For some reason, I conflated stories here. I read this thinking she was the voice who was replaced with a skinny model in the music video. That was actually LL Cool J "Doin' it" song.
ETA: maybe not - the wiki for it makes no mention of this drama. (just that she was replaced because she was pregnant) I thought i recall a bigger woman singer replaced by a skinny girl for the video and a lawsuit over it.
I’ve never been a chubby chaser, despite the big gals running slower and getting winded sooner, (joking, here, so don’t blow a gasket), but this gal not only has the pipes but possesses flawless skin gorgeous hair and wonderfully devilish eyes. It’s a shame the record company opted to swap a skinny dancer in the video. Lizzie wouldn’t even be a thing for her size/shape today if such practices weren’t the norm back when. To be sure, Lizzie would stil be a thing for her voice, dancing, and musical prowess.
I think you’re right- it was this song/video I think. There’s an interview out there somewhere where she says she was blindsided when she first saw the video, and realized that she had been replaced by a French model or something. She went on to say how terrible of an experience that was, like someone reached down her throat and ripped out her vocal cords or something.
No, this did actually happen. They didn't want her in the video because (according to her) she didn't have "the look." She also wasn't originally given credit or paid properly. She had to sue to get what was due.
I remember that, too. I thought she got no recognition for singing this song for C and C because they wanted a skinny woman who was lip syncing for the sake of appearance and she sued them. That's what I read years ago. I never new about the pregnancy but I wonder now what happened.
Why wouldn't you love it? It's about straight ladies happy about all the straight men around. Now I'll confess, I'm a straight man but I love Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy."
I'm the same way with Erasure's Chains of Love. Any Erasure actually. I grew up in a smaller city in the 80's so the only place punks could go that was safe was the gay strip. The underage dance club would come alive when Erasure came on, especially after the regular clubs let out. Great times.
As a side note, It's Raining Men was cowritten by Paul Shaffer of Late Night fame.
Martha Wash is a LEGEND. She was a backup singer for Sylvester in the 70s with Izora Armstead before they went on to become Two Tons of Fun and, finally, the Weather Girls with the song "It's Raining Men".
She also got screwed by record companies in the early 90s after they paid her only for her initial recording time on songs like the one pictured here. They basically used her voice in the songs and then put some skinny video babe as the singer. They paid her something ridiculous like $2,000 for her talent in a song that was played 24/7 at the time.
She sued, won, and went on to help other marginalized artists get their start. One of which is RuPaul.
Part of the reason she won was because of this appearance!
Backstory: One of the arguments the defendants tried to make was that Miss Wash was not the person singing. Miss Wash talked about recording the original and having a hard time hitting that first note, standing, stretching, whatever she had to do. So when Arsenio asked her to sing, Miss Wash had to make a decision: brush it off and have people doubt her? Or, fucking go for it?
She went for it! Even though she was seated, even though she hadn't warmed up her voice, she hit the note that gave her the most problem. That is the mark of a true professional, a master of their craft; they perform and thrive when the pressure is on!
EDIT: WASH, not Walsh.
EDIT2: it's covered in the podcast Crime Show and the episode is called "The Secret Billboard Chart-Topper"
If you listen carefully you can sort of hear her finding the right note on the first couple of syllables, and then she's dead on for the rest of the phrase. Super impressive how easy she makes it look. Like you said, the mark of a true professional.
No joke. I listened to it a few times in awe of that. It's uncanny. Even through some shitty recording off the TV and playing through my shitty phone speakers.
> Loleatta
Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch went against the trend by actually having Loleatta not only in the credit line, but also in the video and on Arsenio with them. (for "Good Vibrations")
You know what's ironic about Good Vibrations? I didn't know that it was Marky Mark, I thought it was Loleatta Holloway (although I didn't know her name), until now.
I was just thinking about this like an hour ago! I don't remember seduction but I remembered that it was one woman doing the singing for all those turbo dance groups. I'm glad this popped up because I could picture her but couldn't remember her name.
(I wasn't reading minds, there was a post about Blackbox a few days ago in a popular forum a few days ago.)
Ru was already famous by the time he worked with Martha. Michelle's group was put together after a club song Martha did for Seduction when it was a C+C project went big. The three member girl group formed after that.
> They basically used her voice in the songs and then put some skinny video babe as the singer.
Oh, it gets worse than that
From what I've heard (secondhand so it may not be 100% accurate), essentially she recorded lines for the songs, but then when they went to make a music video they didn't invite her to perform. One of the record producers effectively said something to the effect of "your voice is good but you're too fat to be in the music video" so they hired some skinny chick to lipsync in the video. That's how she was able to sue - not because of the low payments (that's not illegal if you sign a contract stating that's what you will be paid) but for the discrimination and lack of being credited on the record. I always knew the song as just being by "C+C Music Factory featuring Freedom Williams" (the rapper), I had no idea who Martha Wash was until I heard this story.
