At 85, Martha Reeves Is Still Searching - and She's Found Something

Martha Reeves

By Darlene Donloe

Martha Reeves doesn’t call it a comeback. 

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, the voice that sent “Dancing in the Street” thundering across America in 1964, prefers another word: “continuation.”

After 22 years without a studio album, Reeves returned on August 14 with 'Searching,' an 11-song collection that trades Motown’s snap for something richer, jazz-tinged, lived-in. It’s currently available on iTunes, Spotify and other streaming platforms. 

In the lead-off position is “To Know You Is To Love You,” a Stevie Wonder song now reimagined by Grammy-nominated dance icon Eric Kupper into a soulful house single that puts Reeves on the dance charts again.

Kupper, whose three decades of remixes have elevated Whitney Houston, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Cher, Depeche Mode, and Michael Jackson, brings his signature sound to one of Motown’s greatest voices, reimagining Martha Reeves’ acclaimed new single, ‘To Know You Is To Love You,’ creating a collaboration that bridges classic soul and contemporary dance music.

For Reeves, the album is a kind of autobiography.  Delfeayo Marsalis produced and arranged the album that was recorded in New Orleans over two years. Her manager, Chris Roe, was a co-producer.

“It was Delfeayo Marsalis and Chris Roe who decided to share the song ‘Searching’ with me,” said Martha Reeves during a recent interview. “It was written by Delfeayo. That’s what the subject is. It kind of lets people know where I’ve been and in what frame of mind I’ve been in all these years.”

She credits producer and production manager Chris Roe with choosing the tracks. 

“I can identify with them because most of the songs have something to do with my life as a performer, a singer, a mother, a daughter, and as a sister,” Reeves said.

Martha Reeves

Ask Reeves why she’s still making music at 85, and she laughs. 

“Are you kidding,” she said. “You asked me a question like that? Don’t you know people in this business have a dedication from God, who is the giver of the gift? And it’s up to us to handle it and to produce it properly. What we have to do is to take what He gives us and do the best we can with it.”

Faith threads the record. 

“When you look into the lyrics, you’ll see,” Reeves said. “I’ve been searching a long time for that, someone to satisfy my mind, and I think I found them in Jesus Christ. And my album does contain a devotional song; this sort of expresses how I feel about God, and knowing Jesus Christ is my personal savior.”

Don’t expect a Motown retread. 

“This is not a classic Motown sound,” she notes. “Some of it is kind of sultry, like Mood Indigo.” 

She should know the difference. 

“I’ve been on four major labels,” Reeves said. “I’ve been on Motown, Arista, MCA, and Fantasy. People have collected my material. My history. I guess I’ve been singing all my life.”

The making of Searching was itself a revelation. Recording with Delfeayo Marsalis at the Marsalis family’s studio in New Orleans — a facility dedicated to patriarch Ellis Marsalis — felt like school again. 

“It was wonderful,” Reeves said. “It was an education. I learned a lot about relationships with musicians. Delfeayo was a master in the recording session.”

It was the first time, Reeves said, she’d ever been in the studio as the music, horns, and vocals were all being recorded live, together.

“It’s like having a live concert in the studio,” she said. “Everything we did together was magic. Everything worked musically and magically.”

She calls the studio a “well-kept secret” and praises its mission: “The family is taking kids from schools, bussing them there daily and teaching them how to be genius musicians and singers.”

Reeves called the studio ‘a wonderful school.’ 

“I think it’s modeled after Motown in a way because that’s what Motown was to me,” she said. “Motown was a school. I went to school. I learned from the producers and from the different writers, under the direction of William Stevenson, the A&R director. I guess Motown started it all. Berry Gordy is a genius, and he brought us through.”

Reeves is blunt about music vanishing from public schools. 

“I think it’s a detriment because I wouldn’t be anything if it hadn’t been for Emily Wagstaff teaching me vocals in elementary school, and Abraham Silver, in high school, taking me out of the class, and single-handedly raising me in music,” she said. “You never know enough or too much about music.”

At 85, Reeves is candid about aging, love, and legacy. 

“I’ve grown old,” she said. “I think I’ve done well. I’ve settled into 85 really nicely.” 

She’s still looking for a partner. 

“I dream one day of searching and finding my mate, which is all I’m saying about it,” she said. “I’m still an 85-year-old woman looking for her mate. Music allows me to express that. And I think I’ve done a wonderful job of keeping my composure and expressing my emotions and feelings through this song, this album.”

Reeves said ‘Searching’ is the answer to the prayer to the question she’s been asking all her life. 

“I might find him, whoever he is, that mate I’m searching for,” Reeves said. “We all want that companionship. I haven’t found it, but I’ve been very close to it. Very close. We all need happiness. That’s what I’m singing about.”

She’s aware of how the industry can sometimes sideline Black women her age. 

“The entertainment industry as a whole, they leave Black women of a certain age out of the conversation, especially when it comes to like comebacks,” Reeves said. “I think ‘Searching’ is going to change that. I don’t know about a change in that particular element of relationships. However, it gives me a chance to express my opinion. I’ve had close calls. I do know what love is. I know how it feels. But I’m searching for that one special one. I want them to feel as close to me as God is. I want a man with a big heart and one that’s full of love and giving. I’ll be happy when I find it because I give love.”

Asked what she’s been doing for 22 years, she answers simply: “Making albums. This one got out. This was being presented to the Federation of Music, which makes me proud. I’ve been writing music my whole life.”

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

Her recent rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner at the Women’s Pro Baseball League inaugural game drew online chatter. 

Reeves shrugs it off. 

“We’re still educating, and that’s the point. That’s what I want to be. I want to be known for not only learning from the teachers that taught me, but for transferring their lessons and teaching other people.”

The Eric Kupper remix thrilled her. 

“Management thought that would be the right way to go, since I’m a dancer,” she said. “I mean I did sing, ‘Dancing in the Street. Why not, Eric Kupper? I give all the credit, honor and glory to Chris Roe, who has taken on my case after all these years and brought me back in the heart of the public. I’m sure Stevie [Wonder] had love in mind, but he didn’t have that beat that Eric put on there. And I’m sure that he’ll love it when he hears it. The minute the song comes on, and I hear that bassline, I start wiggling. I start dancing.”

Reeves is confident about the impact “To Know You Is To Love You,” the lead single, will have.

“I feel good about it,” she said. “It’s a good rhythm. It’s good musicianship. The words are precious. To know you is to love you, to know the public is to love the public, to know this entertainment life is to love it. I love show business. I love that God chose me to be one of the ones with a voice. With a mind. With the body, with the head. Oh, I’m so happy to be here. There was a time I didn’t feel this way. But I’ve been inspired.”

“When I sing, ‘My Baby Loves Me,’ I’m speaking for all the women in the world talking about their man.”

So what does she hope for now? 

“It’s already there,” she said. “It’s here. It’s done. All I have to do now is live it. Go wherever I can and reproduce it, but it’s done. It’s recorded. It’s history.”

She pauses, then adds: “Every moment of my life, I’m ready to sing. And if you talk to anyone else in show business, they’ll tell you the same thing. You’re always ready. Always, if you got it, you keep it ready and prepared. I can sing at the drop of a hat. I sing at any given moment.”

Reeves said she has been working on ‘Searching’ ‘all my life.’

“It’s a collection of lessons and memories of people that led the way in this business,” she said. “I can be considered a historian because I’ve searched and researched. I’ve studied, and I’ve been taught. And I’m here living proof that life goes on even after 85.”

Martha Reeves helped invent the sound of young America. With Searching, Reeves shows that wisdom has its own swing. And she’s already climbing the dance charts. It entered the Billboard dance music chart at No. 31.

“It’s all joy,” she says. “It’s kind of hard to sit still.”