way, a week after the Vandellas record came out, Motown released “You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (‘Til You Lose It)” under the name The Vells.  Neither single had any chart success, but that wouldn’t be true for the next one, which wouldn’t be released for another five months. But when it was finally released, it would be regarded as the beginning of the “Motown Sound”. Before that record, Motown had released many extraordinary records, and we’ve looked at some of them. But after it, it began a domination of the American charts that would last the rest of the decade; a domination caused in large part by the team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland. We’ve heard a little from the Holland brothers and Lamont Dozier, separately, in previous episodes looking at Motown, but this is the point at which they go from being minor players within the Motown organisation to being the single most important team for the label’s future commercial success, so we should take a proper look at them now. Eddie Holland started working with Berry Gordy years before the start of Motown — he was a singer who was known for having a similar sounding voice to that of Jackie Wilson, and Gordy had taken him on first as a soundalike demo singer, recording songs written for Wilson so Wilson could hear how they would sound in his voice, and later trying to mould him into a Wilson clone, starting with Holland’s first single, “You”: [Excerpt: Eddie Holland, “You”] Holland quickly found that he didn’t enjoy performing on stage — he loved singing, but he didn’t like the actual experience of being on stage. However, he continued doing it, in the belief that one should not just quit a job until a better opportunity comes along. Before becoming a professional singer, Holland had sung in street-corner doo-wop groups with his younger brother Brian. Brian, unlike Eddie, didn’t have a particularly great voice, but what he did have was a great musical mind — he could instantly figure out all the harmony parts for the whole group, and had a massive talent for arrangement. Eddie spent much of his early time working with Gordy trying to get Gordy to take his little brother seriously — at the time,  Brian Holland was still in his early teens, and Gordy refused to believe he could be as talented as Eddie said. Eventually, though, Gordy listened to Brian and took him under his wing, pairing him with Janie Bradford to add music to Bradford’s lyrics, and also teaching him to engineer. One of Brian Holland’s first engineering jobs was for a song recorded by Eddie, written as a jingle for a wine company but released as a single under the name “Briant Holland” — meaning it has often over the years been assumed to be Brian singing lead: [Excerpt: Briant Holland, “(Where’s the Joy) in Nature Boy?”] When Motown started up, Brian had become a staffer — indeed, he has later claimed that he was the very first person employed by Motown as a permanent staff member. While Eddie was out on the road performing, Brian was  writing, producing, and singing backing vocals on many, many records. We’ve already heard how he was the co-writer and producer on “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Please Mr. Postman”] That had obviously been a massive hit, and Motown’s first number one, but Brian was still definitely just one of the Motown team, and not as important a part of it as Berry Gordy, Smokey Robinson, or Mickey Stevenson. Meanwhile, Eddie finally had a minor hit of his own, with “Jamie”, a song co-written by Barrett Strong and Mickey Stevenson, and originally recorded by Strong — when Strong left the label, they took the backing track intended for him and had Holland record new vocals over it. [Excerpt: Eddie Holland, “Jamie”] That made the top thirty, which must have been galling at the time for Strong, who’d quit in part because he couldn’t get a hit. But the crucial thing that lifted the Holland brothers from being just parts of the Motown machine to being the most important creative forces in the company was when Brian Holland became friendly with Anne Dozier, who worked at Motown packing records, and whose husband Lamont was a singer. Lamont Dozier had been around musical people all his life — at Hutchins Junior High School, he was a couple of years below Marv Johnson, the first Motown star, he knew Freda Payne, and one of his classmates was Otis Williams, later of the Temptations. But it was another junior high classmate who, as he puts it, “lit a fire under me to take some steps to get my own music heard by the world”, when one of his friends asked him if he felt like coming along to church to hear another classmate sing. Dozier had no idea this classmate sang, but he went along, and as it happens, we have some recordings of that classmate singing and playing piano around that time: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, “There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood”] That’s fourteen-year-old Aretha Franklin, and as you can imagine, being classmates with someone who could perform like that caused Lamont Dozier to radically revise his ideas of what it was possible for him to do. He’d formed a doo-wop group called the Romeos, and they released their first single, with both sides written by Lamont, by the time he was sixteen: [Excerpt: The Romeos, “Gone Gone Get Away”] The Romeos’ third single, “Fine Fine Fine”, was picked up by Atlantic for distribution, and did well enough that Atlantic decided they wanted a follow-up, and wrote to them asking them to come into the studio. But Lamont Dozier, at sixteen, thought that he had some kind of negotiating power, and wrote back saying they weren’t interested in just doing a single, they wanted to do an album. Jerry Wexler wrote back saying “fair enough, you’re released from your contract”, and the Romeos’ brief career was over before it began. He joined the Voice Masters, the first group signed to Anna Records, and sang on records of theirs like “Hope and Pray”, the very first record ever put out by a Gordy family label: [Excerpt: The Voice Masters, “Hope and Pray”] And he’d continued to sing with them, as well as working for Anna Records doing odd jobs like cleaning the floors. His first solo record on Anna, released under the name Lamont Anthony, featured Robert White on guitar, James Jamerson on bass, Harvey Fuqua on piano, and Marvin Gaye on drums, and was based on the comic character “Popeye”: [Excerpt: Lamont Anthony, “Popeye the Sailor Man”] Unfortunately, just as that record was starting to take off, King Features Syndicate, the owners of Popeye, sent a cease and desist order. Dozier went back into the studio and recut the vocal, this time singing about Benny the Skinny Man, instead of Popeye the Sailor Man: [Excerpt: Lamont Anthony, “Benny the Skinny Man”] But without the hook of it being about Popeye, the song flopped. Dozier joined Motown