Among the most frequent destinations on her tours is Britain, which began with an invitation from a well-known British singer: “Dusty Springfield had a BBC special and she asked for Motown acts to be on her special, and that’s what introduced us to England.” It has become a two-way love affair. “We tour England three to four times a year. I think I have as big a market in England as in America. They have a way of loving you no matter how old you are. I’m so lucky to have met the English acts and have them invite us over. I guess they thought Jimmy Mack was Scottish!”
Is there a travel moment that stands out in her memory? The reply is immediate: “When we were in Cairo on tour, we actually climbed into the pyramid. It’s hard to believe we actually did that…just the experience of traveling to a place I’d always dreamed about. The sun was hot and shining, there were no trees to block it or make shade. To see men riding by on camels, to see how the pyramids were put together stone by stone—I thought, well, that makes me a world-class traveler!”
After a pandemic year of remaining at home (what she calls “sitting still for a year and counting our blessings,”), she’s hitting the road again, eager to share the good feelings her music engenders. “I’m ready to travel. I’m rehearsing every day, so my voice is strong and my heart is right.”
Photo: Jenny Risher.
Voice and heart: the two are inextricably linked, as keeping hearts right has always been a blessed effect of the music. As she describes her early touring days, you realize the power that music has to create unity: “People who hadn’t spoken to each other for years could come together as we sang songs of joy and happiness. We saw people tearing down those barriers and dancing and giving each other high fives. We turned it into a festival of joy and music, with lyrics everyone could sing. You could sing the songs collectively, whatever gender or race you were, and that was the genius of Berry Gordy. He called them fans, but I call them family.”
Part of this family is, of course, her multitude of gay fans, and she has a simple explanation for why she’s so beloved in the community. “Well, everybody is gay; our music makes everybody gay. We don’t hate, and when you take the hate off, you’ve got gay!” This is someone, after all, who proudly sang at her friends’ same-sex wedding a good twenty years ago, has participated in “Night of 1000 Gowns” and several events for Palm Springs LGBTQ and AIDS organizations, and has even been honored by the Lambda Car Club International.
She credits her parents for this openness and straightforwardness: “My mother taught me how to love everybody, how to get along. I don’t see any differences in people.”
This was just one of the important lessons her mother taught her: “She told me when I came off the stage, when the lights were off, to be myself. She told me be the best I can, so I don’t have to be apologetic or do it over again. Do the best I can, then I don’t have to call you back and say `Rich, I have to retract that, because it wasn’t really true.’ I want people to know it’s all from the heart. I could never be phony having a mother like Ruby and a father like Elijah.” Not surprisingly, her advice to that little boy or girl out there who dreams of being the next Martha Reeves: “Listen to your mother. That’s all. Listen to your mother.”
While we mainly know the music, Martha Reeves’ career has been incredibly varied: she’s a published author, has acted in several productions, and even spent four years on Detroit’s City Council. Always, though, it comes back to singing: “I’ve been made into the form of the bird. And I’ll sing as long as I can stand. That’s the gift God gave me.”
As you can see, this almost-octogenarian has no intention of letting this gift go idle. For Martha Reeves, an eightieth birthday is but one in a series of “milestone” birthdays that have just gotten easier: “I’ll be honest with you, I thought I’d be gone by the time I was 35. Didn’t God fool me! But I did 35, I did 40. Fortyfive helped me get more knowledgeable, and 50 was a breeze. At 57, Heinz sent me a card. At 60, I realized I’m too old for basketball players! I’m just old but mellow.” Her life now is the ongoing fulfillment of a dream that began almost unimaginably young: “At the age of three, I sang in church with my brothers Benny and Thomas. My father was the son of the minister (Rev. Elijah Joshua Reeves, Sr.) and had the only talented children! We won candy—chocolate covered cherries—in the amateur contest that the church gave on Saturday. The song we sang was ‘Jesus Met the Woman at the Well’ and I’ve always loved that story. It made me understand a lot about why I travel, why I want to keep making people happy. I want to tell people with my music, you’re gonna have heartbreak, but you can also recover and do good things for people and be happy. I’ve dedicated my life to lifting spirits, and to telling people, `Jimmy Mack? Well, he might come back…’”