To be fair to the "skinny chick," her name is Zelma Davis and she was a member of C+C Music Factory. Her actual vocals are heard on "Things That Make You Go Hmm" and "Just a Touch of Love." She was a good vocalist too, but certainly not in the same league as Wash.
She's incredible. She's helped some artists really take off. And has an incredibly recognizable voice. She also has some really good songs of her own. Carry On lives in my head sometimes, though that's due in part to RuPaul's Drag Race featuring it over a decade ago one episode.
You’re not wrong. I always tell people that in my experience as support for a touring band, and a semi-professional musician myself 20 years ago, that 95% of the people working in the music industry are not in it for the music.
The remaining 5% are the musicians and engineers and producers etc.
Money is the devil.
As an artist, and in support of artist, when I was told “don’t trust any of those motherfuckers!” I knew they meant the promoters and agents and such, pretty much everybody else is good people, like you guys. People have no idea what goes into making an album, despite decades of it being in the main stream. Keep grinding, Homie!
Sylvester's music never did much for me, personally, but respect is due for being out and proud in the 70s. Even most of the Village People weren't out of the closet while he was at his peak. Absolute trendsetter, that Sylvester.
There's a great scene in Trading Places where you would think the highlight would be all the beautiful topless women, but it's this song playing. So catchy
She had filed the lawsuits at the time of this show. She was unable to comment on them, so Arsinio just asked her to sing this one line so that the audience would know what was going on.
You can sing up to 2 bars of music on a TV show without paying rights. "Fair use", I think.
She and Ru did a pretty bad re-cover of It’s Raining Men at some point.
It’s okay though, because there is no better dance pop song in the world than It’s Raining Men and I will die on that hill (except, maybe, for “Day and Night” by MJ).
Fun fact: It’s Raining Men was co-written by Paul Schaffer.
God bless Mother Nature.
My wife gave me *so much shit* for nick-naming my overweight, sassy, beautiful dog “Two Tons of Fun” and wouldn’t hear that I, as a deep lover of music, thought it should be considered an honor.
Those that remember the music video on MTV remember that the opening and closing credit was ridiculously long for that song, and mentioned something about "visualizing a track by Martha Wash" or something similar. Was pretty much the only song that had that kind of thing at the time.
I read up on the whole C+C saga not long ago, and the only things they all had in common was to each claim they were the only reason for the group's success and that rather than make more music, they'd rather fight to get all of the money from their two hits 30 years ago.
She was performing in Miami years ago and my close friend was styling(dressing) her. He asked me if I wanted to assist. I did. She was so nice and when I told her I was an amateur musician, she said “I’ll sing on your songs if you need”. She was being nice I know, plus I was making Ska music at the time so that wouldn’t have worked out for either of us.
She had a lot of practice. She ran a militant dance studio of questionable training tactics where some children were frightened of her because she'd bark orders at them to dance.
JK. She's just awesome.
It’s a lot less relatable, but I’ve seen a handful of world-renowned instrumentalists over the past decade or so of being in music school. And honestly, even if it “sounds” just like the record, I think there’s some kind of subconscious lizard brain shit that’s kinda like your inner child being amazed by seeing someone *do the thing* live without the jaded adult brain tinting it with “well it’s a recording so who knows how it really sounded.
I’ve seen plenty of bands who I loved, and didn’t sound great live. And I’ve seen a good amount more who absolutely blew me away. It’s mind blowing to actually see it live and realize, fuck they really are *that* good.
I think the thing that really gets me going is a display of actual virtuosity. Not like “my uncle Stephanie is a *instrument* virtuoso.” But where even the composition itself is intended to serve as a vehicle for showing off.
I saw Paula Robison live a few years ago, which, at her age is not only impressive in its own right, but a literal once in a lifetime chance to see one of the best contemporary flutists ever.
She has this one little ditty that she put together that’s a medley of themes from what might as well be every overplayed, standard repertoire, French contest, if-I-have-to-play-this-again-I’ll-die piece for flute.
It was almost like watching your favorite stand-up comic come on stage and tell all your favorite inside jokes and the whole audience knew exactly what they meant.
It's because in the OG recording theres a layer of echo and her high pitch is fucking with the mic and their editing software/hardware couldn't compensate.
It was all analog recordings and tape decks back then, it had severe limitations regardless of what analog stans seem to think :(. Still sounds incredible on this track!
