[img:$uid]http://blast-from-thepast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/mlettes.jpg[/img:$uid]

(Gladys on far left)

"THE MARVELETTES" FORMER LEAD SINGER GLADYS HORTON SUCCUMBS

(Sherman Oaks, CA) - Gladys Horton, co-founder and former lead singer of the popular Motown all-female group, "The Marvelettes," has died.

She was 66.

Vaughn Thornton, 40, says his mother passed at approximately 10:00 PM, PST on Wednesday, Jan. 26th in a Sherman Oaks, Calif. (near Los Angeles) nursing home where she had been recuperating from a stroke that she suffered some time ago.

"My mother died peacefully," said Thornton. "She fought as long as she could."

Horton was born in Detroit, Mich. in 1944. She was raised by foster parents in the western Detroit suburb of Inkster.

While a student at Inkster High School, Horton developed a strong interest in singing and joined the high school glee club. She joined with several other members of the glee club, Katherine Anderson, Juanita Cowart , Georgeanna Tillman and later Georgia Dobbins to form a group.

The ladies called themselves "The Casinyets," short for "can't sing yet."

Following a successful talent contest to sing for Motown, Dobbins, who was the group's first lead singer, co-created "Please Mr. Postman." Sadly, Dobbins had to leave the group after her father forbid her from singing in nightclubs.

Horton then became the lead singer and the group changed their name to "The Marvelettes." Motown released the song in the summer of 1961 when Horton was only fifteen.

The song jumped to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Motown's first #1 Pop hit.

Horton led on several other hits songs, including "Beechwood 4-5789," "Playboy" and "Too Many Fish In The Sea."

She was later replaced as lead singer for the group in 1965 by Wanda Young. Horton stayed with the group until 1967.

Horton is also survived by son, Sammy, 42.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

[Edited 1/27/11 9:52am]

It should be noted that among fellow original Marvelettes, Horton joins Georgeanna Tillman among the deceased. Georgeanna Tillman, the woman right next to Gladys on the right, had a long-time bout with lupus. That battle led her to have problems on the road and on the advice of doctors in 1965, she left the group. She later married a member of Motown's staff team (Billy Gordon). She died of complications from lupus in 1980. She was only 35 years old.

What has been known as a pure fact, Ms. Horton sang lead on the group's most important hit:

Fun fact: prior to the Supremes singing it, the hit song "Where Did Our Love Go" was originally giving to the Marvelettes. What's not so known about that is the song's low register was because of then-lead vocalist Gladys Horton's deep contralto vocals. When the group, then the top tier group of Motown, turned it down, the song's writers (Holland-Dozier-Holland) kept the song as it was and after initially thinking of having Mary Wilson of the Supremes sing lead on it, because of Berry Gordy's decision to make Diana Ross the only lead singer, they had Miss Ross sing in Ms. Horton's career. Until then Diana had sung in an, some say annoyingly, higher register. Due to her singing lower, this led to a change in Diana's vocals and shaped her into the vocalist she is now.

Timmy84 said:

Fun fact: prior to the Supremes singing it, the hit song "Where Did Our Love Go" was originally giving to the Marvelettes. What's not so known about that is the song's low register was because of then-lead vocalist Gladys Horton's deep contralto vocals. When the group, then the top tier group of Motown, turned it down, the song's writers (Holland-Dozier-Holland) kept the song as it was and after initially thinking of having Mary Wilson of the Supremes sing lead on it, because of Berry Gordy's decision to make Diana Ross the only lead singer, they had Miss Ross sing in Ms. Horton's career. Until then Diana had sung in an, some say annoyingly, higher register. Due to her singing lower, this led to a change in Diana's vocals and shaped her into the vocalist she is now.

Interesting. Didn't know this.

She died early.

R.I.P

Great voice she had

R.I.P

R.I.P.

Gunsnhalen said:

Great voice she had

R.I.P

yup...totally underrated

^

My favorite Gladys lead.

[Edited 1/27/11 11:37am]

I would love for their story to be told. A mixture of triumph and tragedy. Barney Ales was wrong when he said the biggest Motown tragedy was Florence Ballard, it was really these women (and Mary Wells) who I considered to be the most tragic.

Timmy84 said:

I would love for their story to be told. A mixture of triumph and tragedy. Barney Ales was wrong when he said the biggest Motown tragedy was Florence Ballard, it was really these women (and Mary Wells) who I considered to be the most tragic.

Amen.... The 60s girl groups were before my time but I'm always curious how their lives were behind the music. Motown ripped off alot of their own artists.

[Edited 1/27/11 19:19pm]

EmeraldSkies said:

http://prince.org/msg/8/351747

Hmm I think I created mine's first.

