The Andantes: The Girl Group Left Behind
The hidden figures of Hitsville sang on some of Motown's biggest hits
by Touré, AARP The Magazine, December 2018/January 2019
Can she sing? Marlene Barrow and Jackie Hicks sounded downright skeptical. It was the summer of 1961, and the young women — then 19 and 21 years old, respectively — were at the Motown recording studio on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. Barrow, tall and slender, and Hicks, bubbly and full-figured, had grown up singing in the choir of the Hartford Avenue Baptist Church. They had been to the Motown studio before, had laid down some backup vocals at the fledgling label as two-thirds of a trio, but then the high soprano in their group had quit suddenly, and Barrow and Hicks weren’t too interested in working without her.
A studio staffer, thinking of a young soprano in the studio’s choral ensemble, made a suggestion: “We’ve got a girl in here who can sing.”
Barrow and Hicks had the same question. “Can she sing?”
“Oh, yeah” came the reply. “She can sing.”
More than 50 years later, no one remembers which song the three worked on that day, but the new girl, Louvain Demps — a reserved Catholic woman of 23 — still remembers how it went. “We just seemed to click right away,” she says.
“First time,” Hicks adds. “First song, perfect blend.”
https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/music/info-2018/motown-girl-group-the-andantes.html
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In recent years the Andantes have begun to receive the notice that many feel they ought to have had all along. Reissued Motown records now bear the Andantes name if the women sang on them. After being paid a flat hourly fee during their recording years, the women are now receiving some residuals for their work. And in 2013, while Barrow-Tate was still living, all three Andantes were able to visit an exhibit at the Motown Museum that celebrated the Supremes, the Vandellas, the Marvelettes and — right alongside them — the Andantes.
While she appreciates the belated recognition, Hicks says she would have been just as happy remaining in the background. “I’ve always been proud of myself and thankful to the Lord to have allowed me to do that,” she notes. “I don’t care how high anybody goes, it does not lower me any lower. Because I know what I did.”
I love this song..................
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