Other titles stayed on the air beside it: a song about having nowhere to run, another about being ready for love, another named after a man who would not stay gone.

She left the group in 1969 and took ordinary work at the telephone company while still returning to the stage with former partners when the songs called her back. In 1995 the trio was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, only the second all-female group given that place. She is survived by her son and four grandchildren. The woman who shared the microphone in those first years said the recordings would keep the voice in the room, and that the Motown family had grown a little smaller.

The name held until the last line is Rosalind Ashford. Original Vandellas soprano. Detroit. The records remain louder than the quiet that follows.