SUMMER'S GREATEST SONGS COUNTDOWN: Martha and The Vandellas - "Dancing In The Street"

Welcome back to Hitmaker Chronicles' countdown of the Top 20 Songs of the Summer, as voted by the staff of Caloroga Shark Media! I'm your host, Garrett Fisher. At number 1, we celebrate Martha and the Vandellas' revolutionary "Dancing in the Street" — a song that works as both the ultimate summer party anthem and a coded call to action during 1964's Freedom Summer. We'll trace how a Motown secretary turned a Marvin Gaye demo into a worldwide phenomenon while civil rights workers were dying in Mississippi. Sometimes the most joyful songs carry the deepest meanings. Let's dance.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Caalaroga Shark Media Summer nineteen sixty four. I'm Garrett Fisher,
and if you had to pick the exact moment when
America's long hot summers began, those explosive seasons of joy
and rage, celebration and confrontation that would define the rest

(00:25):
of the decade, this would be it. In Mississippi, hundreds
of college students were risking their lives to register black
voters in what would become known as Freedom Summer. On
June twenty first, three civil rights workers James Cheney, Andrew Goodman,
and Michael Schwerner disappeared near Philadelphia, Mississippi. They would be

(00:46):
found murdered, buried in an earth and dam and in Detroit.
In Motown's Hitsville, USA studio, a song was being recorded
that would somehow capture both the ecstasy of summer freedom
and the urgency of a movement that could no longer
be contained. Coming in at number one on our countdown
of the top twenty songs of the summer, as voted

(01:08):
by the staff of Calaroga Shark Media, Martha and the
Vendellas Dancing in the Street represents the perfect summer song,
one that works on every level you choose to hear it.
Dance song, absolutely, party anthem, without question, revolutionary call to action.
That's for you to decide. Before Martha Reeves became the

(01:30):
voice of one of Motown's most successful acts, she was
working as a secretary at Hitsville, USA, answering phones and
handling administrative duties for the label. Born in Alabama but
raised in Detroit, Reeves had been singing in church and
local clubs, part of a group called the dell Fists
that couldn't quite break through. Martha and the Vandellas, originally

(01:52):
Martha Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard, had come together through
Detroit's thriving music scene. The group's name itself, Elf, was
a combination of Detroit's Van Dijk Street and Martha's favorite
singer Della Reese, though Marvin Gay would later joke that
they sounded like Vandals when they sang backup on his
early hits. Their breakthrough came when Mary Wells didn't show

(02:15):
up for a recording session. As Reeves was working at Motown,
she was asked to step in and record the vocals.
That track became their first release, though, as Martha would
later joke, It sold about three copies, and they bought
all three. But Barry Gordy heard something in Martha's powerful,
church trained voice and soon hits like heat Wave and

(02:37):
quicksand establish them as one of Motown's premier acts. By
summer nineteen sixty four, Martha and the Vandelas were riding high,
but still looking for that defining song that would put
them over the top. It would come from an unexpected
collaboration between three of Motown's most talented creators. The creation
of Dancing in the Street began with Mickey Stevenson, head

(03:00):
of A and R at Motown and one of Barry
Gordy's right hand men. Originally, Stevenson had intended the song
for his wife, Kim Weston, but as the story goes,
he was driving through Detroit with Marvin Gay during summer
when they saw kids playing in water from open fire hydrants,
a common sight in cities before air conditioning was widespread.

(03:21):
They appeared to be dancing in the water. Stevenson recalled
the image stuck, and working with Gay and Ivy Joe Hunter,
they crafted a song that would capture that feeling of
pure summer joy. Gay recorded a demo version singing it
as a smooth, romantic number, but when Martha Reeves heard it,
she had a different vision entirely so he was singing

(03:45):
this song, Reeves remembered calling out around the world, Are
you ready for a brand new beat? Baby? You know
so I'm saying wow. She convinced the producers to let
her try it her way, not as a love song,
but as a celebration, a party, a call to the
world to get up and move. So what made Dancing

(04:06):
in the Street such a perfect crystallization of summer joy
and cultural revolution? Let's break it down Musically, Dancing in
the Street is pure Motown magic, showcasing everything that made
the label sound so irresistible and influential. The track opens
with Martha's commanding voice calling out around the world, immediately

(04:29):
establishing this as something bigger than just another dance song.
The rhythm section is quintessential Motown, with James Jamerson's melodic
bassline dancing around the beat in ways that would influence
every basis who came after. Marvin Gay himself is on drums,
providing a steady, infectious groove that makes standing still impossible.