At the black Mecca, THE APOLLO THEATER in 1963.

Timmy84 said:

EmeraldSkies said:

http://prince.org/msg/8/351747

Hmm I think I created mine's first.

Ah..so you did.

EmeraldSkies said:

Timmy84 said:

Hmm I think I created mine's first.

Ah..so you did.

lol

Another Motown legend gone. She wasn't as old as i thought.

R.I.P

I'm so sad to hear this SAD news. I hav'nt heard anything on TV about her passing but i did hear of her passing on Tom Joiner Morning Show. A TRUE LEGEND will be missed but she left us a GREAT catalog of tunes to last us a LONG TIME. R.I.P Gladys Horton

Gladys Horton, Marvelettes’ Lead Singer, Is Dead

By BRUCE WEBER

Published: January 27, 2011

Gladys Horton, who gathered some of her high school friends into a singing group that became the Marvelettes and then sang lead vocals on “Please Mr. Postman,” which became Motown Records’ first No. 1 hit, died on Wednesday in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Her son Vaughn Thornton said in an interview that her health had been in decline for several years. In a statement released by the Los Angeles chapter of the Motown Alumni Association (an independent group not associated with Motown Records, which is now an affiliate of Universal Music), he said she had not recovered after suffering a stroke.

Ms. Horton was in her mid-60s, but her precise age was uncertain. The statement said she was born in 1944, but Mr. Thornton gave his mother’s birthday as May 30, 1945, making her 65 at her death.

Ms. Horton was in a high school glee club in Inkster, Mich., outside Detroit, when she recruited three of her classmates — Katherine Anderson (now Schaffner), Georgeanna Tillman and Juanita Cowart — as well as a friend who had recently graduated, Georgia Dobbins, and formed a quintet. They called themselves the Casinyets — a contraction of the words “can’t sing yet,” an acknowledgment of their lack of experience.

Competing in a talent contest whose winners were to receive an audition for Motown, they didn’t win, but got the audition anyway. Motown executives, including Berry Gordy Jr., the label’s founder, were impressed but said they needed to come up with original material. A friend of Ms. Dobbins, William Garrett, had just written a blues song, and with his permission Ms. Dobbins rewrote the song, about a girl aching for mail from her far-away boyfriend, casting it in a pop vein, though she kept the title, “Please Mr. Postman.”

After Ms. Dobbins left the group because her mother was ill and her father wanted her at home, she was replaced by Wanda Young, another graduate of the same high school in Inkster, leaving Ms. Horton to sing the lead vocals, including the memorable line “De-liver de let-ter, de sooner de bet-ter.”

On Dec. 11, 1961, after three months on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, “Please Mr. Postman” reached No. 1. The song would later be recorded by the Beatles and, in 1975, the Carpenters, for whom it was also a No. 1 hit.

Smokey Robinson wrote several songs for the Marvelettes, who went through a number of personnel changes — becoming a quartet and later a trio — before disbanding in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Ms. Horton stayed with the group until 1967, when she became pregnant with her first child. She sang on a number of hit recordings, including “Playboy,” “Beechwood 4-5789” and Mr. Robinson’s tunes “Don’t Mess With Bill” and “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game.”

Precise information about Ms. Horton’s early life was not available. Most biographical sources say she was born in Detroit or in Inkster, but Mr. Thornton said she was born in Gainesville, Fla. By the time she was nine months old, her son said, she was an orphan and consigned to foster care, growing up mostly in different towns in Michigan. Her full name was Gladys Catherine Horton. She was married once and divorced, and had three sons. Besides Mr. Thornton, one other son, Sammy Coleman, survives her, along with two grandchildren.

The origin of the Marvelettes is variously recounted in music encyclopedias and other sources, and they usually describe Ms. Horton as a co-founder of the group. But in an interview on Thursday, Ms. Schaffner, one of the original Marvelettes, gave her full credit.

“We only started singing together because Gladys asked us,” she recalled. “Usually we’d go to Georgeanna’s house and play canasta.”



Rest In Peace.

My favorite Marvelettes record with Gladys on lead (well Wanda's singing lead too ):

From '63.

This is MY SONG!!!! Love the bass line!

And that harmonica solo is nuts!!

funkpill said:

And that harmonica solo is nuts!!

Timmy84 said:

My favorite Marvelettes record with Gladys on lead (well Wanda's singing lead too ):

From '63.

Thanks Tim.

NMuzakNSoul said:

Timmy84 said:

My favorite Marvelettes record with Gladys on lead (well Wanda's singing lead too ):

From '63.

Thanks Tim.

You're welcome.

.

[Edited 5/8/18 14:06pm]

RIP Gladys...