Kim Weston
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Kim Weston (born Agatha Natalie Weston, December 20, 1939, in Detroit, Michigan) is an African American soul singer, and Motown Records alumna. She was signed to the record label in 1963, scoring a minor hit with "Love Me All the Way (R&B #24, Pop #88). Her largest solo hits with Motown were "Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)" (R&B #4, Pop #50, 1965; later covered by The Isley Brothers and The Doobie Brothers) and "Helpless" (R&B #13, Pop #56, 1966; previously recorded by The Four Tops on their Second Album LP). Her biggest claim to fame was singing the classic hit "It Takes Two" with Marvin Gaye in 1966.
Weston left Motown in 1967 and later sued the label over disputes about royalties. She and her then-husband Mickey Stevenson (former A&R man at Motown) both went to MGM Records. Weston cut a couple of singles for MGM , "I Got What You Need," and "Nobody," which went largely unnoticed due to lack of airplay and promotion. She made an album for the label, This Is America, which included a rendition of the Black National Anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
She recorded several more albums for various labels, Stax/Volt among them, and also made an album of duets with Johnny Nash. None of these recordings charted, and Weston reportedly relocated to Israel, where she worked with young singers.
Along with many of her fellow Motown alumni/alumnae, she signed with Ian Levine's Motorcity label in the 1980s, re-recording a number of her Motown songs and some new material. These recordings also failed to garner much notice.
Today she appears sporadically, often alongside former Motown colleagues Mary Wilson, Martha Reeves and Brenda Holloway.
[edit] Further reading
- Whitall, Susan. For the Record: Women of Motown (1998, ISBN 0-380-79379-2)
