Wanda LaFaye Younger was born on Aug. 9, 1943, in Eloise, Mich., and grew up in Inkster, about 20 miles west of Detroit. Her father, James, labored for the Ford Motor Firm, and her mom, Beatrice (Dawson) Younger, was a homemaker.
Ms. Younger, whose early ambition was to be a pediatric nurse, joined the Marvelettes after one of many unique members needed to go away.
Ms. Horton had fashioned a quintet in 1960 with three highschool classmates, Katherine Anderson, Georgeanna Tillman and Juanita Cowart, and a latest graduate, Georgia Dobbins. The group — then referred to as the Casinyets, a contraction of “can’t sing but” — competed in a expertise present whose prime three finishers have been to obtain an audition with Motown. The quintet didn’t win, however a instructor helped get them an audition anyway. Motown executives have been impressed however informed the younger ladies that they wanted to return with unique materials.
They did: Ms. Dobbins’s good friend William Garrett had composed a blues music, which Ms. Dobbins rewrote and recast as a pop music, a couple of lady pining for mail from her distant boyfriend. “Please Mr. Postman” was successful, however Ms. Dobbins left the group earlier than it was recorded as a result of her mom was in poor health and her father had forbade her to be concerned within the music enterprise. Ms. Horton recruited Ms. Younger.
“She needed to know if I might sing alto, and I mentioned, ‘I feel I can sing all of them — soprano, second soprano and alto,’” Ms. Younger mentioned in an interview with Blues & Soul journal in 1990. “In order that night I went over to Georgeanna’s home and immediately turned a member of the group.”
Ms. Horton sang lead on the music. Three months after its launch, it turned a No. 1 hit.
Whereas Ms. Younger fondly recalled the household environment that Mr. Gordy fostered at Motown, she was disillusioned when he moved the corporate to Los Angeles in 1972.
