The Adantes: Motown’s secret backing singers that sang on 20,000 hits
The Motown empire of the 1960s discovered enough stars to give NASA a run for its money, introducing the musical world to the soulful stylings of everybody from Diana Ross to Little Stevie Wonder and amassing a colossal number of chart triumphs along the way. However, the successes of Hitsville USA weren’t down solely to the names printed on those record labels.
In virtually all walks of the music industry, the artists themselves are only one part of the puzzle. Despite Berry Gordy’s focus on discovering ‘the talent’ itself, digging out a plethora of now-iconic figures from the obscurity of the Detroit soul scene, none of them would have reached the dizzying heights that they did without Motown’s extensive backroom staff of songwriters, producers, session musicians, and backing singers.
Contracts were famously shady at Motown, particularly if Gordy was signing young talent without much – if any – prior experience of the music industry. Hence why the likes of Mary Wells, Brenda Holloway, and even the infallible songwriting trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland all left the label in a haze of legal disputes, contractual disagreements, or arguments over royalty rates. Arguably, though, it was the label’s session artists and backing singers who received the harshest treatment.
Not only were these artists typically paid peanuts for what, in some cases, were major contributions to tracks that went on to top the singles charts for weeks on end, they were very rarely properly credited for the work that they carried out. For instance, Motown’s ever-changing house band, The Funk Brothers, performed on thousands of Motown tracks over the years, amassing more hits than even The Beatles, yet very few people outside of Motown obsessives could name any of the band members.
Similarly, a little-known vocal trio by the name of The Andantes contributed to roughly 20,000 different Motown tracks and a fair few number-one singles during their time as in-house backing singers, yet they remain a relative obscurity outside the pages of Motown history.
The group was made up of Louvain Demps, Jackie Hicks, and Marlene Barrow, and the trio first joined the ranks of Motown back in 1962, just as the label was entering its arguable golden age of chart domination and quality output. Initially, The Andantes were predominantly recruited to perform on singles by The Four Tops, one of the label’s flagship acts, but their responsibilities soon stretched to involve virtually every artist on Motown’s roster.
In many cases, in fact, The Andantes were used to substitute various vocalists from girl groups like The Marvelettes, The Vandellas, or even The Supremes, should the official group members be absent or (as the case often was) deemed by Berry Gordy not to be good enough for a certain recording.
Even stranger, a handful of singles were released by The Andantes in their own right, including the 1964 V.I.P. single ‘(Like A) Nightmare’, but none of the original trio were allowed to perform on those singles, replaced instead by other Motown vocalists.
They might not have made an impact under their own band name, thanks largely to the bizarre lack of support by Gordy and other Motown executives, but The Andantes nevertheless formed an essential aspect of the ‘Motown sound’ back in the 1960s and beyond.
With their backing vocals supporting an unimaginable wealth of everybody’s favourite Motown tracks – and even a few extra-curricular projects, like Jackie Wilson’s soul classic ‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher’ – the trio certainly left their mark on musical history, even if they weren’t often credited as such.
