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Tamla T 54094 (A), March 1964
b/w Land Of A Thousand Boys
(Written by Ed Cobb)
Stateside SS 307 (A), June 1964
b/w Land Of A Thousand Boys
(Released in the UK under license through Stateside Records)
Writing about Motown in early 1964 is a fascinating part of this project, not least because it’s remarkable to see just how quickly all the pieces fell into place for the label’s shortly-forthcoming imperial phase, a time of countrywide and international domination when Motown had everything: great songs, great musicians, great artists, and the money and distributor pull to make the resulting records into great big pop hits.
Whereas the preceding twelve months saw Motown go through a dizzying array of short-lived acts, many of whom only had one single to their name before being dropped as quickly as they’d arrived, the Class of ’64 is filled with future Hall of Famers, key players (if not necessarily big stars) from the company’s mid-Sixties Golden Age. Already we’ve had a breakthrough from the Temptations, we’re about to get one from the Supremes, we’ve met for the first time R. Dean Taylor and Shorty Long… and now, here’s Brenda Holloway.
Brenda and little sister Patrice, California girls both, had signed up with Motown’s new West Coast office (under the direction of Marc Gordon and Hal Davis) towards the end of 1963. Patrice had been the first to get a single release, albeit an abortive one (the little-heard Stevie), in December, but legal wrangles prevented her from having any follow-up releases with Motown. From the start, though, the smart money had to have been on Brenda to break through to the next level. Clever and beautiful even at seventeen, already a talented songwriter in her own right and possessed of a truly great voice that disguised her tender age, she had all the makings of a superstar.
It never quite worked out that way – though she’d have some real success, she never became the world-beating marquee name her talent deserved – but at least the world got some cracking records out of the deal, of which this is very definitely the first.
It’s also the first big Motown hit to have been recorded away from Detroit – thousands of miles away, in fact, in Holloway’s home town of Los Angeles – and without the peerless Motown house band, the Funk Brothers. Instead, a bunch of Hollywood session players (likely including the great Carol Kaye on bass) assemble to back Brenda, and they lay down a very different sound to the stuff that was coming out of Hitsville at the time.
Indeed, the lush (by Motown standards) instrumentation on this is one of the key things in the record’s appeal – it just sounds fantastic, a mournful, treacle-slow waltz picked out with precision on piano, guitar and drums, while a bed of strings carries the whole thing along like a cushion of air. The dolorous scraped cello at the start sets the tone straight away, letting the listener know what kind of ride we’re in for: this isn’t a happy song, but there’s a kind of energy in its determined self-pity, and all of that is reflected in the music.
Which isn’t to undersell what Brenda does with it; a big fan of Mary Wells, which must have played well at her audition (and probably secured her a few of Mary’s cast-offs as future singles, as we’ll see further down the line), she was also a devotee of big-voiced jazz and R&B divas (the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 4 have her namechecking Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick alongside Wells), and having been singing her entire life, it’s clear from listening to this that she’s absorbed a little something from all those influences. It’s not just that it’s a big, powerful voice, or that she’s got good technical control (although both those things are true), it’s that she’s able to switch so convincingly between different vocal modes at the drop of a hat.
Accordingly, there are hints of gospel, jazz and opera in her delivery here, which is a virtual vocal showreel. Check out how many different touchstones she reaches in her first minute alone, all of which seem to come from different places: bringing out the mournfulness of the title phrase in a seductive, softly-cooed voice; smoky, quickfire recitations in low tones (…You say you’re comin’ home / Yet you never phone / Leave me all alone), sudden vaults of scale and volume where she reaches and grasps notes that seemed out of her range two seconds before (my love is-a STRONG FOR YOU / I do WRONG FOR YOU), touches of throaty sexiness a la Mary Wells (the not-so-silent “h” before I ca-an’t take / This loneliness…), unexpected power and sustain (…you’ve given ME-E-E-E-E-E-E, yeah), vibrato (giving my life awayyyyyyy), harsh, almost violent knockdown demands a la Aretha (Come back to me! / Darlin’, you’ll see! / I can give YOU all the THINGS that you…), and then back to sultry, quiet cooing without missing a beat (…wanted before / If you will stay with me…), and more besides.
