War Cry 24 August 2019: Selected articles

UKTV/OLLIE UPTON

24 August 2019 • WAR cry • TELEVISION 3 The new recruits take over from the old guard (below)

AT THE DOUBLE Andrew Stone sees some new recruits in a comedy classic

D

ON’T panic! The Walmingtonon-Sea Home Guard are back, in comedy channel Gold’s Dad’s Army: the Lost Episodes, starting tomorrow (Sunday 25 August). But while the troops seem familiar, a closer look will reveal that there are new faces in the platoon.

Penned by David Croft and Jimmy Perry, the comedy classic Dad’s Army first paraded on to television screens in 1968. Millions of viewers came to know and love characters such as the bumptious Captain Mainwaring, gloomy Private Frazer and boisterous veteran Lance Corporal Jones.

Set during the Second World War, the show established itself as a British TV institution. It also introduced catchphrases including Mainwaring’s ‘Stupid boy’, Fraser’s ‘We’re all doomed’ and Jones’s ‘Don’t panic!’

Audiences have continued to enjoy the escapades of the hapless soldiers – even after the last episode was filmed in 1978 – as the show has been repeated on Gold and BBC channels in the decades since.

However, three episodes from the second series were lost when their tapes were wiped. As a result, it has been many years since The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker, A Stripe for Frazer and Under Fire

have been seen.

But that is set to change, as Gold has remade the lost programmes using the original scripts but a completely new cast.

Kevin McNally, Robert Bathurst, David Hayman and Kevin Eldon are among the actors breathing new life into the familiar characters 50 years after the original episodes were made.

Without having to use too much imagination, viewers will be transported back to a time when Arthur Lowe,

Stepping into a new role can be a daunting experience John Le Mesurier, John Laurie and Clive Dunn were bringing their characters to life. But the new cast are not trying to impersonate their predecessors. David Hayman, who plays Private Frazer, told Radio Times that they were aiming to capture ‘the essence’ of what had gone before.

And the cast have worked hard to do that.

‘We’ve all studied our characters,’ Kevin

Eldon, the new Lance Corporal Jones, told the listings magazine, adding: ‘We’ve been quite swotty about it!’

Stepping into a new role can be a daunting experience – and not just for actors in well-loved sitcoms. Taking on something we haven’t done before or entering a different stage in life can bring feelings of fear and anxiety about how things will work out.

The Bible tells the story of Joshua, who had to step into the role of leader of the people of Israel. He was taking over from Moses, who had led them for many years.

As Joshua was about to take on his new role, God said to him: ‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you’ (Joshua 1:9 New International Version).

God promises his presence and support to everyone who follows him. It does not matter how daunting the future may seem or how many new situations we may face.

God offers to help us through – and that’s no joke.

c i s u m e b l l ’ There 8 INTERVIEW • WAR cry • 24 August 2019

As Motown celebrates its 60th anniversary, MARTHA REEVES talks to Philip Halcrow about working at Hitsville USA, creating the Motown sound in ‘Heatwave’ and going on to sing about a ‘holy highway’ and as a solo performer under the name Martha Lavaille when her life took an unexpected turn.

‘I was selected in an amateur show, and the prize was to sing for three nights at a nightclub.

So at 21 years old I sang for $5 a night in the happy hour, between about nine and eleven o’clock when the actual nightclub show would start.

‘I was very pleased when William Stevenson, A&R director at some company called Motown, invited me to Hitsville USA to sing or audition or whatever he gave me the card for.

‘When I showed up the next day, he asked me to answer a phone and he’d be right back. So I started working there in the A&R department. I was showing up every day at

nine, answering the phone, participating in secretarial work but also making demonstration records, hoping for my turn to get a recording contract.

‘After a while, my dad said: “You’ve gone to that company for three or four weeks now, and you’re not earning a salary. I know you’re getting paid for doing demonstration records, but if you’re going to work in that company, then you have to get a salary.”

‘So I went back to William Stevenson and told him that I couldn’t go back unless I got on the payroll. We made an agreement that I would get a small salary along with the money I made doing demonstration records.

Turn to page 10

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UMMER’S here and the time is right for marking 60 years of Motown. Following on from June’s release of an updated box set of Motown: the Complete No 1s, a new Greatest Hits album is offering 60 tracks by acts such as Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, the Four Tops, the Jackson 5 and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. And on Monday (26 August) Radio 2 will celebrate the record label’s landmark year by devoting six hours to a Motown Top 100 Countdown, a roll call of the record label’s successes, compiled by the Official Charts Company.

‘I’m proud to be one of the original artists at Hitsville USA,’ Martha Reeves tells me a few days before a series of shows in the UK. After leaving Motown, she continued to record with other labels, but Martha suggests that the excitement of the days at Hitsville USA, the company’s Detroit studio in the Fifties and Sixties, has had a lasting effect on the acts who sang, handclapped and foot-stomped the Motown sound into existence.

