Motor City Radio Flashbacks

From the MCRFB news archive: 1983

Holland Brothers Extend Rare Interview

 

 

 

 

 

Brian and Eddie Holland don’t talk a great deal. In more than 20 years as producers and writers, the can remember doing “maybe three or four interviews” — remarkable, considering the influence these gentleman have had on popular music.

Together with Lamont Dozier, they helped define the musical “Motown Sound.” What was an inspired hit-making formula for the Supremes, the Four Tops and many others has become a permanent part of our musical vocabulary. Daryl Hall and John Oates’ “Maneater,” for example, approximates the Holland/Dozier/Holland arrangement of the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love,” while Phil Collins has gone directly to the source for his current hit. Both these records have been top 10 pop hits this year, demonstrating the durability of a musical vision first forged in 1964.

Yet the Holland brothers are reluctant to dwell on the past. They’d rather talk about 8th Day, a five-member vocal group they have produced and signed to A&M Records. The original version of 8th Day recorded for the Hollands’ Invictus Records in the early 1970s.

“We don’t talk to the press often, because we’re basically background people,” says Eddie Holland. “But we’re genuinely excited about the group and this album.” Brian’s description of 8th Day‘s talent recall the Temptations. “We have five voices, each with its own particular style, which gives us an opportunity to use a lot of different vocal coloring and combinations.” When asked if 8th Day compared favorably to the Temptations, Eddie refused to be glib. “No, I couldn’t say that. The Temptations to me had, and still have, something quit special that I’ve never heard any other vocal group match. The quality of the voices and the way they could be played off each other made them especially interesting to work with.”

The Holland brothers and Dozier left Motown in the late 1960s in a flurry of lawsuits and acrimony. Today, Eddie says, “That was so long ago we can even remember what started it. It must have been a bunch of little things that just built up that were never quite taken care of at the time. Egos got in the way at some point, and it never was worked out. Our relationship with Motown now is fine.

“We use their Hitsville Studio in Los Angeles. We’re extremely happy with Jobete. They keep our music out there, and our income from our publishing just keeps increasing. We make more money from it today than we did 10 or 15 years ago. Jobete worked with us to do a co-publishing project with our Gold Forever Music on our old music as  well as songs we’ve written more recently.”

About Berry Gordy, the Hollands have nothing but praise. “When we started, we were 17 or 18 years old, just kids really,” say Eddie. “Being a creative person himself, Berry could understand creative people and — this is important — could recognize talent in the raw. Some of the people at Motown had great talent and only needed a chance to grow. Others were just marginal talents that he stuck with.

According to legend, Motown’s music was ground out with a machine-like regularity of an assembly line. The Hollands agree that they were disciplined and worked quickly, but they say Motown meant “total freedom” to them. “It was a totally relaxed, creative environment and yes, very much like a family. We’d cut any time of the day or night. But we’d also sit down at Hitsville and play poker all night long.”

The famous trebley sound of Motown’s ’60s recordings was, according to Brian, more a matter of equipment than taste. “We’d listen to all those Stax records and other records of that period and try to get that same fat drum and bass sound,” he recalls. “When we’d hear our records through the speakers in the original Hitsville studio in Detroit, they’d have that same sound, too. But they wouldn’t record like that, though we’d hear them with a fatter sound through those particular speakers. But we didn’t complain. People seemed to like them.” END.

— NELSON GEORGE

(Information and news source: Billboard; February 26, 1983).