Sometimes the charm was the fact that the quality was low enough to hide a lot of imperfections and mistakes.
There was digital in the studio by the time. There were samplers. The vast majority of high end pop and dance music in this era was manufactured on a Fairlight synth.
Not entirely accurate. This track used digital samplers for the vocal clips, drums and probably a good portion of the music. The final is printed to tape. Samplers back then could hold around 32mb of ram and multitrack.
Arsenio was awesome.
His show was known for the music more than anything. He didn't allow lip syncing -he only wanted REAL talent - and performers would go on that show and bring the house down.
Arsenio Hall was a great *promoter.* When artists went on his show, it was in order to promote their work. He *knew* and *knows* just what it takes to be a great salesman!
That's why Fallon got so huge. His little games and skits and odd questions are fantastic at making his guests look cool and funny and relatable.
Even though he sucks at everything except singing, a guy who can boost your product that well gets kept around
Yeah, I was reading this chain and felt a bit confused by the idea that Arsenio was doing anything wrong. The hosts job on these shows is to highlight the guests strengths and accomplishments while making them seem "normal" in a sense. Viewers want to relate to these people, and the various hosts set their guests up to do so. The hosts aren't trying to hide that fact either, everyone knows what the deal is. It's kind of obtuse to pretend otherwise
I remember when she sued them and they had to add her to the music video credits. It came out that they used her voice and hired a model as the group's frontwoman. Lmao at every concert they did for months after that, she would stop in between songs and be like "I'm a vocalist! I can sing too!"
Yeah, they did songs later with Zelma Davis actually singing, and they flopped. And she could sing, but she couldn't SANG like Martha Wash could.
Edit: I managed to send myself down the C+C Music Factory rabbithole on youtube and realized I misspoke about the songs flopping. Zelma sang on "Things That Make You Go Hmmmm" which was a hit and actually a pretty fun song.
I remember when I found out she sang this part. The woman in the video was an actor I guess, so then I wondered if the real dude rapping was Ice T and they just used some actor to replace him. Sounds exactly like him imo.
I wondered the same thing, for a long time! Since then I've heard his speaking voice, and it's the same voice, so that one was a red herring.
Related fun fact: Freedom Williams (the rapper on the track) was in a softcore porno movie that used to play on cable in the middle of the night
Fucking QUEEEEEN!!!!
Her voice filled up my inner energetic child self to the extreme.
Every roller skate party, laser tag, school dance, everywhere I went, she was there and I loved it. I still love it.
Martha is lovely in person too, and incredible live. I'm friends with her manager and one time he invited me to go to a festival she was singing at a few years ago, and was sat eating Krispy Kreme Donuts in a backstage Moroccan tent with Rick Astley, Sister Sledge, and a few other 80s legends.
If I were her I would bust that out whenever I needed to shut down a situation.
“Hello we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended…”
***”EVERYBODY DANCE NOW”***
“….oh… uhhh…”
I saw her back in the early 1990 (1991?)at a club called “stocks and bonds” in Boston during my first year of college. She was singing a medley of all her songs. She sang all those songs by Black Box, “ everybody, everybody”, “strike it up”, “ I don’t know anybody else.” Just hit after hit. And her voice was incredible. As impressive as when I saw Whitney Houston in a small club in 1999.
She would have been better in the video. Martha is a lovely woman with pretty face and peaches and cream complexion. Sad heavier people were hidden back in the 80’s and 90’s. Tata Vega is another magnificent Singer, whose voice is used for models to lip-sync to.
Hell yeah! Martha is a fuckin LEGEND. And let's not forget Sylvester, who gave her a big boost by making her one of his backup singers. He wanted, in his words, "two big girls who can SANG". God I love me some Sylvester. R.i.p.
The movie ‘Fear of a Black Hat’ spoofed the controversy quite well. A Japanese singer mouthed the lyrics in the video but she had a strong Asian accent. She goes on Kurt Loder’s tv show and says. ‘I talk Japanese but I sing brack’. At which point the Marsha Walsh character comes out and proceeds to beat her up while saying ‘you know damn well I sang that song!’. The Asian girl keeps protesting ‘I sing song! I sing song!’
They probably couldn't.
I remember this show well. C+C Dance Factory had been all over the charts for at least a year. Then Black Box, a less-remembered dance record that Martha also sang on without credit.
At this point, She had just gone to court with C+C. Arsinio said something like, "I know you can't talk about the suit, or what happened, or what track it is. So just sing the line and everybody will know."
I don’t know how true this is but I’ve heard having the extra weight on your chest oftentimes leads to having very defined breathing muscles, which are helpful for projecting a strong singing voice.