‘It was wonderful just going into that recording house and realising that the record company was growing at such a fast pace with so many artists. When you mention names

I sang for $5 a night in the happy hour like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, the Temptations, the Four Tops and the Supremes, you know it must have been a wonderful paradise. And, although the company has moved on, we’re still Motown artists and we still have that unity of being the producers of the Motown sound.’

Martha grew up in Detroit itself. But her route to becoming one of the top artists at the label, named by Berry Gordy after the motorcar-manufacturing city, was not direct.

She had been performing locally in a group called the Del-phis – who featured future Vandellas Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard and recorded a song for Checkmate Records –

Museum se in Detroit, now the Motown Motown’s former recording hou

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everywhere

24 August 2019 • WAR cry • INTERVIEW 9

Martha and the Vandellas arrive in London in 1966

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10 INTERVIEW • WAR cry • 24 August 2019

Martha and the Vandellas (front row, right) with other Motown arti the Temptations and the Miracle sts the Supremes, s

From page 8 ‘Everything was going along fine. Then we met this guy brought into Detroit from Washington DC.’ Martha’s career was about to go up a gear.

‘He was a drummer by the name of Marvin Gaye. He was working as a road drummer for the Miracles, but he was also writing his own songs and was able to produce himself.

‘The A&R department was commissioned to bring in back-up singers for a song that he had written and was going to produce. The singers that were on the list were the Andantes, who were on Motown and sang on all kinds of records, especially the ones for the Four Tops and the Spinners. But they were not available.’

Martha’s mind turned to her fellow singers in the Del-phis.

I had the thrill of typing up my own contract ‘I called in the girls from their jobs – Rosalind was working for the telephone company, and Annette worked at a soda fountain. They came in and we sang behind Marvin Gaye for his song “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”.

‘He was such a musician. He played the keys, the drums. And we were selected to do his first three hits, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”, “Hitch Hike” and “Pride and Joy” and his first album. There was a picture of us on the back cover.’

Martha’s hope of becoming a recording artist was gaining momentum.

‘After hearing our voices, Berry Gordy was impressed. We were offered a contract, but the name Del-phis could not be used, so in my reverie I came up with the name Vandellas – after Van Dyke Street, which was in the area of Detroit where I lived, and Della Reese, who was an amazing singer and actress.

‘Being in the A&R department, I had the thrill of typing up my own contract and putting down the name Vandellas.’

An early single recorded by the group – which Martha had initially recorded as a demo intended for Mary Wells – ‘didn’t sell very well’.

But Martha and the Vandellas picked up speed when they were teamed with songwriting and producing team HollandDozier-Holland.

‘They had an appreciation for our voices and how they blended, and they gave us our first hit “Come and Get these Memories”. If you listen to it, it’s basically jazz, but it made wonderful use of our harmony parts.

‘The Motown sound was being established, and Berry Gordy said that the sound he was looking for was there in our next recording “(Love is Like a) Heatwave”.’

Martha and the Vandellas had further hits with songs such as ‘Nowhere to Run’ and ‘Jimmy Mack’ (both also written by Holland-Dozier-Holland) and achieved their highest chart position in the US and UK with ‘Dancing in the Street’ (whose songwriters included William Stevenson and Marvin Gaye).

The Motown Museum describes the label’s classic sound as ‘merging the call-

and-response patterns of black gospel music with the syncopation and improvisation of the be-bop movement in jazz’.

artha certainly thinks that people can sense M the church influence in her singing. ‘My roots are gospel songs,’ she says.

‘Growing up, we all could sing – two of my sisters, Lois and Delphine, sing with me today.

Dad played the blues guitar, but Mom’s music was gospel.

‘My grandfather was a Methodist minister and I started out singing at the age of three with my two older brothers. We sang a song called “Jesus Met the Woman at the Well” – I think the church held a competition to encourage the youngsters to come, and we won candy. I sang background, but as the little bossy person I became, I took the prize and oversaw the chocolate-covered cherries, so that if the others didn’t treat me nice, I wouldn’t give them their candy.’

The Church and the Christian faith have had more than a musical influence on Martha.

24 August 2019 • WAR cry • INTERVIEW 11 Martha onstage in Sheffield in 2015

One of the first songs that I learnt as a child was ‘Yes, Jesus Loves Me’ PA

‘With our grandfather being a minister, our whole life was built around going to church, the choir and Bible study.

‘One of the first songs that I learnt as a child was “Yes, Jesus Loves Me”. I also learnt “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” – and I believe that God has got the whole world in his hands.’

Martha also talks about singing another song, ‘Blessed Assurance’, at a significant time later in her life. She says that the song – about being assured of Jesus’ love – was ‘the first song that I was asked to sing once I was reborn’.

What Martha describes as her rebirth happened at a time of changes for her and Motown.

She remembers: ‘I was raised a Methodist, but I came to know as an adult in my trials and tribulations that I needed to be reborn.

