The Velvelettes
The Velvelettes were a singing girl group, which is attributed to the Soul. She became famous in the 1960s by some minor hits that appeared on the Motown record label.
History
The band was founded in 1961 on the Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo by Carolyn and Milly Gill, Bertha and Norma Barbee and Betty Kelly. They started initially in clubs and playing at parties and then got a recording contract with IPG Records, where they recorded their first single, There He Goes. Although it flopped, but she was an employee of Motown's attention to the Velvelettes, who soon signed to the legendary Detroit label.
There she first sang only backing vocals for other girl groups of the record company, including the Supremes, Martha & the Vandellas and the Marvelettes. Only in 1963 they started to make their own recordings, Norman Whitfield as producer. Needle in the Haystack failed in 1964 just short of the Top 40 of the U.S. pop charts and only a little later was the result of single He Was Really Sayin 'Somethin ' published, after all, a # 64 made in 1965.
Meanwhile, Betty Kelly left the Velvelettes to switch to Martha & the Vandellas and the band had started to record a whole album. But there were disagreements between the singers in terms of repertoire and genre and as a consequence to a series of line-up changes. Motown released this time two singles of the Velvelettes; Lonely Lonely Girl Am I and A Bird in the Hand. Both flopped, after the label refused the debut album by the band to release.
1966 came with These Things Will Keep Me Loving You one last time a single of the Velvelettes in lower regions of the R & B charts. The band started again primarily contribute backing vocals on recordings by other artists, until they broke up in 1969. Sandra Tilley, a later member of the Velevelettes, followed the example of Kelly's and joined Martha & the Vandellas at. In 1971, These Things Will Keep Me Loving You then in the UK at number 34 on the pop charts. In 1984 a reunion of the band by Carolyn and Milly Gill, and Bertha and Norma Barbee, emerged from the even an entire album ( One Door Closes ).