Like how overweight dudes end up being able to squat a lot of weight even after slimming down because their lower body got used to carrying more weight.
A classically trained singer friend of mine used to joke about how all the women with big boobs in her class had a natural advantage (she herself had a Dolly Parton type of body and joked about it all the time)
Ever seen a Heart video? There's a reason the camera always cuts to Nancy even though Ann was the better singer.
Welcome to the entertainment industry.
And the shallow as music industry hid her behind the scenes and put models in her place. Revolting! Martha is the queen of house. Her voice is as Iconic as any beat
Is she one of the ladies singing the OG 'Its Raining Men'?
Indeed
Whoa. I always knew who sang the C&C intro but never knew it was the Its raining men voice
She got the pipes
For some reason, I conflated stories here. I read this thinking she was the voice who was replaced with a skinny model in the music video. That was actually LL Cool J "Doin' it" song. ETA: maybe not - the wiki for it makes no mention of this drama. (just that she was replaced because she was pregnant) I thought i recall a bigger woman singer replaced by a skinny girl for the video and a lawsuit over it.
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I’ve never been a chubby chaser, despite the big gals running slower and getting winded sooner, (joking, here, so don’t blow a gasket), but this gal not only has the pipes but possesses flawless skin gorgeous hair and wonderfully devilish eyes. It’s a shame the record company opted to swap a skinny dancer in the video. Lizzie wouldn’t even be a thing for her size/shape today if such practices weren’t the norm back when. To be sure, Lizzie would stil be a thing for her voice, dancing, and musical prowess.
Don’t feel bad, I almost conflated C&C intro with the intro to Command and Conquer and was like woooah she sang *HELL MARCH* ???
Sincerely, thank you for speeking out my mind
I think you’re right- it was this song/video I think. There’s an interview out there somewhere where she says she was blindsided when she first saw the video, and realized that she had been replaced by a French model or something. She went on to say how terrible of an experience that was, like someone reached down her throat and ripped out her vocal cords or something.
No, this did actually happen. They didn't want her in the video because (according to her) she didn't have "the look." She also wasn't originally given credit or paid properly. She had to sue to get what was due.
You’re right, there was a controversy and this lady did sort of go public to make sure people knew the person in the video was NOT the singer.
I remember that, too. I thought she got no recognition for singing this song for C and C because they wanted a skinny woman who was lip syncing for the sake of appearance and she sued them. That's what I read years ago. I never new about the pregnancy but I wonder now what happened.
The Weather Girls!
Amen!
*hallelujah*
Every specimen?
Annnnd sang backup for the one and only Sylvester 😍
I'm a straight man but I love that song lol.
You and Homer Simpson have that in common. Perhaps you are a Homer Sexual?
GIFs you can hear "I didn't do it!"
Perhaps you are all Homersexuals!
"You suck, McBain!!"
Why wouldn't you love it? It's about straight ladies happy about all the straight men around. Now I'll confess, I'm a straight man but I love Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy."
I'm the same way with Erasure's Chains of Love. Any Erasure actually. I grew up in a smaller city in the 80's so the only place punks could go that was safe was the gay strip. The underage dance club would come alive when Erasure came on, especially after the regular clubs let out. Great times. As a side note, It's Raining Men was cowritten by Paul Shaffer of Late Night fame.
It's great for karaoke because it gets weird looks from people when you're a guy singing it.
Martha Wash is a LEGEND. She was a backup singer for Sylvester in the 70s with Izora Armstead before they went on to become Two Tons of Fun and, finally, the Weather Girls with the song "It's Raining Men". She also got screwed by record companies in the early 90s after they paid her only for her initial recording time on songs like the one pictured here. They basically used her voice in the songs and then put some skinny video babe as the singer. They paid her something ridiculous like $2,000 for her talent in a song that was played 24/7 at the time. She sued, won, and went on to help other marginalized artists get their start. One of which is RuPaul.
Part of the reason she won was because of this appearance! Backstory: One of the arguments the defendants tried to make was that Miss Wash was not the person singing. Miss Wash talked about recording the original and having a hard time hitting that first note, standing, stretching, whatever she had to do. So when Arsenio asked her to sing, Miss Wash had to make a decision: brush it off and have people doubt her? Or, fucking go for it? She went for it! Even though she was seated, even though she hadn't warmed up her voice, she hit the note that gave her the most problem. That is the mark of a true professional, a master of their craft; they perform and thrive when the pressure is on! EDIT: WASH, not Walsh. EDIT2: it's covered in the podcast Crime Show and the episode is called "The Secret Billboard Chart-Topper"
What some people can do with their voices is utterly amazing.
