Lorri Rudolph

In 1960, Loraine Rudolph became a cog in the hit music machine later known as Motown. She sang back-up for one future star after another, toured with The Spinners, hung out with Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye and lived with Motown mogul Berry Gordy's sister and her husband, the singer and producer Harvey Fuqua. The hitmakers in the extended Gordy family thought Rudolph might make it as a lead singer, so she cut a couple of records under her own name, and a couple more as a duo (Loe and Joe) with a Chicago cab driver. "They went nowhere," says Rudolph, who since 1971 has lived in a tidy brick house in the Hillcrest Heights section of Prince George's County. No radio play, no sales to speak of. Like many artists from that time, Rudolph never saw a penny from any of her records. After less than two years in Detroit, Rudolph moved to Washington to be with her sister. She spent two decades clawing out a living as a singer at legendary nightspots such as the Bohemian Caverns and Pitts' Red Carpet Lounge, but that all ended in 1981 when she hurt her back.