when that became the dominant part of the Gordy family operation, and signed up as a songwriter and producer. Robert Batemen had just stopped working with Brian Holland as a production team, and when Anne Dozier suggested that Holland go and meet her husband who was just starting at Motown, Holland walked in to find Dozier working at the piano, writing a song but stuck for a middle section. Holland told him he had an idea, sat next to him at the piano, and came up with the bridge. The two instantly clicked musically — they discovered that they almost had a musical telepathy, and Holland got Freddie Gorman, his lyricist partner at the time, to finish up the lyrics for the song while he and Dozier came up with more ideas. That song became a Marvelettes album track, “Forever”, which a few years later would be put out as a B-side, and make the top thirty in its own right: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Forever”] Holland and Dozier quickly became a strong musical team — Dozier had a great aptitude for coming up with riffs and hooks, both lyrical and musical, and rhythmic ideas, while Brian Holland could come up with great melodies and interesting chord changes, though both could do both. In the studio Brian would work with the drummers, while Lamont would work with the keyboard players and discuss the bass parts with James Jamerson. Their only shortfall was lyrically. They could both write lyrics — and Lamont would often come up with a good title or hook phrase — but they were slow at doing it. For the lyrics, they mostly worked with Freddie Gorman, and sometimes got Janie Bradford in. These teams came up with some great records, like “Contract on Love”, which sounds very like a Four Seasons pastiche but also points the way to Holland and Dozier’s later sound: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, “Contract on Love”] Both Little Stevie Wonder and the backing vocalists on that, the Temptations, would do better things later, but that’s still a solid record. Meanwhile, Eddie Holland had had a realisation that would change the course of Motown. “Jamie” had been a hit, but he received no royalties — he’d had a run of flop singles, so he hadn’t yet earned out the production costs on his records. His first royalty statement after his hit showed him still owing Motown money. He asked his brother, who got a royalty statement at the same time, if he was in the same boat, and Brian showed him the statement for several thousand dollars that he’d made from the songs he’d written. Eddie decided that he was in the wrong job. He didn’t like performing anyway, and his brother was making serious money while he was working away earning nothing. He took nine months off from doing anything other than the bare contractual minimum, — where before he would spend every moment at Hitsville, now he only turned up for his own sessions — and spent that time teaching himself songwriting. He studied Smokey Robinson’s writing, and he developed his own ideas about what needed to be in a lyric — he didn’t want any meaningless filler words, he wanted every word to matter. He also wanted to make sure that even if people misheard a line or two, they would be able to get the idea of the song from the other lines, so he came up with a technique he referred to as “repeat-fomation”, where he would give the same piece of information two or three times, paraphrasing it.  When the next Marvelettes album, The Marvellous Marvelettes, was being finished up by Mickey Stevenson, Motown got nervous about the album, thinking it didn’t have a strong enough single on it, and so Brian Holland and Dozier were asked to come up with a new Marvelettes single in a hurry. Freddie Gorman had more or less stopped songwriting by this point, as he was spending most of his time working as a postman, and so, in need of another writing partner, they called on Eddie, who had been writing with various people. The three of them wrote and produced “Locking Up My Heart”, the first single to be released with the writing credit “Holland-Dozier-Holland”: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Locking Up My Heart”] That was a comparative flop for the Marvelettes, and the beginning of the downward slump we talked about for them in the episode on “Please Mr. Postman”, but the second Holland-Dozier-Holland single, recorded ten days later, was a very different matter. That one was for Martha and the Vandellas, and became widely regarded as the start of Motown’s true Golden Age — so much so that Brian and Eddie Holland’s autobiography is named after this, rather than after any of the bigger and more obvious hits they would later co-write. The introduction to “Come and Get These Memories” isn’t particularly auspicious — the Vandellas singing the chorus: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Come and Get These Memories”] Hearing all three of the Vandellas, all of whom have such strong, distinctive voices, sing together is if anything a bit much — the Vandellas aren’t a great harmony group in the way that some of the other Motown groups are, and they work best when everyone’s singing an individual line rather than block harmonies. But then we’re instantly into the sound that Holland, Dozier, and Holland — really Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, who took charge of the musical side of things, with Eddie concentrating on the lyrics — would make their own. There’s a lightly swung rhythm, but with a strong backbeat with handclaps and tambourine emphasising the two and four– the same rhythmic combination that made so many of the very early rock and roll records we looked at in the first year of the podcast, but this time taken at a more sedate pace, a casual stroll rather than a sprint. There’s the simple, chorded piano and guitar parts, both instruments often playing in unison and again just emphasising the rhythm rather than doing anything more complex. And there’s James Jamerson’s wonderful, loping bass part, doing the exact opposite of what the piano and guitar are doing. [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Come and Get These Memories”] In almost every record in the rock and roll, soul, and R&B genres up to this point — I say “almost every” because, as I’ve said many times before, there are always exceptions and there is never a first of anything — the bass does one of two things: it either plods along just playing the root notes, or it plays a simple, repeated, ostinato figure throughout, acting as a backbone while the other instruments do more interesting things. James Jamerson is the first bass player outside the jazz and classical fields to prominently, repeatedly, do something very different — he’s got the guitars and piano holding down the rhythm so steadily that he doesn’t need to. He plays melodies, largely improvised, that are jumping around and going somewhere different from where you’d expect.  “Come and Get These Memories” was largely written before Eddie’s involvement, and the bulk of the lyric was Lamont Dozier’s. He’s said that in this instance he was inspired by country singers like Loretta Lynn, and the song’s lyrical style, taking physical objects and using them as a metaphor for emotional states, certainly seems very country: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Come and Get These Memories”] “Come and Get These Memories” made number twenty-nine on the pop charts and number six on the R&B charts. Martha and the Vandellas were finally stars. As was the normal practice at Motown, when an artist had a hit, the writing and production team were given the chance to make the follow-up with them, and so the followup was another Holland/Dozier/Holland song, again from an idea by Lamont Dozier, as most of their collaborations with the Vandellas would be. “Heat Wave” is another leap forward, and is quite possibly the most exciting record that Motown had put out to this point. Where “Come and Get These Memories” established the Motown sound, this one establishes the Martha and the Vandellas sound, specifically, and the style that Holland, Dozier, and Holland would apply to many of their more uptempo productions for other artists. This is the subgenre of Motown that, when it was picked up by fans in the North of England, became known as Northern Soul — the branch of Motown music that led directly to Disco, to Hi-NRG, to electropop, to the Stock-Aitken-Waterman hit factory of the eighties, to huge chunks of gay culture, and to almost all music made for dancing in whatever genre after this point. Where “Come and Get These Memories” is mid-tempo, “Heat Wave” races along. Where “Come and Get These Memories” swings, “Heat Wave” stomps. “Come and Get These Memories” has the drums swinging and the percussion accenting the backbeat, here the drums are accenting the backbeat while the tambourine is hitting every beat dead on, four/four. It’s a rhythm which has something in common with some of the Four Seasons’ contemporary hits, but it’s less militaristic than those. While “Pistol” Allen’s drumming starts out absolutely hard on the beat, he swings it more and more as the record goes on, trusting to the listener once that hard rhythm has been established, allowing him to lay back behind the beat just a little. This is where my background as a white English man, who has never played music for dancing — when I tried to be a musician myself, it was jangly guitar pop I was playing — limits me. I have a vocabulary for chords and for melodies, but when it comes to rhythms, at a certain point my vocabulary goes away, and all I can do is say “just… *listen*” It’s music that makes you need to dance, and you can either hear that or you can’t — but of course, you can: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Heat Wave”] And Martha Reeves’ voice is perfect for the song. Most female Motown singers were pop singers first and foremost — some of them, many of them, *great* pop singers, but all with voices fundamentally suited to gentleness. Reeves was a belter. She has far more blues and gospel influence in her voice than many of the other Motown women, and she’s showing it here. “Heat Wave” made the top ten, as did the follow-up, a “Heat Wave” soundalike called “Quicksand”. But the two records after that, both still Holland/Dozier/Holland records, didn’t even make the top forty, and Annette left, being replaced by Betty Kelly. The new lineup of the group were passed over to Mickey Stevenson, for a record that would become the one for which they are best remembered to this day. It wasn’t as important a record in the development of the Motown sound as “Come and Get These Memories” or “Heat Wave”, but “Dancing in the Street” was a masterpiece. Written by Stevenson, Marvin Gaye, and Ivy Joe Hunter, it features Gaye on drums, but the most prominent percussive sound is Hunter, who, depending on which account you read was either thrashing a steel chain against something until his hands bled, or hitting a tire iron.  And Martha’s vocal is astonishing — and has an edge to it. Apparently this was the second take, and she sounds a little annoyed because she absolutely nailed the vocal on the first take only to find that there’d been a problem recording it. [Excerpt: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, “Dancing in the Street”] That went to number two in the charts, and would be the group’s cultural and commercial high point. The song also gained some notoriety two years later when, in the wake of civil rights protests that were interpreted as rioting, the song was interpreted as being a call to riot — it was assumed that instead of being about dancing it was actually about rioting, something the Rolling Stones would pick up on later when they released “Street Fighting Man”, a song that owes more than a little to the Vandellas classic. The record after that, “Wild One”, was so much of a “Dancing in the Streets” soundalike that I’ve seen claims that the backing track is an alternate take of the earlier song. It isn’t, but it sounds like it could be. But the record after that saw them reunited with Holland/Dozier/Holland, who provided them with yet another great track, “Nowhere to Run”: [Excerpt: Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, “Nowhere to Run”] For the next few years the group would release a string of classic hits, like “Jimmy Mack” and “Honey Chile”, but the rise of the Supremes, who we’ll talk about in a month, meant that like the Marvelettes before them the Vandellas became less important to Motown. When Motown moved from Detroit to LA in the early seventies, Martha was one of those who decided not to make the move with the label, and the group split up, though the original lineup occasionally reunited for big events, and made some recordings for Ian Levine’s Motorcity label. Currently, there are two touring Vandellas groups. One, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, consists of Martha and two of her sisters — including Lois, who was a late-period member of the group before they split, replacing Betty in 1967. Meanwhile “The Original Vandellas” consist of Rosalind and Annette. Gloria died in 2000, but Martha and the Vandellas are one of the very few sixties hitmaking groups where all the members of their classic lineup are still alive and performing. Martha, Rosalind, Betty, Annette, and Lois were all also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, becoming only the second all-female group to be inducted.  The Vandellas were one of the greatest of the Motown acts, and one of the greatest of the girl groups, and their biggest hits stand up against anything that any of the other Motown acts were doing at the time. When you hear them now, even almost sixty years later, you’re still hearing the sound they were in at the birth of, the sound of young America.  