(04:51):
The arrangement includes horns that punctuate without overwhelming strings that
add sophistication without sacrificing soul. Producer Mickey st Evenson crafted
a sound that was both polished enough for mainstream radio
and raw enough to feel authentic. The production walks that
perfect motown line. It's clearly a professional recording, but it

(05:12):
maintains the energy of a live performance, the feeling that
this party is happening right now, and you're invited. What's
particularly brilliant is how the arrangement builds. Each verse adds layers,
each chorus gets bigger, creating a sense of growing excitement,
of a movement, building of more and more people joining
the dance. By the final chorus, it feels like the

(05:32):
whole world really is dancing in the Street. The structure
of Dancing in the Street is deceptively simple, but perfectly
crafted for maximum impact. The song gets right to business,
no lengthy intro, just Martha's voice calling out to the world.
This immediacy was crucial for radio play, but also mirrors
the urgency of its message, whether you hear that message

(05:55):
as let's party or something deeper. The versus paints a
picture of a nation wide celebration, name checking cities across America, Chicago,
New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, d C.
And crucially, can't forget the Motor City. Each city mentioned
had significant Black populations, and notably, each would experience civil

(06:17):
rights demonstrations or urban uprisings in the years following the
song's release. The chorus is pure release dancing in the Street,
repeated with variations that invite participation. It's a chant, a celebration,
a rallying cry. The way Martha and the Vandellas deliver it,

(06:37):
with call and response vocals that echo church services and
civil rights meetings creates a communal feeling that's impossible to resist.
The bridge sections allow the song to breathe while maintaining momentum,
creating dynamics that keep the listener engaged Throughout. Every element
serves the central purpose, getting people moving, whether that movement

(06:59):
is on the dance floor or in the streets. The
genius of Dancing in the Street lies in its lyrics,
perfect ambiguity. On the surface, it's clearly a party song.
Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in
the street. What could be more innocent. It's about music
bringing people together. About joy, overcoming boundaries, about celebration as

(07:22):
a universal language, but context is everything. In summer nineteen
sixty four, as Freedom Summer volunteers were being beaten and
murdered in Mississippi, as civil rights demonstrations filled the streets
of American cities, certain phrases took on additional meanings. Calling
out around the world, are you ready for a brand

(07:42):
new beat? Sounds different when you know that beat was
also period slang for area or territory. There'll be singing
and swinging and records playing could describe a party or
a protest march. Every guy Grab a Girl everywhere around
the world suggests into at a time when interracial contact
was still illegal in many states, and that insistent refrain

(08:06):
dancing in the street could just as easily be demonstrating
in the street. Martha Reeves has always maintained the song
was about dancing, pure and simple, but Motown was sophisticated
about delivering messages that could be heard different ways by
different audiences. As Marvin Gay himself noted, the song listed
cities that all had significant civil rights activity. Coincidence, you

(08:30):
decide what absolutely makes dancing in the street work is
Martha Reeves's transcendent vocal performance. She doesn't sing the song
so much as inhabit it, embody it, become the party
she's inviting you to join. Her voice has the power
of gospel, the sass of R and B, and the
accessibility of pop, all perfectly balanced. Listen to how she

(08:53):
attacks that opening line, calling out around the world. It's
a summon, it a declaration, a prophet announcing good news.
Throughout the song, she plays with the rhythm, sometimes ahead
of the beat, sometimes behind, always exactly where she needs
to be to maximize impact. The vandellas Rosalind Ashford and

(09:16):
Betty Kelly, who had replaced ant Beard, provide crucial support,
their voices blending with Martha's to create that wall of
sound that makes Motown records so distinctive. They're dancing in
the street. Responses to Martha's calls create a conversation, a community,
a movement building in real time. There's joy in these voices,

(09:37):
but also urgency, celebration, but also determination. It's a performance
that captures the complexity of its moment, the desire to
dance even as the world burns, or perhaps because the
world burns more in a moment. Dancing in the Street

(10:03):
was released on July thirty first, nineteen sixty four, in
the midst of one of the most tumultuous summers in
American history. The timing couldn't have been more perfect or
more fraud The song rocketed up the charts, reaching number
two on the Billboard Hot one hundred, kept from number
one only by Do Wah Diddy Diddy by Manfred Mann,

(10:27):
and becoming an instant classic. The song's success was global.
It topped charts in numerous countries and became one of
those rare records that seemed to capture something universal about
human experience. In the UK, it initially peaked at number
twenty eight, but was re released in nineteen sixty nine
and made the top five, proving its lasting appeal. The

