Now that Tina Turner has hung up her wigs and fishnets, pop is crying out for a glamorous grannie. Step forward Martha Reeves, formerly of the Vandellas. In a shimmery dress, she hurls herself around like a teenager, and makes the giddy Heatwave sound a little giddier than it should. "I am overcome by this warm weather!" the one-time Motown secretary pants. "What am I singing next?" She is an explosion of soul, sweat, sex and sequins, and it is difficult to accept that she has just turned 60.
Reeves is typical of the Motown Records spirit that is being revived on this tour. She is joined by Edwin Starr, Freda "Band of Gold" Payne (who wasn't actually on Motown but signed to songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland's own label, Invictus), and an excellent band who have that shuffling beat gloriously right. Amplified by the kind of tinny sound system used in the 1960s, the drum kit sounds like a set of pans being hit by a metal spatula. It gives the music a raw urgency that bypasses cabaret and underlines how revolutionary these sounds once were.
Payne excels herself on a beautiful version of Diana Ross's Touch Me in the Morning, while Starr's showstopper is Tracks of My Tears; he still seems humbled by the emotional power of Smokey Robinson's song. Between outpourings, Reeves and Payne comically attempt to upstage each other's costumes. Reeves appears in a lace and diamante affair that causes Starr to gasp, "That dress is wearing me out!" Payne retorts with a skirt so short it could qualify as a fan belt.
Even so, the show belongs to Reeves. Originally Motown's most powerful moments tapped into black struggle and hardship; now the poignancy in Reeves's vocal comes from her battle with the years, and the way she wrestles to keep hold of distant memories. Dancing in the Street is predictably riotous, and she puts everything into Nowhere to Run. When she tells of crying as she performed Forget Me Not for soldiers going away to the Falklands, you believe her. That's real soul.
At the Eden Court Theatre, Inverness (01463 234234), tomorrow, then touring.
