It was later sent to a crew of Motown songwriters - Freddie Gorman, Brian Holland and Robert Bateman - for a final punch-up. Postman” originally had a slower, bluesier feel, which fit Dobbins’ singing style more than the group’s de facto leader Horton. Watts says Dobbins wrote the rest of the song in three days, inspired by the pangs of waiting for a letter from her then-boyfriend, who was enlisted in the Navy. One of their teachers, however, convinced the principal to let them go as well, and while Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson were impressed, they requested the Marvels come up with an original song.ĭobbins turned to a bandmate from another group, William Garrett, a piano player, who’d come up with a melody and a title - “Please Mr. According to the 2006 book American Singing Groups, the Marvels came in fourth place at a high school talent show, just missing out on a top three prize: an audition at Motown. As a teenager growing up in the Detroit suburb of Inkster, Michigan, Dobbins was part of several singing groups including a quintet known as the Marvels with Gladys Horton, Georgeanna Tillman, Juanita Cowart and Katherine Anderson. Georgia Dobbins Davis was born May 5th, 1942.
When she got married and I came along - I’m an only child - it was, ‘OK, I wrote a song, and that’s it, that’s all you need to know.’” “She told me that she didn’t listen to the radio she pretty much became a hermit,” Watts says. Postman” encapsulates the extent of her music career, and Watts says her mother long refused to acknowledge or discuss her contribution to pop history. But by the time the Marvelettes recorded it in 1961, Dobbins left the group to look after her ailing mother and because her father forbade her from touring or getting involved in the music industry.ĭobbins’ writing credit on “Please Mr. The track became Motown’s first Number One hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Postman,” Dobbins played an integral role in the history of Motown and pop music. Dobbins’ daughter, Kimberly Ann Watts, confirmed her death to Rolling Stone, adding the cause was cardiac arrest. Georgia Dobbins Davis, an original member of the Marvelettes and the co-writer of their classic 1961 hit, “Please Mr.
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