The Fascinations: The forgotten group that launched Martha Reeves and created a northern soul classic
For a group that rubbed shoulders with Curtis Mayfield, once boasted Motown starlet Martha Reeves in their roster, and recorded one of the most enduring northern soul floor-fillers of all time, The Fascinations are rarely given the attention they so richly deserve within the realm of soul and R&B excellence.
Soul music is, after all, awash with countless failed, forgotten, and overlooked groups who never quite made it into the big time, overshadowed by the hit power of Motown, Stax, or Atlantic while they languished on small, independent labels.
Nevertheless, The Fascinations are something of a special case, having never particularly courted the attention of the mainstream pop charts, yet boasting an appeal that is far more lasting than the vast majority of their long-forgotten contemporaries.
Like many R&B outfits of their age, The Fascinations experienced a multitude of line-up changes during their tenure, but it was in 1960 that the group was officially formed, with Shirley Lawson and Martha Reeves forming the core of the outfit. After hosting some auditions, sisters Joanne and Bernadine Boswell filled out the rest of that original line-up, but it didn’t last very long.
Before the band ever made it into the recording studio, Reeves left to pursue her dreams of Motown stardom, re-joining the Del-Phis and eventually morphing them into the flagship act of Martha and the Vandellas. Legendary hits like ‘Heatwave’, ‘Nowhere To Run’, and ‘Dancing In The Street’ soon followed, and Reeves largely forgot about her brief time with The Fascinations, but the vocal group itself continued on regardless, with Bernadine Boswell filling in as the group’s lead vocalist.
It was the soul omnipresence of Curtis Mayfield that gave the group their ‘big break’, inviting them into the ABC-Paramount studio and producing their first singles, although neither of them managed to break into the Hot 100 of the US singles charts. In fact, it was only after a few years on hiatus, returning to the studio to record ‘Girls Are Out To Get You’ that the group finally struck upon an albeit minor hit, peaking at 92 in the singles charts.
By 1968, the group was still without a hit and newly without a label, so they made the understandable decision to pack it in, surrendering themselves to the ever-expanding landfill of failed soul singers. That was, of course, until an unlikely saviour came forward, in the form of the northern soul scene, which was beginning to grip the north of England during the early 1970s.
With ‘Girls Are Out To Get You’ leading the charge, The Fascinations became something of a cult outfit on the northern soul circuit, and their tracks began to fill floors at venues like Manchester’s Twisted Wheel and, some years later, Wigan Casino. In fact, that failed 1966 single became such a favourite for soulies that it was reissued in the UK, where it reached an impressive number 32 in the singles charts, inspiring a brief reunion for The Fascinations and their first overseas tour.
While the success provided to the group by the still relatively underground northern soul scene was fleeting, and it didn’t generate enough in the way of revenue to keep the group together, it did do enough to secure The Fascinations’ place in soul history, outside of merely being the band that birthed Martha Reeves.