It really is just remarkable. Ed Cobb, the Four Preps vocalist, renowned writer and producer who seemingly wrote this on spec for Motown’s LA office, was able to pack the song with a number of great hooks knowing that it didn’t really matter if people couldn’t quite identify, or agree on, what the song’s big hook was (is it the breathy recitation of the title, the Come back to me! bit, the If you will stay with me bit that functions as a kind of chorus leading back to the title, or what?) It didn’t matter because Brenda could sell them all. Which she does. Per standard Motown procedure, Cobb – even as an outsider – would benefit from writing a hit by being awarded the follow-up. He must have been thrilled – not just for the royalty checks, but for the chance to work with Brenda again, to push her voice into new places and ever more twisted positions.
Because this was a hit, unexpected but very welcome, almost making the pop Top Ten and scraping the upper reaches of the independent R&B charts being compiled in Billboard‘s absence.
I say “unexpected”, but that’s probably not true – as I mentioned above, Brenda had the goods, and Berry Gordy was always convinced all his records had the potential to be hits, or they wouldn’t get released. Although according to a few accounts, he wasn’t initially too sure about putting money behind a slow, mopey California-cut waltz, which was quite different from the sort of thing his more established acts were doing at the time; outvoted in a Quality Control meeting and persuaded not to use his veto, he must have been glad to have been talked around.
Brenda became another Motown protegée to move from “future contender” to “rising star”, earning a spot on Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars tour (and blagging a place at the bottom of the bill for another struggling Motown act to boot; the act chosen, as all Motown trivia buffs know, were a then largely-unknown girl group named the Supremes.)
It must have all seemed quite natural; the record was really good, Brenda was obviously very talented, the songs were in the pipeline, she’d had a good hit and was now in front of a national audience. If you’d have told anyone at Motown that this would end up being her biggest commercial hit, and that the raggedy girl group she pulled up by the bootstraps would rack up twelve Number Ones, they’d probably have laughed in your face.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in Brenda Holloway? Click for more.)
Shorty Long “Wind It Up” |
Brenda Holloway “Land Of A Thousand Boys” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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Bob Harlow said:
I loved this record the first time I heard it on the radio. It was
different from anything I’d ever heard before, and stood out from every other song out at the time. I remember being surprised to see it was from Motown when I went to buy it. It sounds just as fresh today as it did in 1964. I’d give it a 9.
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Dave L said:
Then and now, this one always sounded so very adult. You could -I could, even as a young teen- tell that this record was not targeting the same demographic that gobbled up “Do You Love Me” and “Mickey’s Monkey,” not by any means. And yet, it does sound like ‘Motown family,’ like it belongs. No trial and error here either; “Every Little Bit Hurts” established Brenda’s identity and musical persona as quickly as “Please Mr. Postman” did for Gladys Horton and The Marvelettes.
I’m astonished to read “seventeen,” because Brenda sings this like a woman in her 40s, for whom this isn’t the first boyfriend to put her through this particular emotional mill. When your own heart has been through a slug fest, this one will speak for you, loud and clear.
Nelson George calls Holloway “the most beautiful woman ever signed to Motown” and “a real head-turner.” Photos of the lady in the 60s back him up completely.
My own personal favorites are the Smokey-matings, even if they are really Mary Wells-leftovers, but there’s no denying this was a stunning debut. 🙂
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John Plant said:
A Philadelphia footnote – my siblings and I heard Brenda Holloway live at the Uptown in 1966 or 1967, in an amazing show whose lineup also included Smokey, The Elgins,
Billy Stewart, and a blue-eyed soul group called The Magnificent Men. I remember Brenda as the afternoon’s highlight – and being bowled over by the sheer power of her voice (and I had recently heard Birgit Nilsson, the alltime Wagnerian soprano, at the Academy of Music)…. as well as its aching and soulful beauty. All told, it was an amazing afternoon – but Brenda Holloway is the most vivid memory…
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Mary Plant said:
That WAS an amazing show!
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Dave L said:
Oh, I remember The Magnificent Men! A hometown group that WIBG deejays Joe Niagara and Hy Lit supported very aggressively, just as they also did Jay & the Techniques, Brenda & the Tabulations and the Soul Survivors 🙂 If you heard the MM’s “Peace Of Mind”, even once, you never forgot it.