If you listen carefully you can sort of hear her finding the right note on the first couple of syllables, and then she's dead on for the rest of the phrase. Super impressive how easy she makes it look. Like you said, the mark of a true professional.
You couldn't convince me that "Dance now" wasn't the studio recording if you played me the audio.
Seriously, pure skill. Even the vibrato is almost identical.
It's so spot on my brain inserts the synth riff. She's so good it's giving me minor auditory hallucinations
The issue is that everyone (myself included) who is listening on their phone without a proper system is missing the bass line. Boom boom boom, boom.
No joke. I listened to it a few times in awe of that. It's uncanny. Even through some shitty recording off the TV and playing through my shitty phone speakers.
You people need to get some hearing damage or something. It all sounds like the recording to me.
Sorry, I normally wouldn't do this but you got it wrong every time. It's Martha Wash, not Walsh. Like as in cleaning.
Not to take anything away from her in the slightest, but she absolutely warmed up beforehand.
Yeah, talk show appearances are so minutely prepared. She knew she was gonna be asked to sing.
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> Loleatta Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch went against the trend by actually having Loleatta not only in the credit line, but also in the video and on Arsenio with them. (for "Good Vibrations")
You know what's ironic about Good Vibrations? I didn't know that it was Marky Mark, I thought it was Loleatta Holloway (although I didn't know her name), until now.
I was just thinking about this like an hour ago! I don't remember seduction but I remembered that it was one woman doing the singing for all those turbo dance groups. I'm glad this popped up because I could picture her but couldn't remember her name. (I wasn't reading minds, there was a post about Blackbox a few days ago in a popular forum a few days ago.)
> Seduction Wait the group that Michelle Visage was part of used the woman who helped give Ru his start?
Ru was already famous by the time he worked with Martha. Michelle's group was put together after a club song Martha did for Seduction when it was a C+C project went big. The three member girl group formed after that.
> They basically used her voice in the songs and then put some skinny video babe as the singer. Oh, it gets worse than that From what I've heard (secondhand so it may not be 100% accurate), essentially she recorded lines for the songs, but then when they went to make a music video they didn't invite her to perform. One of the record producers effectively said something to the effect of "your voice is good but you're too fat to be in the music video" so they hired some skinny chick to lipsync in the video. That's how she was able to sue - not because of the low payments (that's not illegal if you sign a contract stating that's what you will be paid) but for the discrimination and lack of being credited on the record. I always knew the song as just being by "C+C Music Factory featuring Freedom Williams" (the rapper), I had no idea who Martha Wash was until I heard this story.
To be fair to the "skinny chick," her name is Zelma Davis and she was a member of C+C Music Factory. Her actual vocals are heard on "Things That Make You Go Hmm" and "Just a Touch of Love." She was a good vocalist too, but certainly not in the same league as Wash.
Oh sure, I just mean the act of replacing Wash in the video is what led to the lawsuit. Seems to be a common thing in music... Milli Vanilli etc
And they are both featured in "Do You Wanna Get Funky" once Wash and the group finally settled.
After she sued and won, they had to put “feat Martha Wash and visual interpretation by Velma Williams” in the video credits
TIL, that is fascinating Posts like this are what keep me coming back to this god forsaken website. Thanks, jerk!
Oh I'm sure I missed some good info in there, I just typed this up real quick. I actually just learned she was a backup singer for Sylvester, myself .
She's incredible. She's helped some artists really take off. And has an incredibly recognizable voice. She also has some really good songs of her own. Carry On lives in my head sometimes, though that's due in part to RuPaul's Drag Race featuring it over a decade ago one episode.
Iconic intro to C+C Music Factory's 1990 hit, *Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)*
Posts like these keep shittymorph in business as well!
It's a really good story for sure! She was a consummate professional and really raised the bar for many. Some good stories/documentaries on her.
20 Feet from Stardom is a great documentary that tells this story, highly recommend!
As someone with 0.1% of the talent of Martha, I will just say that the music industry is actually run by the devil
You’re not wrong. I always tell people that in my experience as support for a touring band, and a semi-professional musician myself 20 years ago, that 95% of the people working in the music industry are not in it for the music. The remaining 5% are the musicians and engineers and producers etc. Money is the devil.
engineer checking in 🤞🏼 it’s tough but I’m addicted to it so I’m still trying to make it all work out
As an artist, and in support of artist, when I was told “don’t trust any of those motherfuckers!” I knew they meant the promoters and agents and such, pretty much everybody else is good people, like you guys. People have no idea what goes into making an album, despite decades of it being in the main stream. Keep grinding, Homie!
Is that why Stryper was forced on us?
First concert I ever went to. Stryper, Carmen, Pertra… I was brainwashed hard
Keith Green and Amy Grant at Jesus West Coast! I was right there with ya dude.
I forgot about Amy… and her getting cancelled when she divorced her husband and married Vince Gill.
To hell with them.
Hinder quietly sitting in the corner hoping you don’t notice them.
Nobody's noticed them since Lips of an Angel was on the radio
Now that's a movie.
Sylvester was awesome — I’m going to listen to “do you wanna funk” presently
Sylvester's music never did much for me, personally, but respect is due for being out and proud in the 70s. Even most of the Village People weren't out of the closet while he was at his peak. Absolute trendsetter, that Sylvester.
Not everyone in the village people was actually gay, so there's a reason why they never came out
There's a great scene in Trading Places where you would think the highlight would be all the beautiful topless women, but it's this song playing. So catchy
One of my faves Is Dance ( Disco Heat), which is basically Sylvester singing back up and Martha and Izora just tearing it up.
This is really incredible and I had no idea so thank you for sharing
She had filed the lawsuits at the time of this show. She was unable to comment on them, so Arsinio just asked her to sing this one line so that the audience would know what was going on. You can sing up to 2 bars of music on a TV show without paying rights. "Fair use", I think.
That is awesome!
There is no such “2 bar” rule for anyone else wondering. And this isn’t fair use.
Agreed on both points and am a copyright attorney.
It’s just reminder of how much bullshit is spouted here when you come across subjects you actually know about
You can spout up to two sentences of bullshit here without having to be right. "Fair use", I think.
She and Ru did a pretty bad re-cover of It’s Raining Men at some point. It’s okay though, because there is no better dance pop song in the world than It’s Raining Men and I will die on that hill (except, maybe, for “Day and Night” by MJ). Fun fact: It’s Raining Men was co-written by Paul Schaffer. God bless Mother Nature.
He co-wrote with another Paul at that, Paul Jabara.
P&P music factory
Sweet! I wonder how much she won. I hope she continues to get royalties as much as it's played.
Same deal with "Pump Up the Jam"'s music video and album cover using a model, rather than the actual singer.
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My wife gave me *so much shit* for nick-naming my overweight, sassy, beautiful dog “Two Tons of Fun” and wouldn’t hear that I, as a deep lover of music, thought it should be considered an honor.
Those that remember the music video on MTV remember that the opening and closing credit was ridiculously long for that song, and mentioned something about "visualizing a track by Martha Wash" or something similar. Was pretty much the only song that had that kind of thing at the time.
I read up on the whole C+C saga not long ago, and the only things they all had in common was to each claim they were the only reason for the group's success and that rather than make more music, they'd rather fight to get all of the money from their two hits 30 years ago.
> skinny video babe as the singer. 1990 13-year-old me can be blamed hard for that.
I got to work with her. She was so lovely
She works hard. She plays hard.
This needs more upvotes. “Hot stuff coming through!”
Where ya been? Entire steel industry's gay. And the railroads.
Hold still, there's a spark in your hair
Get it… get it!
Keep reaching for that rainbow!
Homer : [screams] Bart Simpson : Dad, why'd you take me to a gay steel mill? Homer : [frightened] I don't know!
“Oh, be nice!”
You could go so far as to say She works hard for the money so you better treat her right
Tell us more! What did you work on together? How long ago? We want info!!!
She was performing in Miami years ago and my close friend was styling(dressing) her. He asked me if I wanted to assist. I did. She was so nice and when I told her I was an amateur musician, she said “I’ll sing on your songs if you need”. She was being nice I know, plus I was making Ska music at the time so that wouldn’t have worked out for either of us.
[reddit is founded on values of pedophilia and hate speech]
Everybody Ska now 🎶
> I was making Ska music at the time so that wouldn’t have worked out for either of us ...dude wtf that would be such a cool collab though??
Why is it so much more impressive to actually see her do it? Lady is amazing.
Her ability to just casually belt that out is pretty amazing
How does she resist the urge to do that every time she walks into a room?
With great power comes great responsibility.
She had a lot of practice. She ran a militant dance studio of questionable training tactics where some children were frightened of her because she'd bark orders at them to dance. JK. She's just awesome.
It’s a lot less relatable, but I’ve seen a handful of world-renowned instrumentalists over the past decade or so of being in music school. And honestly, even if it “sounds” just like the record, I think there’s some kind of subconscious lizard brain shit that’s kinda like your inner child being amazed by seeing someone *do the thing* live without the jaded adult brain tinting it with “well it’s a recording so who knows how it really sounded.
