Song:Jamie
Album:It Moves Me: The Complete Recordings 1958-1964
Of course Eddie Holland is best known as one third of the legendary Motown songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland with his brother Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier. But in the early days of Motown, Holland recorded a couple of albums and scored a top 30 pop hit with Jamie in 1962. He was born Oct. 30, 1939 in Detroit. Holland met Berry Gordy in 1958 and worked with him before Gordy started Motown. The thing you will notice about Holland as a singer is he sounded a lot like Jackie Wilson which is not surprising as both Holland and Gordy idolized Wilson. Holland's early singles were released on Mercury and United Artists and then Jamie was released on Motown's Tamla label in 1961. It reached #6 on the R & B Singles chart and #30 on the Billboard Hot 100. I'm sure many listeners thought it was a Jackie Wilson record. The song was written by Barrett Strong and Mickey Stevenson and Stevenson produced the record. Strong was best known for another early Motown hit Money but he also wrote plenty of songs. Stevenson wrote and produced in the early days of Motown until he left in 1967 with his wife Kim Weston. While Holland recorded a couple of albums and a couple of his singles charted, his brother Brian Holland was already a staff songwriter at Motown. He co-wrote the classic Please Mr. Postman by The Marvelettes. Lamont Dozier recorded some unsuccessful singles and joined Motown in 1962. When the three started having success writing hits like Heatwave and Where Did Our Love Go, Eddie Holland retired from recording in 1964 because he suffered from stage fright and refused to tour. Though Dozier went on to success as a recording artist in the 70s, Eddie Holland preferred to remain behind the scenes. He never recorded again. You can get all his recordings on this 2CD comp from Ace Records. Here's a video for Jamie by Eddie Holland.
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