Lit died about four or five years ago, and that news really hit home, another piece of happy childhood irretrievably surrendered. I couldn’t begin to guess how many beloved Motown hits I first heard on his show.
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Landini said:
Wow! The Mag Men. What a great group. They made the Righteous Bros sound like the Osmond Bros. (Okay that was probably a little extreme). And on a show with Brenda Holloway? Wow! Wish I had a time machine & could go back to that. I used to see Brenda on some Teen Dance Party TV shows in the DC area usually doing “You Made Me So Very Happy”. I was a 10 yr old white boy at the time & had a major crush on her!
I actually didn’t hear “Hurts” until a few years later. What an awesome song.! Can’t say enough good things about it.
By the way, for those who saw the Mag Men show. Did they do their Sweet Soul Medley which included mostly Motown tunes? That is so cool. My favorite MM song is “I Could Be So Happy.”
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Nick in Pasadena said:
This has such a delicious, moody, heartbroken yet defiant feel to it that every listen takes me back to that time as effectively as any time machine that could ever be invented. I, too, was amazed when I first learned this was a Motown product, but almost as immediately it made perfect sense. Its production values and sheer force set it apart from most other stuff on the radio back then.
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David Bell said:
This record continues to amaze, delight and entertain me, even after all the intervening years since I first heard it.. Yes, definitely the most beautiful woman ever to record for Motown and this then teenaged boy fell instantly in lust with her! Definitely one of the best female vocalists on the label, along with Kim Wston and Mary Wells.
This record is divine, heartbreaking with a first class melody, heart wrenching lyrics and soulful in the extreme.
For me it’s one of the best to come from Motown and I find that ironic as it wasn’t recorded in Detroit with
the Funk Brothers and yet it’s that very Detroit sound that continues to fascinate me.
Marks out of ten? Oh definitely 10 out of 10 with a
gold star on top of that score. For me, this Brenda Holloway 45 is soul perfection.
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Ed Pauli said:
“Instead, a bunch of Hollywood session players (likely including the great Carol Kaye on bass) ” that’s means possibly Hal Blaine or Earl Palmer on Drums–Tommy Todesco or Glen Campbell on guitars–basically, we’re talking possible “Wrecking Crew”
Sonny: hey we better get this track down for Mr Gordy before Phil gets back from his psychiatrist .
Nino: nah fuggetaboutit, I saw him and Ronnie leaving………….
LOL!!!!
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Slade Barker said:
That’s Tommy Tedesco, for the wreckord (Freudian misspelling there, so I didn’t bother to correct it). The Wrecking Crew was the only other band in the world besides the Funk Brothers that could “do” Motown. If you doubt me, check out Steve Binder’s “The T.A.M.I. Show,” the greatest concert movie ever made. (“Woodstock” is number 2.) See how the Wrecking Crew back an array of Motown stars. They were great. Unfortunately, today Carol Kaye is convinced that she, and not James Jamerson, is playing on any number of Motown hits that were recorded in Detroit.
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Robert Klein said:
Only an 8??? This was a TERRIFIC recording. How could it have been made better to deserve a “10” from you?
It certainly shouldn’t get any less than 9, if one is limited to awarding VERY few tens. Yes, the L.A. musicians really
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The Nixon Administration said:
The end of your comment seems to be missing…?
8 is really good, man. It’s not a ten because, great performance and knockout recording though it is, I don’t like the song as much as some of her later records.
Shall I play the spoiler game again? There is a ten looming in Brenda’s future.
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Landini said:
A 10 for Brenda in the future? Wow
Mr Nixon you have really piqued my curiosity.
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Ed Pauli said:
Can we override or overrule a rating decision???
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The Nixon Administration said:
No*, but I’m working on a “democracy” feature to replace the thumbs, where visitors can assign their own mark and see the resulting average… It’ll be ready any time soon, he said without confidence.
(*Only because the ratings are my own highly subjective opinions, and are there to help readers calibrate my tastes in relation to their own at a glance; that and to provoke debate, of course!)
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treborij said:
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the great, gospely piano solo in the middle. (Wasn’t it Lincoln Mayorga?) For me, it’s another great moment on a great record. I also have to mention that I love the way you parse her phrasing in the first verse. This is a great record. I’d give it a 9 but an 8 from you isn’t so shabby.
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Landini said:
Brenda owns this song, but Gladys Knight & the Pips did a version which is quite good as well!