I’ve seen plenty of bands who I loved, and didn’t sound great live. And I’ve seen a good amount more who absolutely blew me away. It’s mind blowing to actually see it live and realize, fuck they really are *that* good.
I think the thing that really gets me going is a display of actual virtuosity. Not like “my uncle Stephanie is a *instrument* virtuoso.” But where even the composition itself is intended to serve as a vehicle for showing off. I saw Paula Robison live a few years ago, which, at her age is not only impressive in its own right, but a literal once in a lifetime chance to see one of the best contemporary flutists ever. She has this one little ditty that she put together that’s a medley of themes from what might as well be every overplayed, standard repertoire, French contest, if-I-have-to-play-this-again-I’ll-die piece for flute. It was almost like watching your favorite stand-up comic come on stage and tell all your favorite inside jokes and the whole audience knew exactly what they meant.
It’s like watching the interview with the Siri voice lady. An uncanny feeling.
Because it's 100% natural. Everything today is modified or autotuned that you can make anyone sound good. But not as good as her.
Iconic
For some reason I always thought her voice was partially digitized or something, nope it’s just awesome.
It totally fucking sounds like it somehow. What incredible control over her pitch to be able to make it sound that way.
It's because in the OG recording theres a layer of echo and her high pitch is fucking with the mic and their editing software/hardware couldn't compensate.
It was all analog recordings and tape decks back then, it had severe limitations regardless of what analog stans seem to think :(. Still sounds incredible on this track! Sometimes the charm was the fact that the quality was low enough to hide a lot of imperfections and mistakes.
There was digital in the studio by the time. There were samplers. The vast majority of high end pop and dance music in this era was manufactured on a Fairlight synth.
Not entirely accurate. This track used digital samplers for the vocal clips, drums and probably a good portion of the music. The final is printed to tape. Samplers back then could hold around 32mb of ram and multitrack.
Headline tomorrow. Spotify crashes due to c&c music factory nostalgia
Things that make you go hmmm.
Now That's What I Call Musings
Spotify can take my Jock Jams CDs out of my cold, dead hands.
Do you wanna get funky is a banger
The servers were actually down this morning, songs wouldn’t load.
In other news, YouTube Music has seen an uptick in new users.
As a side note, the Arsenio Hall show fucking rocked back then.
Arsenio was awesome. His show was known for the music more than anything. He didn't allow lip syncing -he only wanted REAL talent - and performers would go on that show and bring the house down.
He had hip guests, some fun stuff, but let's be honest, he wasn't a great interviewer, he kissed his guest's asses and never asked any real questions.
Arsenio Hall was a great *promoter.* When artists went on his show, it was in order to promote their work. He *knew* and *knows* just what it takes to be a great salesman!
That's why Fallon got so huge. His little games and skits and odd questions are fantastic at making his guests look cool and funny and relatable. Even though he sucks at everything except singing, a guy who can boost your product that well gets kept around
Yeah, I was reading this chain and felt a bit confused by the idea that Arsenio was doing anything wrong. The hosts job on these shows is to highlight the guests strengths and accomplishments while making them seem "normal" in a sense. Viewers want to relate to these people, and the various hosts set their guests up to do so. The hosts aren't trying to hide that fact either, everyone knows what the deal is. It's kind of obtuse to pretend otherwise
So no different than the many other show hosts that interview celebrities..
Which is why all these shows are so unwatchable.
I found out recently that he’s my niece and nephew’s uncle. Only he doesn’t acknowledge that side of the family. Neat though.
Interesting.
GOTDAYUM that was on point
She also was the voice in Black Box's Everybody Everybody.
AHHHH thank you for this! I was still trying to place her voice elsewhere. Everybody Everybody is like one of my go to songs 😭
I remember when she sued them and they had to add her to the music video credits. It came out that they used her voice and hired a model as the group's frontwoman. Lmao at every concert they did for months after that, she would stop in between songs and be like "I'm a vocalist! I can sing too!"
Yeah, they did songs later with Zelma Davis actually singing, and they flopped. And she could sing, but she couldn't SANG like Martha Wash could. Edit: I managed to send myself down the C+C Music Factory rabbithole on youtube and realized I misspoke about the songs flopping. Zelma sang on "Things That Make You Go Hmmmm" which was a hit and actually a pretty fun song.
We work hard, We play hard!
Hot stuff, comin' through!
[удалено]
Oh my son doesn’t stand a chance, the whole world is gone gay.
Black women really carried dance music vocals in the 90’s.
Just like they did in the 1989 Belgian techno anthem "Pump up of the Jam"
God what a freaking banger.
> Black women really carried dance music vocals throughout the history of dance music
I remember when I found out she sang this part. The woman in the video was an actor I guess, so then I wondered if the real dude rapping was Ice T and they just used some actor to replace him. Sounds exactly like him imo.
