Night At The Roundtable with Soul-sations The Marvelettes and their last top-40 single, from the album Sophisticated Soul - "My Baby Must Be A Magician" from 1967.
March 3, 2011

marvelettes-resized.jpg
The Marvelettes - part of that Powerhouse of Soul called Motown in the 1960's.


Since this has been a sort of free-for-all week on The Roundtable this week, I thought I would toss a bit of soul into the mixture. The Marvelettes, though not coming to mind as easily as say, The Supremes or Martha And The Vandellas were nonetheless part of the backbone of the great Motown legacy and were just as much a contributor to the Soul movement as any of them, being the first of the Female Motown acts to score a hit.

Shifts in personnel may have contributed to a certain change in identity and recognition, still the distinctive voice of Gladys Horton (whose passing in January of this year was a sad occasion for the music world) was part of a huge number of hits for the group during their high point.

Tonight's track is from their 1968 album Distinctive Soul and My Baby Must Be A Magician was the last single of theirs to crack the top 40 in 1967. Sadly, Horton had left the group in the midst of recording and she's not heard on this track. Still, it's a rarely heard single from an underrated group and something of a gem, and that's what we like on The Roundtable.

I'm assuming you do too?

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon