Soul song week: 3. “Heat Wave” and “Nowhere to Run”

May 21, 2013 • 4:49 am

Yes, everyone loved the Supremes, but for sheer soul power emanating from an all-girl groups—”girl groups” were what they were called in the Sixties—you can’t beat Martha and the Vandellas. The powerful voice of Martha Reeves really drips “soul”—which I suppose I define as powerful emotion expressed in rhythm and blues songs—more than did, say, the croonings of Diana Ross, good as they were.

Let’s leave aside the overrated “Dancing in the Streets”—the group’s signature song—and listen to my two favorites.

I can’t find a creditable live version of “Heat Wave,” so you’ll have to do with a lip-synched one (the full name of the song is “[Love is like a] Heat Wave”).  Never mind; it’ll still make you want to get up and dance. The song came from the the fantastic Motown composing trio of brothers Eddie and Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, known to all Motown aficionados as “Holland/Dozier/Holland.” Have a look at their Wikipedia page: they wrote more great soul songs than anyone ever.  Yet who remembers their names?

Here’s Joan Osborne’s rocking version from the great documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” (yes, the white guitar player was an original Funk Brother, Joe Messina). Note, too, that Osborne doesn’t change the original very much. You don’t mess with a Motown song.

The intro to this video is a bit weird, but one benefit is that it introduces the original Motown session musicians before the song proper begins at 0:53. Benny Benjamin, the drummer, was quite important in creating the distinctive Motown sound, but, really, none of these guys got near the credit they deserve. Sure, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and Holland/Dozier/Holland wrote the songs, but the session musicians really transmogrified them into classic tunes (see here for a description of their innovations).

Linda Rondstadt did a good cover of the song in 1975, which you can find here on YouTube. Despite the great guitar solo, I give Joan Osborne’s version the edge, though neither compares to the original.

If you want to understand Benny Benjamin’s contribution to Motown, listen to the opening drumbeat of my favorite M & the V song, “Nowhere to Run” (1965) which instantly identifies the song.  His backing through the rest of the song is impeccable. This was also written by Holland/Dozier/Holland. It’s a haunting song, and, as Wikipedia notes,

Holand-Dozier-Holland and the Funk Brothers band gave the song a large, hard-driving instrumentation sound similar of the sound of prior “Dancing In The Street” with snow chains used as percussion alongside the tambourine and drums.

Snow chains!

Finally, a neglected M & the V song is “Come and get these memories” (1963), which you can hear here. It, too, was written by Holland/Dozier/Holland.

13 thoughts on “Soul song week: 3. “Heat Wave” and “Nowhere to Run””

  1. HDH had a characteristic habit of reversing the normal structure of lyrics: from ‘Third finger, left hand’, ‘All his love I know I’ve won’, ‘Other boys I sent away’, ‘In my book he’s the best’.

    And in ‘Nowhere to Run’, ‘Everywhere I go,
    Your face I see’ and ‘Each night as I sleep,
    Into my heart you creep’.

    This reminds me of the style of old English rough ballads, written usually anonymously, from pre- and early industrial times; they were very well-liked – the popular music and democratic satire of their day.

    In pop, I find the technique grating, but people obviously go for this rude approach. And hey, didn’t HDH get 57 top hits or summat absurd; do they care? Probably not. One monkey don’t stop no show – which I suspect was written about Berry Gordy after their falling out.

  3. Great band, definitely my favourite all-girl soul band from that era too.

    Interesting bit of trivia – which hugely successful English rock band of that era opened their shows with “Heatwave”?

  4. Enjoyed seeing the comment about “Dancing In The Streets” being overrated… very true. Maybe it’s partly due to being overplayed, but it seems to me that many of the most popular songs by artists are my least favorite ones. Another example: “Moondance” by Van Morrison, which I cannot abide, and which pales in comparison to nearly anything else he has done… but, that’s another topic.

    Coming back to Martha & the Vandellas, underplayed to this day IMHO is “Jimmie Mack.”

    Thanks for these posts, my sharing them with my sister brings back memories for us both!

  5. Soul music is not just Motownish sound.

    If you want to dig deeper into deep black soul, what about Al Green?

    3. I wouldn’t call Motown soul at all. Go to Memphis, Philly, and even New York to hear soul music.

  6. I saw Joan Osborne perform live in Brisbane Australia a few years ago…Brilliant !

  7. I just read your definition of soul, which isn’t bad, but you don’t know what rhythm and blues means, so it is completely undermined. Early Motown, and especially these two M&V songs, is pop music. That’s not a put down, it’s great pop music. R&B has blues bar forms, chord progressions, a back beat and a bass line. The M&V songs have none of these, but rather repetitive piano chords and horn notes that go nowhere. The focus is on the sung melody and the hook. Pop music.

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