Kim Weston

Best known for her vocal pairings alongside Marvin Gaye, Kim Weston also placed several solo recordings on the charts throughout the 1960s, though none achieved the widespread impact enjoyed by Martha Reeves or Diana Ross. Born Agatha Natalie Weston in Detroit in 1939, she began performing in her local church choir at the age of three and later joined the touring gospel ensemble the Wright Specials as a teenager. She joined the Motown roster during its formative period and scored a modest R&B success in 1963 with the single "Love Me All the Way." In 1964 she cut her initial duet with Gaye, "What Good Am I Without You," yet declined the opportunity to record "Dancing in the Street," which soon became a major hit for Martha & the Vandellas. Her most successful solo outing arrived in 1965 with "Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)," followed in 1966 by the similarly soulful "Helpless," both of which earned her lasting esteem among soul enthusiasts. That same year she completed the full-length duet project Take Two with Gaye, highlighted by the Top Five R&B classic "It Takes Two." Although the track reached its chart peak in early 1967, Weston had already departed Motown by then; she and her husband, producer William "Mickey" Stevenson, relocated to MGM, where the albums For the First Time and This Is America failed to find commercial traction. Subsequent releases appeared on Volt with Kim Kim Kim, on People with Big Brass Four Poster—an album of jazz standards recorded alongside the Hastings Street Jazz Experience—and on Johnny Nash’s Banyan Tree imprint, none of which yielded significant results. She did, however, register a chart entry in 1970 with her interpretation of the anthem "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing." Weston largely stepped away from the music business during the 1970s, but in 1987 she became the first of numerous Motown veterans to collaborate with British producer Ian Levine for the Motorcity label, re-recording many of her earlier hits aimed at the Northern soul audience; her Motorcity albums Investigate (1990) and Talking Loud (1992) also incorporated original material.