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Heat Wave began at Hitsville USA in Detroit, where Holland-Dozier-Holland, fresh off their first hit with Martha and the Vandellas, Come and Get These Memories, needed a follow-up. The group recorded it on June 20, 1963, and the Gordy label released it on July 10. Martha Reeves sang lead with Rosalind Ashford and Annette Beard, over a gospel backbeat, jazz chords and doo-wop call and response played by the Funk Brothers: Richard “Pistol” Allen, James Jamerson, Joe Hunter, Robert White, Eddie Willis and Mike Terry on baritone saxophone. It reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and held No. 1 on the R&B chart for four weeks.

In 1964 it made Martha and the Vandellas the first Motown group nominated for a Grammy. Linda Ronstadt’s version was born at My Father’s Place on Long Island, when her band ran out of songs after six encores and club manager Michael Epstein suggested Heat Wave. Peter Asher later produced a meticulous studio take for her 1975 album Prisoner in Disguise. Phil Collins revived it in 2010 as the lead single of Going Back, recorded with surviving Funk Brothers.

• John Sebastian sped up its three-chord progression to build the intro of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Do You Believe in Magic.
• Cash Box called the original a danceable rock-a-twister.
• The song appears in The Boys in the Band, Carrie, More American Graffiti and Sister Act.
• Ronstadt’s label made it the B-side of Neil Young’s Love Is a Rose, but pop DJs flipped it to No. 5 on the Hot 100.
• Collins recorded with Bob Babbitt, Ray Monette and Eddie Willis, his first new single in over five years.