The Marvelettes

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Marvelettes were an American girl group, formed in 1960 at Inkster High School in Inkster, Michigan, near Detroit. The fifteen-year-old Gladys Horton founded the group with Katherine Anderson, Georgeanna Tillman, Juanita Cowart and Georgia Dobbins. Dobbins was replaced by Wanda Young before the group got its first contract. After a talent contest they were given an audition at Motown, where Berry Gordy asked them to come back with a song of their own. Dobbins was given an unfinished blues song by William Garrett and rewrote it overnight into Please Mr. Postman.

Music and breakthrough

Gordy gave them the name Marvelettes and signed them in July 1961 to Motown's Tamla branch. Please Mr. Postman was released in August 1961 and was number one in December. It was one of the first number one singles by a female vocal group and the first by a Motown act. Dobbins gave the song the teenage sound of doo-wop. The group suffered from little promotion by Motown, health problems and substance use. Cowart left in 1963, Tillman in 1965 and Horton in 1967. In 1966 a comeback followed with Don't Mess with Bill.

Influence

In 1969 the group stopped performing and a year later it ceased, after the album The Return of the Marvelettes, on which only Wanda Young, under the name Wanda Rogers, could be heard. The Marvelettes opened the way for the Motown girl groups that came after them.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1961Please Mr. Postman
• 1962Playboy
• 1963The Marvelous Marvelettes
• 1967The Marvelettes
• 1968Sophisticated Soul
• 1969In Full Bloom
• 1970The Marvelettes

See also

• Playboy
• The Marvelous Marvelettes