91热爆

by Bob Stanley

It's always bothered me a little that their songs are credited to rather than alphabetically, like Lennon-McCartney, or Goffin-King. But otherwise I've never had any reason to take issue with Tamla Motown's most successful songwriting team. Pretty every major and hit had their name on the label; what's more they produced the records as well as writing them.

Eddie Holland had started out at Motown as a singer, scoring a US Top 30 hit with Jamie in 1961, He also recorded the original version of Leaving Here, a small hit for Ron Wood's Birds in 1964 and a bigger one for Motorhead in 1980. But his singing career was held back by stage fright. He first teamed up with his brother Brian (a Motown staff songwriter who had co-written Please Mr Postman in '61) and the more outgoing Lamont Dozier for Dozier's single Dearest One released in June 1962. It flopped, but the trio persevered, and scored their first hit with the Marvelettes's sassy Locking Up My Heart, a US no.44 in February '63.

Their real breakthrough came with their second hit a few short weeks later. When Berry Gordy first heard Martha & the Vandellas' Come And Get These Memories, he exclaimed "That's the Motown sound... that's the sound I've been looking for!" According to Lamont Dozier it was written for Loretta Lynn, which explains the almost cornball lyric about teddy bears and "lingering love". Dozier was also confident that the trio had found their own sound, "because that one song had a mixture of all those musical elements - gospel music, pop, country and western and jazz." It also had Martha Reeves' tearful, from-the-heart delivery, which helped push it into the US Top 30.

Come And Get These Memories was the first of 23 US Hot Hundred hits for the Vandellas, but started an almost unrivalled run for Holland-Dozier-Holland: 25 US number ones, including ten for the Supremes and the Four Tops' peerless Reach Out I'll Be There. They even found time to rework that first, flop composition Dearest One - as Darling Baby it was a US hit for the Elgins, and the title track of their sole UK album in 1966. They split from Motown in 1967, going on to form the Invictus and Hot Wax labels in 1969 where (under the pseudonym Dunbar/Wayne, as they were still legally contracted to Motown's publishing company) Holland-Dozier-Holland began another run of international hits such as Freda Payne's Band Of Gold and Chairmen of the Board's Give Me Just A Little More Time. Even today, no other songwriting team is as guaranteed to fill a dancefloor.