Gloria Williams and I talk about her beginnings and how she got into the world of beauty. She takes us through her childhood and how her family's "old-fashioned rub down" has been the catalyst to creating her own business and landing her a once in a lifetime role as Oprah's personal pedicurist. Listen for an amazing story from an amazing woman. She even leaves us with a few gems of wisdom from Oprah herself.

In this week's episode, we share cases of two baby kidnappers (Baby-nappers?) and offer a little insight into the motivations of/psychology behind female criminals who kidnap babies. Nathalie shares the case of Georgia Tann, a baby kidnapper and trafficker who made millions from illegal adoptions. Rachel shares the case of Juliette Parker, a woman who, with her 16 year old daughter, attempted to drug a mother and steal her child. Music is by Joseph McDade: https://www.patreon.com/josephmcdade/posts Nathalie's Sources https://historydaily.org/georgia-tann https://nypost.com/2017/06/17/this-woman-stole-children-from-the-poor-to-give-to-the-rich/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Tann https://www.insider.com/georgia-tann-tennessee-children-home-society-survivors-speak-out-2019-12 Rachel's Sources: Juliette Leilani Parker, Former Colorado Springs Mayoral Candidate, Accused Of Drugging Mother To Steal Baby, by Amir Vera https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/02/19/juliette-leilani-parker-colorado-springs-cupcake-drug-steal-baby/ Baby-Stealing Scheme Alleged: Panicky 911 Call During a Photoshoot, by CNN https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/02/19/baby-stealing-scheme-alleged-panicky-911-call-during-photo-shoot/ Mother and daughter, 16, 'posing as baby photographers drugged a woman with a cupcake so they could steal her newborn', by Matthew Wright https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8007311/Mother-daughter-posing-baby-photographers-drugged-woman-steal-newborn.html Former Colorado mayoral candidate drugged new mom with cupcake in scheme to steal her baby, police say, by Meagan Flynn https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/18/former-colo-mayoral-candidate-drugged-new-mom-with-cupcake-scheme-steal-her-baby-police-say/ Baby abductors, like Gloria Williams, often fit a similar profile, by Whitney Lloyd https://abcnews.go.com/Health/baby-abductors-gloria-williams-fit-similar-profile/story?id=53081106