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W.B. said:
Doubtless all of you are familiar with the term “deep soul,” which (I’ve been apprised) is more a geographical/regional shorthand indicating R&B records of this period originating from the Deep South. But listening to this – the haunting arrangement and Ms. Holloway’s vocals which showed more of a maturity beyond her years – conveyed a sense of weight and substance – a depth, in other words – to this tune, even more than the other Motown releases – thus giving a wholly different meaning to the “deep soul” phrase. More in the sense of the oft-cliched hippie expression, “Wow, that’s real deep, man.”
It also shows how, especially in recent years, modern R&B (as exemplified by the likes of Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Chris Brown etc.) has degenerated into what could best be termed “shallow soul” – which, lyrically and thematically, is essentially “all about the bling” – and once you peel past the veneer, the affectations and the narcissistic navel-gazing which is omnipresent in the lyrics of much of these records, you find, as the late Gertrude Stein once wrote of Oakland, California, that “there’s no there there.”
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W.B. said:
“If you’d have told anyone at Motown that this would end up being her biggest commercial hit, and that the raggedy girl group she pulled up by the bootstraps would rack up twelve Number Ones, they’d probably have laughed in your face.”
Just as they would have guffawed if you’d have told them that Brenda’s most famous co-composition from three years down the road, “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” would be a big hit not for her, but for Blood, Sweat & Tears . . . ?!
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Ray said:
Fantastic record, a timeless classic. Surprised no one here yet has mentioned another musical act that thought highly of this song, so much so that they invited her to tour with her. That act would be none other than the Beatles, and Brenda was the opening act for their legendary Shea Stadium concert in ’65.
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Ray said:
Moderator: please make a slight correction to my above post… it should read “so much so that they invited her to tour with them”. Sorry ’bout that!
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bogart4017 said:
10/10. Great, great, great record! Not too many soul records sold in waltz time (the precedent may be “Cry To Me” by Betty Harris released a year prior) but this one is the best of them all. I remember being quite shocked to see her on TV and finding out she hadnt quite yet finished her education. And she was sooooo fine. I don’t know how the Gods packed so much fine into one woman.
That album of hers was the hardest thing to find when it first came out. I was pretty envious of a friend who got a copy from a bus terminal record store. They sold records everywhere in those days. I got records and 8-tracks out of drug stores, delis and supermarkets! What a time to be a living record freak!
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Kevin Moore said:
First of all, I’m in love with this song and singer. I first heard it last week but had to return to it after going nuts for I’ll Always Love You and reading Nixon’s comment about the “triptych of gorgeous ballads” it suddenly occurs to me that Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It” (1984) uses an extensive quote from this song in arguably its most important hook:
“I can give you all the things that you wanted” = “who needs a heart when a heart can be broken”
I still love the Turner song but the debt it owes this song is deep (and of course it came 20 years later). And what’s more, that hook in Every Little Bit only arrives after a brilliant buildup containing at least four distinct hook-laden sections. It’s a true tour de force and a perfect marriage between song and singer. The only way this can not be a 10/10 is if you ding it for not being purely representative of the golden era Motown sound. It’s not a jazz standard and it’s not really “Motown”, but it’s brilliant, original, soulful and gorgeous. And the little bluesy, gospely inflections in the piano are to die for. Wow.
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Greg Kipp said:
I agree with Kevin Moore that this record is a perfect ten because it is ” a true tour de force” plus the song as well as the arrangement on the record is a perfect fit for Brenda’s talents. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of “When I’m Gone”, Miss Holloway would never come close to making a record as good as this one during the rest of her tenure at Motown in my opinion. There is no doubt that Brenda was a good singer and a capable songwriter but she got stuck with a lot of Smokey’s leftovers from Mary Wells as well as well as some songs that sounded like they were hand me downs from the Supremes. American music critic Dave Marsh wrote in his book THE HEART OF ROCK AND SOUL that he felt “Every Little Bit Hurts” was similar to some of the Jackie DeShannon and Dionne Warwick records from that era, but to my ears, Brenda’s debut single was much more dramatic and intense than anything that the female singers being produced by Burt Bacharach and Hal David were doing at that time. The raw emotion Brenda displayed on this record just totally blew me away when I first heard it and such is the case when I hear it nowadays. Hal Davis and Marc Gordon also deserve kudos for their production efforts on this record because a record with this kind of arrangement could have easily become rather overwrought as well as bombastic but they kept everything perfectly measured and under control instead of excessive and/or over the top. Finally, kudos to the band especially the folks in the string section and the piano player. BRAVO!!!!
