Rosalind Ashford helped the group to distinguish themselves from the other girl groups in the label including the pop-oriented Marvelettes and the doo-wop-influenced Supremes with a rougher, brassier gospel-influenced sound. Reeves was a brassy alto while Annette was a deep contralto, and Rosalind was a high soprano. Like the Supremes' Florence Ballard, the Marvelettes' Wanda Rogers and The Four Tops' Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Ashford registered as the high background vocal in Vandellas records. After "Quicksand" gave the group a third top forty pop hit, Beard left to start a family with her new spouse. Reeves recruited a former member of The Velvelettes,
Alice R. Ballard Alice R. Ballard Alice R. Ballard. (born June 16, 1945, Florence, South Carolina) is an American ceramicist based in Greenville, South Carolina. Much of her work is characterized by the organic earthenware forms of closed containers, pinch pots, platters, pods, teapots, totems, small work, vessels and a series she refers to as her white work. Much of her work is finished with terra sigillata. Alice considers her art to be “a reflection of [her] relationship with natural forms. It is often the metamorphosis of Nature's forms, as they change from season to season, that attracts her to that universal world