Rosalind Ashford, an original member of Motown’s Martha and the Vandellas, died on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, of natural causes at her home in Redford, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. She was 83. Hers was the soprano riding high above “Dancing in the Street,” “Heat Wave” and “Nowhere to Run.”
Friends called her Roz, and she was also known as Rosalind Ashford-Holmes. A Detroit native, she was born on September 2, 1943, and had marked her 83rd birthday less than two weeks before she died.
Three singers made up the original lineup of the group that helped carry the Detroit label to national success, and Ashford was one of them. Martha Reeves sang lead. Ashford took the top line, the soaring soprano sitting above the vocal blend on the group’s 20-plus records that reached the Top 40 of Billboard’s R&B rankings — a voice plenty of listeners knew without ever learning the name attached to it.
From the Del-Phis to Hitsville
As a girl she sang in church and school groups. She was a student at Wilbur Wright High School, on Detroit’s west side, when she joined the Del-Phis in 1957, a teenage vocal group put together by Edward “Pops” Larkins; Annette Beard and Gloria Williams sang alongside her. Martha Reeves, the Detroit singer who would become the group’s leader and front woman, came aboard in 1960.
The singers worked as the Vels, too, releasing a few singles on Chicago’s Chess Records. At home in Detroit they took backing work on early Motown sessions for Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells. The group signed with the label in September 1962, and Berry Gordy, the Motown chief, installed Reeves as the front woman of a trio billed as Martha and the Vandellas.
The Records That Carried Her Voice
Success arrived fast. “Come and Get These Memories” broke the group through in 1963, with “(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave” and “Quicksand” right behind it. Betty Kelly replaced Beard in 1964 — the same year the Vandellas cut the record that would outlast everything else in the catalog. “Dancing in the Street” climbed to No. 2 and became the group’s signature song.
“Nowhere to Run,” “I’m Ready for Love” and “Jimmy Mack” came next, and Martha and the Vandellas grew into one of Motown’s A-list acts. Other artists carried the songs well past the label: Linda Ronstadt and Phil Collins both recorded “Heat Wave,” while The Mamas & the Papas, Van Halen and the Grateful Dead each took up “Dancing in the Street.”
Ashford was there from the group’s beginnings and left in 1969.
Honors and a Second Act
She married and largely stepped away from the music business, taking a job with the Michigan Bell Telephone Co. and working there as a computer systems specialist during the 1980s. The songs never let go of her entirely. She reunited with Reeves and Beard for tours and recordings in the mid-1980s, and the original Vandellas cut the single “Step Into My Shoes” in 1989 for the label Motorcity Records. She and Beard also performed for years as The Original Vandellas with lead vocalist Roschelle Laughhunn.
Ashford, Beard and Kelly pursued legal action against Motown over unpaid royalties as well.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Martha and the Vandellas in 1995, honoring Ashford as a member of the group, which became the second all-female group enshrined there. “Dancing in the Street” has its own honors: the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. Her image appeared beside those of Reeves and Beard on a commemorative U.S. postage stamp in 2000.
Reeves Remembers Her Bandmate
“Rosalind played an important part in the early days of Martha and the Vandellas,” Reeves, 85, said in a statement. “Her voice will forever be with us through our great recordings together, and she will be missed but never forgotten.”
Reeves added: “Our Motown family has just gotten a little smaller. My heart is heavy.”
For decades after the Vandellas years, the two singers had a strained relationship, though they had recently reconciled.
Out of the spotlight, Ashford liked to travel and to spend time with family and friends, said her son, Damon Holmes. She belonged to a circle of Motown veterans who gathered regularly at a Southfield restaurant to trade stories, according to Pat Cosby, a former Motown staffer and longtime friend. “The memories are still precious,” Cosby said.
Ashford is survived by her son Damon, her daughter-in-law and four grandchildren. The James H. Cole Funeral Home on Detroit’s Schaefer Highway will host the services, which had yet to be finalized.