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Slade Barker said:
To me, this record is a 10. I don’t think records get any better than this. Also, let’s give a shout-out to Ed Cobb, who wrote this song. An L.A. figure of some repute, Cobb later wrote the Standells’ faux-Boston garage rock classic “Dirty Water.” About as different a ’60s pop song as could be imagined!
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144man said:
Ed Cobb is also responsible for writing one of my all-time favourite records, “Heartbeat ” by Gloria Jones.
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Bruce Grossberg said:
From reading this review and the comments it seems that NONE of you know that Brenda had recorded and release a version of this song already in 1962, on the Del-Fi label.
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Robb Klein said:
True, that Brenda DID sing this song, produced by Ed Cobb, who produced it in L.A. first for Bob Keane’s Del Fi Records. But it wasn’t released. Cobb was probably signed to Motown’s Los Angeles Jobete Music office as a songwriter on the strength of this song. It already had the basic background instrumental tracks recorded. Motown just needed to add strings and vary the mix some. Cobb left Motown in anger, because he said that they had originally promised him producer pay and credits for this production, and he didn’t end up getting that from them. He took several of his songs he had written for Jobete Music, but not yet sold to them to his own label, Champion Records, and on to Capitol Records subsidiary, Uptown Records, to record Gloria Jones, and future Honey Cone lead, Sandy Wynns(Darlene Love’s sister).
However, THIS recording you posted above, is NOT Brenda Holloway. It is Barbara Wilson, first wife of L.A. Jobete Music producer, Frank Wilson, who was hired by Cobb to sing the demo recording for Brenda to follow. It sounds really good, because Barbara was a very good Soul singer in her own right, who had a regional hit with “Make Me Happy” in 1964. If you listen to this recording closely you’ll recognise that the singer’s tone is different from Brenda’s, as every person’s is unique. Also she doesn’t have Brenda’s unique vocal mannerisms, and she doesn’t have Brenda’s phenomenal range. Nevertheless she did a very good job on the song, which could have been released as is.
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Bruce Grossberg said:
Interesting. Where do you get your info from? It’s been issued as by Brenda Holloway on several CDs now, and is also on several youtube videos as by Brenda Holloway. Seems like you’re the only one who knows the real story.
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Robb Klein said:
Yes, the error is much more common than the correct information being used. But, I’ve heard Brenda’s different Del-Fi recording on a collection of Bob Keane’s Del-Fi and Donna recordings, which also included Barbara Wilson’s version, labeled correctly, and I’ve also seen and heard the acetates of each of those 2 versions. But that was many years ago. I believe, if I remember correctly, that they were both on an L.P. It may have been pressed in the late ’70s or early 1980s. I met Brenda back in 1966, but I didn’t ask her about that, because I thought Ed Cobb wrote the song after he joined Motown’s staff, because it was published by Jobete Music.
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144man said:
On hearing the Del-Fi recording on its first release, my immediate reaction was “That isn’t Brenda Holloway”.
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Robb Klein said:
Have you heard any of Barbara Wilson’s 1964-65 cuts? You can compare that recording’s singer’s voice with Barbara Wilson’s “Make Me Happy” on Aura Records 4502 on You-Tube, to decide if the singer is more likely to be Barbara than Brenda. If I remember correctly, I was also told by Ace/Kent Records staffers, who dealt with packaging Brenda’s pre-Motown recordings for a CD set, that this recording was, indeed, Barbara Wilson. I know for a fact that it is Barbara, that was told by Brenda, herself in an interview published in the info booklet in Ace Records’ CD “Brenda Holloway, The Early Years. Brenda describes that Barbara Wilson sung the original version, which was used as a demo, for Brenda to sing it.
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144man said:
I’ve never heard “Make Me Happy” before today. The b-side, “On the Other Hand”, isn’t on YouTube. If I didn’t know that it was Barbara Wilson singing on “Every Little Bit Hurts”, I don’t think I would be able to identify her voice on the strength of that one Aura track.
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