‘Motown Records left Detroit, and my contract expired with them in 1971. I also became a mum, a single parent. I made the choice to move to California to continue my career with Universal Records. In the meantime, I was taken on a prayer retreat by one of Motown’s producers, Frank Wilson, with the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church.

‘I gave my life to God, I accepted Jesus as my personal saviour and was filled with the Holy Spirit.

‘When I had my son, I had to grow up. I had to become a woman as opposed to just a teenager who could sing. I had to get my act together and become a servant of God.’ Martha says that her decision has had a lasting effect.

‘I know what it’s like to be lost and to be alone. The promise of my relationship with Jesus Christ means that I’ll never be alone.’

Today her faith and music are intertwined – wherever she is singing.

‘First thing every morning, I spend my time singing gospel songs and reading the Scriptures. I ask the Lord: “Please lead me.

Let me walk with you, let me lean on you.”

Whatever happens after that, I know I’m able to face it.’

And Martha’s faith accompanies her on record and onstage.

‘I’m saved by grace, and grace and mercy are what you need in order to withstand the trials and tribulations of this world. I try to share that with people in my performance.

‘I open my show with my song “Holy Highway”, in which I say that “I wanna talk to God, face to face, like David, Isaiah and

Moses did”, and that “I wanna go to Heaven”.

I want to share that I know I’m going to Heaven because I’m reborn.’

Audiences at Martha’s shows can expect a mix of modern songs, such as ‘Holy Highway’, as well as songs from previous decades.

‘I do songs that the audiences want,’ says Martha.

And that, no doubt, means some of the hits made at Hitsville.

‘When Berry Gordy designed the music,’ she says, ‘he wanted it to be for today, tomorrow and for ever.

‘I am overwhelmed at what I’ve been able to do. We still go all over the world singing. For me, it’s all about getting myself prepared and worthy to be onstage. My confidence comes with the talent that God gives. I know that when I do my part, God does his.’

l Martha is on tour in the UK, playing dates in Stockton-on-Tees, Leeds, Stoke-on-Trent and London. For more information visit missmarthareeves.com

12 INNER LIFE • War Cry • 24 August 2019

Prayerlink YOUR prayers are requested for Sheena, who is distressed at the death of her father; for Raymond, who is in financial need; and for Hannah, who is struggling with the isolation of prison.

The War Cry invites readers to send in requests for prayer, including the first names of individuals and details of their ­circumstances. Send your requests to Prayerlink, War Cry, 101 Newington Causeway, Lon­don SE1 6BN. Mark your envelope ‘Confidential’.

Becoming a Christian There is no set formula to becoming a Christian, but many people have found saying this prayer to be a helpful first step to a relationship with God Lord Jesus Christ, I am truly sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life. Please forgive me. I now turn from everything that I know is wrong.

Thank you that you died on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free.

Thank you that you offer me forgiveness and the gift of your Holy Spirit.

Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit to be with me for ever.

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

Amen Extract from Why Jesus? by Nicky Gumbel published by Alpha International, 2011. Used by kind permission of Alpha International

Jonah

Nigel Bovey gives chapter and verse on each book in the Scriptures

HIS is not a tale about a man and a T whale. This is an account of God’s compassion extending beyond his ‘chosen

people’ of Israel to their enemy, Assyria.

While no time frame is mentioned in this book, 2 Kings 14:25 mentions Jonah in connection with the reign of Israel’s King Jeroboam II (783–741BC).

The story begins with God calling Jonah to go some 500 miles east to Nineveh, the capital city of the mighty Assyrians.

God is displeased with Nineveh’s wickedness, but rather than summarily destroying it, he tells Jonah to call its citizens to repentance (1:2).

Jonah, though, heads off in the opposite direction. He catches a boat heading for Tarshish, thousands of miles to the west – Jonah clearly wanted to distance himself from the job he had been given.

However, the boat is caught in a storm and the superstitious sailors throw him overboard (1:4–16). Enter, not a whale, but a ‘huge fish’ (1:17).

Symbolic or fin-and-blood, the appearance of the fish shows that God is not preparing to destroy Jonah for his disobedience.

Instead, God delivers him and again tells him to go to Nineveh (chapter 2).

With a change of heart, and now preaching from personal experience, Jonah goes to Nineveh and calls the people to repent or face the consequences. The king calls for a city-wide fast

and mourning. His citizens obey, and God accepts their repentance and spares them (chapter 3).

Not for the first time, Jonah is unhappy.

He wants to curl up and die. He is angry that

Enter, not a whale, but a ‘huge fish’ God could forgive people who, in his opinion, were not worth saving.

Jonah knows that God is ‘gracious and compassionate … slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity’ (4:2). But even when he sees such forgiveness first-hand, he is still a long way from seeing the world as God does.

Key verse ey ‘When God saw what th ed did and how they turn from their evil ways, he relented’ (Jonah 3:10 on) New International Versi

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