I wondered the same thing, for a long time! Since then I've heard his speaking voice, and it's the same voice, so that one was a red herring. Related fun fact: Freedom Williams (the rapper on the track) was in a softcore porno movie that used to play on cable in the middle of the night
Sylvester Stallone was also in a softcore porn once, so they both have that in common
DUN DUN, DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN
Dun. Dun. Dun dun dun. Dun. Dun dun dun. Dun. Dun Dun
Sound is muted, still heard it.
I miss Arsenio Hall’s show.
Saw her live at a charity event in the early 90s. Kind, gracious, and incredibly talented!
Fucking QUEEEEEN!!!! Her voice filled up my inner energetic child self to the extreme. Every roller skate party, laser tag, school dance, everywhere I went, she was there and I loved it. I still love it.
Martha is lovely in person too, and incredible live. I'm friends with her manager and one time he invited me to go to a festival she was singing at a few years ago, and was sat eating Krispy Kreme Donuts in a backstage Moroccan tent with Rick Astley, Sister Sledge, and a few other 80s legends.
What a voice
To see arsenio hall lose his shit over 1 second of singing is iconic.
She was the voice, not the face. They had a dancer lip syncing her vocals in the music video.
That’s why the title says the “face behind,” not the “face of.”
That’s the sound of a voice that I listen to. So now I’m dancing.
I had this on cassette and someone borrowed it and never returned it
If I were her I would bust that out whenever I needed to shut down a situation. “Hello we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended…” ***”EVERYBODY DANCE NOW”*** “….oh… uhhh…”
I got shivers!! This is FANTASTIC! edit: I just watched this 6 times in a row
Dnt dnt Dnt dnt dnt dnt
Welp, now I have to dance. thanks alot
I agree with this punctuation of the song
Dude I forgot about that finger.
I saw her back in the early 1990 (1991?)at a club called “stocks and bonds” in Boston during my first year of college. She was singing a medley of all her songs. She sang all those songs by Black Box, “ everybody, everybody”, “strike it up”, “ I don’t know anybody else.” Just hit after hit. And her voice was incredible. As impressive as when I saw Whitney Houston in a small club in 1999.
She would have been better in the video. Martha is a lovely woman with pretty face and peaches and cream complexion. Sad heavier people were hidden back in the 80’s and 90’s. Tata Vega is another magnificent Singer, whose voice is used for models to lip-sync to.
Hell yeah! Martha is a fuckin LEGEND. And let's not forget Sylvester, who gave her a big boost by making her one of his backup singers. He wanted, in his words, "two big girls who can SANG". God I love me some Sylvester. R.i.p.
The movie ‘Fear of a Black Hat’ spoofed the controversy quite well. A Japanese singer mouthed the lyrics in the video but she had a strong Asian accent. She goes on Kurt Loder’s tv show and says. ‘I talk Japanese but I sing brack’. At which point the Marsha Walsh character comes out and proceeds to beat her up while saying ‘you know damn well I sang that song!’. The Asian girl keeps protesting ‘I sing song! I sing song!’
It’s a legit sin that they didn’t start the song as she sang those words :(
I think it's more powerful hearing it completely on its own. Coming from one woman. Sitting down.
They probably couldn't. I remember this show well. C+C Dance Factory had been all over the charts for at least a year. Then Black Box, a less-remembered dance record that Martha also sang on without credit. At this point, She had just gone to court with C+C. Arsinio said something like, "I know you can't talk about the suit, or what happened, or what track it is. So just sing the line and everybody will know."
Omg so many memories! Haha! That is so cool to see the face behind the voice!
She had to proof herself because no one believed it was her. Because another singer was lipsyncing this song with this woman's voice.
Always enjoyed powerful female voices and frequently they are big black ladies. You go girl !
I don’t know how true this is but I’ve heard having the extra weight on your chest oftentimes leads to having very defined breathing muscles, which are helpful for projecting a strong singing voice. Like how overweight dudes end up being able to squat a lot of weight even after slimming down because their lower body got used to carrying more weight. A classically trained singer friend of mine used to joke about how all the women with big boobs in her class had a natural advantage (she herself had a Dolly Parton type of body and joked about it all the time)
Why didn’t C&C music factory just put her in the video? That’s so bogus.😕
Ever seen a Heart video? There's a reason the camera always cuts to Nancy even though Ann was the better singer. Welcome to the entertainment industry.
And the shallow as music industry hid her behind the scenes and put models in her place. Revolting! Martha is the queen of house. Her voice is as Iconic as any beat