Music Blog, Sixties

We’re Having A Heatwave

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Glyn Wilton’s Mixed Music Bag week #31 and
our final week showcasing the letters M & N. I chose M.

I’ve chosen to close out July with a 1963 high octane hit by an incredible Motown girl group.

In 1957 friends Annette Beard, Rosaline Ashford and Gloria Williams formed the group known as the Del-Phis; eventually Martha Reeves joined the group. In 1961 the group’s name was changed to The Vels. Right around this time Gloria Williams left the group and Martha Reeves moved up in ranks as lead vocalist. In 1967 the name was changed for a third time to Martha and the Vandellas. During a nine-year run from 1963-1972, the group charted over 26 hits recorded in the styles of doo-wop, R&B, pop, blues, rock and roll and soul. In 1995, Martha and the Vandellas was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“Heat Wave” was written in 1963 by the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland and was a hit for Martha and the Vandellas. Released as a single on the Motown subsidiary Gordy label, the song garnered a Grammy Award nomination …. the first Motown group to ever do so. The single reached #1 on the Billboard Hot R&B chart …. where it stayed for four weeks …. and peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard named the song #12 on their list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs.

Instrumentation for “Heatwave” was done by The Funk Brothers, a group of Detroit-based session musicians who performed the backing to most Motown recordings from 1959 until 1972 when the company moved to Los Angeles.

“Heat Wave” was one of the first songs to exemplify the style of music later termed as the “Motown Sound”. Here are Martha and the Vandellas with their 1963 hit, “Heat Wave”.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=D9f-ZY86yqU%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

Lyrics

Whenever I’m with him
Something inside starts to burning
And I’m filled with desire
Could it be the devil in me
Or is this the way love’s supposed to be?

It’s like a heat wave
It’s burning in my heart
I can’t keep from burning
It’s tearing me apart

Whenever he calls my name so softly and plain
Right then, right there, I feel that burning flame
Has high blood pressure got a hold on me?
Is this the way love’s supposed to be?

It’s like a heat wave
It’s burning in my heart
I can’t keep from burning
It’s tearing me apart

Sometimes I stare in space
Tears all over my face
I can’t explain it, don’t understand it
I ain’t never felt like this before

Now this funny feeling has me amazed
Don’t know what to do, my head’s in a haze
It’s like a heat wave

Yeah yeah
Yeah yeah
Ha oh yeah

Yeah yeah
Yeah yeah
Oh yeah

I feel it burning right here in my heart
Don’t you know it’s like a heat wave?

Yeah yeah
Yeah yeah
Oh

Don’t you know it’s like a heat wave
Burning right here in my heart?

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Dozier Holland Dozier
Heatwave lyrics © Stone Agate Music

Mixed Music Bag 2024 – week 31 – Man ….it’s hot!

Big thanks to Glyn for hosting Mixed Music Bag every week.

Thanks for joining me today and spinning some tunes.

See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2024

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk and The Rhythm Section and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

53 thoughts on “We’re Having A Heatwave”

            1. Poor Henry Lumpkin! You’d think with a name like that no one would forget him but he just didn’t leave a mark.

              Debbie, you’ve got an AMAZING collection of playlists for Motown! I saw my absolute favorite song of all time “Green Onions”! No soul/blues/R&B playlist is complete without that one.

              I’ll keep coming back and forth now that I have your link.

              Liked by 1 person

              Reply

              1. I know what you mean! People tell me: Man, you must be using your pool a lot! To which I respond: But that requires going outside!!! LOL!
                I do a 5:45 run in the morning and then jump in, nekked every morning!

                Liked by 1 person

                Reply

                  1. I tell ya. I never fully appreciated skinny-dipping until my kids moved out 😉 Yeah, I’m kinda glad the run has been working since I feel like I’m expanding exponentially since my injury!

                    Liked by 1 person

                    Reply

                    2. Love having everything up where they belong in the pool 😉

                      As for the running. I am going very slow and doing major stretching afterwards. I’m hoping to get rid of this damn thing once and for all. Doing nothing from March 3 to July 14 or so did not help; chiropractic treatments did nothing and neither did physio – though, if I’m honest, I didn’t give it a chance. Was way too expensive so.

                      Liked by 1 person

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