New footage shows Martha Reeves blasting backup singers before disastrous womens baseball national anthem

Martha Reeves knew there were some issues with the national anthem before it became a viral train wreck.The Motown legend, 85, who has been mocked for the better part of a week for botching the Star-Spangled Banner at the Women’s Pro Baseball League’s inaugural game on Aug.

1, though a new video shows Reeves giving her backup singers an earful during practice.“That’s out of tune,” Reeves says, stopping the anthem mid-practice as the backup singers struggled.“Who is singing with me?”Reeves even added that she believed that the backup singers were unnecessary in the performance.

“Who’s singing the same note I’m singing? Why?” Reeves hastily adds to the singers.“Backup singers.

I don’t think I need them,” When Reeves went up to actually perform the anthem in front of a packed house of fans, it was so bad the spectators can be seen chuckling in the crowd.Reeves began the Star-Spangled Banner, and upon hearing the backup singers beside her, she stopped the entire song while staring at the backup singers who seemed much louder and completely out of tune.In the bizarre moment, Reeves appeared to roll her eyes, take a step back, turn, and look at the unnamed backup singers as they sang together beside her.Though perhaps the moment would have been different if the backup singers were not a part of the performance at all.

In the rehearsal video, Reeves is told by an employee, “It’s up to you” whether the backup singers were a part of the rendition.While Reeves replied, “I think so,” the backup singers wound up appearing in the pregame performance and seemingly threw her off her game from the very first out-of-tune note.In the aftermath of the poor performance, she did not throw the backup singers under the bus.“The field conditions were wet and windy, and without stage monitors I wasn’t able to hear myself as I normally would.

While it wasn’t the performance I had hoped for, I’m grateful to have been there in support of these...