Wanda Young
American soprano (1943–2021)
Wanda LaFaye Young (August 9, 1943 – December 15, 2021), was an American singer, known for being a member of the Motown all-female singing group the Marvelettes, and after 1965, the lead singer.
Biography
Early life
Young was born and raised in Inkster, Michigan and was one of ten children. Her father, James Young, worked at the Ford plant, while her mother Beatrice was a housewife. Originally aspiring to be a nurse while attending nursing school, Young's professional music career started after fellow Inkster High School classmate Gladys Horton asked her to audition for a spot left by Georgia Dobbins. Dobbins' father had forbidden her to sing secular music. At this point the band had no name, having formerly been called the Casinyets (a contraction of "can't sing yet").
The Marvelettes
After a successful audition, Young joined the group and the quintet, which had auditioned for a deal with Motown earlier, returned with a song co-written by Dobbins titled "Please Mr. Postman". Impressed with the group's sound, Berry Gordy immediately signed them, and named them "the Marvelettes". After the song was remastered, the song was released and became Motown's first No.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wanda Young” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.