Photo courtesy Martha Reeves
Martha Reeves has spent more than six decades giving people reasons to dance. Her voice powered Motown landmarks like “Dancing in the Street,” “Heat Wave,” “Jimmy Mack,” and “Nowhere to Run,” songs that still spill from radios and playlists with enough spark to lift a room.
Now, as she approaches her 85th birthday, Reeves isn’t interested in nostalgia. She’s still chasing the next song.
“The word retirement doesn’t mean a thing to me,” she says with a laugh.
That outlook fuels Searching, her first new album in 22 years. Recorded in New Orleans and co-produced by acclaimed trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis and her longtime manager Chris Roe, the project blends Motown soul with jazz, blues, gospel, and rhythm and blues. Rather than revisiting old triumphs, Reeves sounds energized by fresh collaborators and a new musical setting.
Ask her about the recording sessions and she laughs before finishing the first sentence, as if she’s still standing in the middle of them.
“It was a magic carpet ride,” she says. “The collection of musicians, the place, the studio—it was just beautiful.”
Players arrived from Cuba, New York, Alabama, Georgia, and beyond, gathering in New Orleans to build a sound that lets Motown shake hands with the Big Easy. Horns rise in bright bursts, the rhythm section settles deep into the beat, and Reeves’ unmistakable voice ties it all together with warmth that hasn’t faded.
She lights up when talking about Marsalis, recalling the quiet authority he brought to the sessions.
“He was very, very serious,” she says. “Anything he said he was going to do, he did it.”
Having watched legendary producers at work during her Motown years, Reeves knows disciplined musicianship when she sees it. She remembers watching Marsalis conduct the horn section and seeing the respect he commanded from every player in the room.
“To see Delfeayo work with those horns and the magic that happened with these arrangements—I can’t wait for people to hear it.”
The experience also gave Reeves something she deeply appreciated: a genuine creative voice.
“I was asked my opinion. I was asked to add lyrics or add songs that I had written,” she says. “It’s like I’ve graduated.”
One of those songs is her gospel composition “Thank You, Jesus,” a reflection of the faith that has guided her life since she says she was spiritually reborn in 1977. Raised by a Methodist minister grandfather, Reeves still speaks naturally about gratitude, encouragement, and trusting God’s direction.
“The older I get,” she says, “the easier it gets to just do God’s will.”
Reeves doesn’t spend much time talking about age. She would rather talk about singing.
“I’m a trained singer,” she says proudly. “God gave it to me, and I got it, and I’m keeping it.”
She credits vocal exercises, years of discipline, and lessons learned from Motown’s legendary Funk Brothers, who constantly reminded performers to “stay in the pocket.” Barry Gordy had another saying she has never forgotten.
“It’s what’s in the grooves that count.”
Among Reeves’ favorite memories is meeting a young Stevie Wonder during her early days as a secretary in Motown’s A&R department. When recording sessions ended and no one had arrived to collect him, she sometimes drove the young prodigy home—or back to her family’s East Side neighborhood, where he quickly became the center of attention.
“My neighborhood would just go crazy with Stevie,” she recalls. “We were riding bikes and driving cars and everything at his pleasure.”
She remembers him sitting comfortably among family and neighbors, harmonica nearby, filling the room with music long before the rest of the world fully understood the scale of his gifts.
“I loved him so much,” she says. “He was a very special, talented genius.”
That affection comes full circle on Searching, which includes a soulful interpretation of Wonder’s “To Know You Is to Love You.” Rather than simply revisiting a familiar song, Reeves brings fresh tenderness to it, honoring an old friend while making the performance unmistakably her own.
She chuckles when people describe Searching as a comeback.
“I’ve been recording almost every decade of my life,” she says. “I’ve been in some studio somewhere doing something.”
To Reeves, this isn’t a return. It’s simply the next chapter.
“This album has got to be my best work.”
Every few minutes, Reeves circles back to the same thought—not memories, but gratitude.
“Every day it gets more and more wonderful to be alive,” she says.
Coming from a woman whose voice helped define American popular music and who still greets a new recording with the excitement of an artist just getting started, the sentiment doesn’t sound nostalgic.
It sounds like someone who is still searching—and still finding joy in every note.
About the author: A devout lover of singer-songwriters, mountain hikes, colorful cuisine, and eccentric artists, Brian D'Ambrosio lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For story ideas and suggestions, he may be reached at dambrosiobrian@hotmail.com.