Heat Wave

"Heat Wave" is a 1963 hit single by Holland-Dozier-Holland made popular by Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas on the Gordy (Motown) label and later by Rock vocalist Linda Ronstadt from her Platinum 1975 album Prisoner In Disguise. It is sometimes called "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave," although that was not the title on the 1963 single.
The song was one of several tunes written and produced by the fabled Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting and producing team. "Heat Wave" was the second hit collaboration between the Vandellas and H-D-H, the first being "Come and Get These Memories". The lyrics feature the narrator singing about a guy that has her heart "burning with desire" and "going insane" over the feeling of his love.
Produced and composed with a gospel backbeat, jazz overtones and, doo-wop call and responsive vocals, "Heat Wave" was one of the first songs to exemplify the style of music later termed as being the "Motown Sound". The single was a breakthrough hit, peaking at number four on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart, and at number-one on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart.[2]. It also garnered the group's only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for 1964, making The Vandellas the first Motown group ever to receive a Grammy Award Nomination.
Martha Reeves, an Alabama-born and Detroit-reared teenager, was brought up in the church by her grandfather. While going to school at Detroit's Northeastern High School, she was vocally coached by Abraham Silver, a man who also vocally coached future Supremes members Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson and Miracles member Bobby Rogers. In 1957, the sixteen-year-old Reeves joined fifteen-year-olds Gloria Williams and Rosalind Ashford and fourteen-year-old Annette Beard to form The Del-Phis. The group spent around four years performing in talent shows, high school parties and private events and being trained by future Motown groomer Maxine Powell at Detroit's dance hall, the Ferris Center. During group detours, Reeves formed the Sabre-Ettes and joined the Fascinations before returning back to the Del-Phis who were now recording backup for Detroit musician Mike Hanks
After performing at several talent shows, the group was signed to the Chess subsidiary, Checkmate Records, with the release of the record, the Reeves-led "I'll Let You Know", which was released in 1961. Gaining some attention from Motown after the label bought Checkmate, the group, now under the name The Vels, recorded the Williams-led song "There He Is (At My Door)" while another Detroit singer, Saundra Mallett (future member of Motown group The Elgins), sung on "Camel Walk", the latter on the Tamla label. After those two singles failed to chart, Williams left the group and the group stopped recording while Reeves bided her time working at odd jobs and tended time singing solo at Detroit nightclubs trying to get noticed, usually under the pseudonym Martha LaVaille.
While performing solo at Detroit's Twenty Grand club, Reeves was asked by Motown executive and staff songwriter/producer William "Mickey" Stevenson to come to the label to audition. Reeves unexpectedly took the job of secretary at the label after showing up to audition on the wrong day. Around this time, Martha and her former Vells bandmates Ashford and Beard were recruited to perform background work for Marvin Gaye on his second album, That Stubborn Kinda Fellow. Gaye's first hit records "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", "Hitch Hike" and "Pride and Joy", prominently featured the girls.
In 1962 when Mary Wells missed a recording session to record a song Stevenson had written, he recruited Reeves to sing the song as a demo. Bringing along Ashford and Beard, the trio recorded Stevenson's "I'll Have to Let Him Go". A strong response from the song convinced Motown founder Berry Gordy to sign the Vels to another Motown subsidiary, Gordy, as a professional recording act, on September 21, 1962 after which Martha changed the group's name.
The story about the name change (to Martha and the Vandellas) is a most colorful one. The Van part came from a street that neighbored Reeves' own - Van Dyke Street in Detroit - and the Della part honored Della Reese, Reeves' favorite singer and a Detroit native herself.
Whenever I'm with him
Something inside
Starts to burnin'
And I'm filled with desire
Could it be the devil in me
Or is this the way love's supposed to be
Just like a heatwave
Burning in my heart
Can't keep from cryin'
It's tearing me apart
Whenever he calls my name
So slow, sweet and plain
I feel, yeah, yeah, well I feel that burning flame
Has my blood pressure got a hold on me
Or is this the way love's supposed to be
Just like a heatwave
Burning in my heart
Can't keep from cryin'
It's tearing me apart
Sometimes I stare in space
Tears all over my face
I can't explain it, don't understand it
I 'ain't never felt like this before
But that doesn't mean it has me amazed
I don't know what to do, my head's in a haze
Just like a heatwave
Burning in my heart
Can't keep from cryin'
It's tearing me apart
Don't pass up this chance
This time it's a true romance
Heatwave