How did you sign to Motown?

I was never the secretary there. Martha Reeves was and a few others were, but I never was. I had a manager she had some business from Phil Spector, and wanted me to audition for him. I wanted to try out for Motown, and the only reason she arranged an interview was because she was positive they wouldn’t take me because I was white. I wanted to go to Motown because I had an affinity for that type of music, I hadn’t had a lot of exposure to black music but it had something in it that appealed to me. I had tried to be a folk singer, like every other girl of my age but each group would throw me out because I had a blues edge to my voice.
I was singing Boney Maronie, Stupid Cupid but I just sounded different to the other white girls singing them. I went to Hal Davis in Motown’s west coast office. He cut me, put the acetates in my hand and sent me to Gordy in Detroit.

Is it true you auditioned with Etta James’ All I Could Do Was Cry, a song penned by Gordy?

Yes Gordy wanted to hear me sing live after he heard the tapes. He asked me if I wanted him to play along and I said, ‘no, it’s kind of complicated.’ He was looking at me weird, he figured I knew he had written it and I was trying to catch him out. We then went to Holland and Dozier’s office and I sang the song, again turning down Gordy’s help and we did the same thing for Smokey Robinson too. They all just looked at me weird. I found out by accident two years later he’d written it. When I found out I was so startled. I was 17 when I signed the contract with Gordy in fact my parents had to sign it.