THE VELVELETTES

The Velvelettes were one of a surprising number of Motown groups who undeservedly fell through the cracks.

Bertha Barbee had formed a family act with her uncle and cousins called (fittingly enough) the Barbees. In 1961, while attending Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, she founded a new group with her cousin Norma Barbee and a fellow student, Mildred Gill. The latter’s 14-year-old sister, Carolyn (A/K/A Cal) Gill, soon came aboard and brought along her best friend, Betty Kelley. Cal became the lead singer of the group, which called itself Les Jolie Femmes. However, they soon changed their name when “everyone said we sounded smooth...like velvet.”

A fellow student, Robert Bullock, was the nephew of Motown president Berry Gordy, Jr. When the Velvelettes won a fraternity party’s talent show, Bullock encouraged them to audition for his uncle. The girls practiced for weeks before they made the four-hour drive to Detroit. Motown’s William “Mickey” Stevenson, who had recorded the Barbees in the ‘50s, got the Velvelettes signed.

The group’s first single, in 1963, was “There He Goes” / “That’s the Reason Why,” with harmonica playing by 13-year-old “Little” Stevie Wonder. The following year, Norman Whitfield produced “Needle in a Haystack,” for which the Velvelettes did not initially care. However, the song grew on them, especially when it became their first charted single in October 1964. By then, Betty Kelley had quit the group to join Martha & The Vandellas. The Velvelettes continued as a quartet.

In early 1965, they had their second and biggest hit, “He Was Really Sayin’ Somethin’.” It reached #21 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart and was revived seventeen years later when two English groups, Bananarama and Fun Boy Three, joined forces. (They altered the title to “Really Saying Something”). The record became a UK hit and, in the US, the video went into heavy rotation on MTV.

The Velvelettes played the usual Black theaters and toured with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars. They made TV appearances on shows like Shindig and Hullabaloo. Their first album was scheduled for a 1966 release but never came out. By 1967, the Barbee sisters and Mildred Gill were all married and quit the group to settle in to family life. Carolyn Gill brought in Sandra Tilley and Annette McMillan, reducing the Velvelettes to a trio. She also married Richard Street (a future Temptation), which led to the group’s dissolution.

In 1971, the trio’s five-year-old single, “These Things Will Keep Me Loving You,” became a top forty hit in England. However, their newfound success did not prompt the Velvelettes to reunite. That would not occur until 1984, when the Barbees and the McGills got back together. Three years later, they recorded an album, One Door Closes, for England’s Motorcity label.

In the liner notes to The Best of the Velvelettes CD, the group members wrote, “The Motown sound demanded perfection. We remember Mr. Gordy calling us back to the studio at two in the morning to overdub. We still remember the social training from Ms. Maxine Powell, and the vocal coaching from Maurice King and Harvey Fuqua. It was hard work. We didn’t care. It was MOTOWN!”

Charted singles:

“Needle in a Haystack” (1964) R&B #31, Pop #45
“He Was Really Sayin’ Somethin’” (1965) R&B #21, Pop #64
“These Things Will Keep Me Loving You” (1966) R&B #43, Pop #102

Other notable Velvelettes recordings include “Lonely Lonely Girl Am I,” “Since You’ve Been Loving Me,” “That’s the Reason Why,” and “A Bird in the Hand (Is Worth Two in the Bush).”