Katherine Anderson Schaffner: Jan. 14, 1944-Sept. 20, 2023
Singer Katherine Anderson Schaffner was one of the teen voices behind Motown’s first No. 1 hit, “Please Mr. Postman.” A co-founder of Motown group the Marvelettes, Schaffner died Tuesday night just after midnight at age 79.
The news was announced by her daughter, Keisha Schaffner, on Facebook Wednesday. Schaffner, who was called “Kat” by friends and family, died of heart failure associated with congestive heart failure.
Schaffner, Gladys Horton, Georgeanna Tillman, Juanita Cowart Motley and Georgia Dobbins founded the Marvelettes while schoolmates at Inkster High School in 1960. (Wanda Young replaced Dobbins soon after.) The group’s original name was the Casinyets, as in “can’t sing yet.” They were connected with Tamla Records, which became Motown, through a talent competition at school, which they did not win.
Within about a year, the girls were renamed the Marvelettes by Berry Gordy Jr., signed with Tamla Records and released “Please Mr. Postman” in 1961.
“Never in our wildest dreams did we figure that it would be 50 years later, and (“Postman”) would still be just as powerful as the day it was made,” Schaffner told The Detroit News in 2011 after Horton’s death.
The song was not only Motown’s first No. 1 hit, but it’s considered one of the greatest songs of all time. While it’s been widely reported that the Marvelettes didn’t get their proper due as a pioneer of the vocal Girl Group era back then, powers that be have since tried to make things right in the 21st century.
The Marvelettes were honored in 2010 by the Grammy Hall of Fame collection, and in 2004 the women finally got their gold record for sales of “Please Mr. Postman,” a 43-year delay because Gordy didn’t report the song’s sales to the Recording Industry Association of America in 1961. The Marvelettes are members of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame and were nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 and 2015, but have not been voted to be inducted.
Schaffner was a Marvelette throughout the 1960s, performing backing vocals on the tracks “Beechwood 4-5789,” “Locking Up My Heart” and others.
Her daughter remembers her as a no-nonsense maternal figure who was always willing to lend an ear.
“She was not just a Mom to us, but to many,” wrote her daughter Schaffner on Facebook this week. “Many people would come and sit at her table. Now if you ever sat and said, Kat, I need to talk. You already knew you were going to get true, uncut, unedited council. She wasn’t going to tell you what you wanted to hear but what you should hear.”
Her daughter told The Detroit News that a memorial is being planned for January near what would have been her 80th birthday, but there will be no public service.