(10:48):
impact was immediate and profound at a time when motown
was still fighting for mainstream acceptance. Dancing in the Street
proved that black music could speak to everyone while maintaining
its authentic voice. It became one of those songs that
defined not just a summer, but an era. To fully
appreciate the impact of Dancing in the Street, we need

(11:09):
to understand the powder kick that was America in summer
nineteen sixty four. This was Freedom Summer, when over seven
hundred volunteers, mostly white college students, went to Mississippi to
register black voters. The violent response was swift and brutal, murders, bombings, beatings,
and arrests. The Civil Rights Act had just been signed

(11:30):
on July second, legally ending segregation in public places, but
the reality on the ground was very different. Integration was
being met with massive resistance. The nation was watching nightly
news footage of peaceful protesters being attacked by police dogs
and fire hoses. In this context, a song about people
dancing in the streets took on multiple meanings. For some,

(11:53):
it was escape, three minutes of pure joy in a
world gone mad. For others, it was inspiration, a vision
of what America could be when people of all colors
could dance together freely. And for some it was a
coded message, dancing as a metaphor for the demonstrations that
were changing America. The cities mentioned in the song were

(12:14):
all sites of significant civil rights activity. Detroit would explode
in rebellion in nineteen sixty seven, Chicago was organizing against segregation. Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,
DC all were battlegrounds in the fight for equality. When
Martha sang can't Forget the Motor City, she was claiming
Detroit's place in this national movement. The lasting impact of

(12:39):
Dancing in the Street extends far beyond its chart success.
The song became an anthem for multiple movements, played at parties, protests,
and every celebration in between. It's been covered hundreds of times,
from Mick Jagger and David Bowie's nineteen eighty five version
for Live Aid to Van Halen's rock treatment in nineteen

(13:00):
eighty two. But more than the covers, it's the song's
dual nature that makes it enduringly powerful. It proved that
popular music could work on multiple levels, speaking to different
audiences simultaneously, without compromising its integrity. It showed that joy
and revolution weren't opposites, but could be part of the

(13:21):
same expression. For Motown, the song represented a pinnacle of
their achievement, creating music that was unmistakably black but universally appealing,
commercially successful but artistically uncompromising. It became a template for
how to create pop music with depth, meaning, and soul.
The song also mark Martha and the Vandella's place in history.

(13:45):
Martha Reeves would later say she knew they had created
something special. This was a very bad time all over
the US. We were just starting to have different confusions
in cities, riots and what have you. Because of this,
the writers were inspired to get people to day dants
and be happy in the streets instead of the riots.
Looking back on Dancing in the Street today, it remains

(14:06):
the perfect summer anthem because it captures something essential about
the season, the desire for freedom, for community, for joy
in the face of whatever troubles the world might bring.
It's a song that says yes to life, yes to movement,
yes to coming together. What makes Dancing in the Street
our number one song of summer is its perfect embodiment

(14:28):
of everything a summer anthem should be. It's immediately infectious.
Try listening without moving some part of your body. It's inclusive,
calling out around the world inviting everyone to join. It's timeless,
as relevant today as it was sixty years ago, but
beyond that, it represents the power of popular music to

(14:49):
capture and shape cultural moments. Whether you hear it as
a party song or a protest anthem, are both. Dancing
in the street speaks to the human desire to come together,
to move together, to create change together. In nineteen sixty four,
as America was being forced to confront its original sin
of racism, as young people were literally dying for the

(15:10):
right to vote, as cities simmered with tension and possibility,
Martha and the Vandellas gave us a song that said,
despite everything, because of everything, We're going to dance. We're
going to find joy. We're going to claim the streets
as spaces of celebration, not just struggle. So as we
conclude our countdown of the top twenty songs of the

(15:32):
summer at number one, let's celebrate a song that proves
the best summer anthems aren't just about the season, They're
about the human spirit's capacity for joy even in the
darkest times. Because Dancing in the Street isn't just a song.
It's a philosophy, a strategy, a celebration of life itself.

(15:54):
It's the sound of Motown at its peak, of America
at a crossroads, of people choosing joy as an act
of resistance. Sixty years later, when Martha calls out around
the world asking if we're ready for a brand new beat,
the answer remains a resounding yes, which is why it
absolutely deserves its place as our number one Summer song

(16:15):
of all time. This is Garrett Fisher for hip Maker Chronicles,
and that concludes our countdown of the top twenty songs
of the summer, as voted by the staff of Calaroga
Shark Media. Thanks for joining us on this musical journey
through the sounds of summer. We'll be back next week
with our regular hit Maker Chronicles series and another iconic song.

(16:36):
Until then, keep dancing in the streets or wherever you
find yourself. The music never stops.