When Kamiyah Mobley was only 8 hours old, she was kidnapped from the hospital by Gloria Williams. It was not until 18 years later that she was reunited with her birth parents. Their reunion wasn't everything Shamara hoped for, however. We look deeper into the story of Kamiyah Mobley and her unique experience. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

EPISODE 3 | In July 1998, Gloria Williams shows up at her mother's home in Ruffin, S.C., with Alexis. Her newborn baby girl will be the answer to her troubled relationship. Or will it?

Craig Aiken, the biological father of Kamiyah Mobley, addresses the media following the sentencing of Gloria Williams to 18 years in Florida prison. Williams abducted Kamiyah Mobley hours after she was born in a Jacksonville hospital on July 10, 1998.

Hear Judge Marianne Aho deliver the imposition of sentence for Gloria Williams, who plead guilty to the July 10, 1998 kidnapping of Kamiyah Mobley from Jacksonville hospital University Medical Center just hours after Kamiyah was born. The sentence was read June 8, 2018.

For the first time ever Gloria Williams call into the show. She sides with Curtis over her own daughter.

Gloria Williams, a Chicago Native, is lovingly known as the Foot Nanny. Gloria is the pedicurist to the stars, one in particular, Oprah Winfrey.  Gloria joins us on Sunday June 15th to share her story here on Beauty Talk.   Please tune in and join the conversations with your questions and comments bby calling 914.803.4399.

SHOW #849 - In Association & Alliance with God - Dr. Gloria Williams

SHOW # 843 - Dr. Gloria Williams  - Hope Brings the Unseen to Life-Podcast Settings 2