Call it a political heat wave: Martha Reeves, former leader of Motown legends Martha and the Vandellas, has won a spot on the general-election ballot as a candidate for Detroit's City Council.

"Summer's here, and it's time to run," says Reeves, evoking the lyrics to the Vandellas' 1964 smash "Dancing in the Street."

The sixty-four-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer received enough votes in Tuesday's primary to move on to the general election on November 8th. Reeves, a born-again Christian, says the idea for her candidacy came to her during prayer. Her platform includes raising the visibility of the city's police, helping develop a new mass transit system and attracting tourism with a public monument to Detroit's musical history.

"Everywhere I go, there's somebody telling me how much they love the Motown sound," she says. "But the downtown area has no signs there were ever entertainers raised here."

Unlike most of her Motown peers, Reeves, who began as a secretary at the label, has remained in Detroit. "As an entertainer, I could probably fare better if I lived in New York or California, but I choose to stay here to see if I can help in some kind of way."

And Reeves says this may be just the beginning of her political career: "A lot of people told me I should have aimed higher -- that I should have run for mayor."