The Unhooked Generation: Holland-Dozier-Holland After Motown – Part 7
The team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland – known collectively as Holland-Dozier-Holland, or HDH for short – wrote and produced some of Motown’s most beloved classics, including hits for the Supremes, the Four Tops, and Martha Reeves & the Vandellas. The trio left Motown due to disputes over contracts and royalties, forming their own pair of labels, Invictus and Hot Wax, in 1969. (A third, the short-lived Music Merchant, followed in 1972).
The seven-part series The Unhooked Generation: Holland-Dozier-Holland After Motown examines every single released on that trio of labels. The series follows the format of the 14-disc box set Holland-Dozier-Holland: The Complete 45s Collection, released this year by Harmless Records to coincide with the 45th anniversary of the formation of Invictus and Hot Wax.
There are many mysteries associated with Music Merchant, the short-lived third label created by Holland-Dozier-Holland: why HDH chose this particular line-up, who some of these artists were, even whether some of these supposed singles ever made it beyond the promo copy stage. But the biggest mystery is why the label existed at all.
Sister labels Invictus and Hot Wax were already in financial trouble when Music Merchant was formed in 1972, and HDH were struggling to meet the demanding release schedule pushed by Invictus’s distributor, Capitol Records. (Soon after, distribution would switch to CBS Records.) A third mouth to feed, so to speak, would seem to only stretch the trio’s limited attention and resources to the breaking point. Indeed, Music Merchant folded the following year with no real hits to its name, shortly before the HDH partnership itself fractured.
But while Music Merchant only released 17 singles (we think) in its short lifespan, it managed to pull together the most eclectic lineup of artists of all of HDH’s labels: a few talented, long-running soul acts who had yet to break through to stardom; a former Motown hitmaker; an attempt to replicate the success of the Jackson 5; a couple of white rock acts; and a one-off novelty single.
Few artists signed to HDH’s labels seemed as natural a fit as Brenda Holloway. She also had her first taste of success at Motown, where her single “Every Little Bit Hurts” went to #13 on the pop charts in 1964. Like the trio, she grew disillusioned with the label’s unfair treatment. Holloway became the label’s first artist to sever her contract, successfully suing Berry Gordy over royalties to her song “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy” when Blood, Sweat & Tears turned it into a #2 hit in 1969. While Holloway and HDH didn’t work together during their simultaneous stints at Motown – Holloway was the label’s first artist to be based in Los Angeles rather than Detroit – their shared history seemed ripe for a fruitful collaboration.
Yet Music Merchant only released one single by Holloway: “Let Love Grow” b/w “Some Quiet Place to Rest My Mind,” neither side of which was written or produced by HDH. (William Weatherspoon, the primary force behind Laura Lee’s hits at Hot Wax, was responsible for both.) Both songs are well-sung, solidly-constructed pleas for social consciousness, but lack the special twist that would make them memorable hits. Holloway would largely retire from recording afterward, although she did release a gospel album in 1980.
The trio Just Brothers also shared a personal connection to HDH – group member/producer Johnny Terry was married to Brian and Eddie Holland’s sister. Perhaps that explains why they were one of the rare acts signed to HDH’s labels who were allowed to write and produce their own singles. All three of their easygoing, falsetto-laden A-sides – lightly funky “Tears Ago”; laidback, dock-of-the-bay ballad “Things Will Be Better Tomorrow”; and infectiously sweet groover “You’ve Got the Love to Make Me Over” – are superb, with a fresh energy sometimes lacking from even the best HDH-affiliated releases of this era.
While none of Just Brothers’ singles became hits, “Sliced Tomatoes,” the instrumental B-side shared by all three of their 45s, has subsequently become the most recognizable track ever released by Music Merchant. Even if the title doesn’t ring a bell, a spin of the record might – DJ Fatboy Slim sampled it as the basis for his 1998 megahit “The Rockafeller Skank.” Ironically, “Sliced Tomatoes” didn’t even originate at Music Merchant; it dated back to a 1965 session for local label Lu Pine Productions.
The Jones Girls were another act who wouldn’t see success until years after their stint at Music Merchant, although they wouldn’t have to wait quite as long as Just Brothers. The three sisters recorded a trio of singles for the label, the first two of which – “Come Back” and “Your Love Controls Me” – found HDH comfortably bouncing back into Supremes mode. Their third single, the William Weatherspoon/Angelo Bond-written “Taster of the Honey (Not the Keeper of the Bee),” is more interesting, however. It may lack the trademark HDH songcraft, but its funkier sound allows the sisters to establish a more distinctive persona.
Unfortunately, “Taster of the Honey” ended up as the final single pressed by Music Merchant before the label collapsed. The Jones Girls spent the rest of the decade as in-demand session singers – including several years backing Diana Ross – until signing with the legendary Philadelphia International Records and finally becoming successful in their own right, scoring the Top 40 pop hit “You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else” and the Top 10 R&B hit “I Just Love the Man,” among others.
Another trio of siblings, the brothers of Smith Connection, released the only charting Music Merchant single ever: “(I’ve Been a Winner, I’ve Been a Loser) I’ve Been in Love,” which hit #28 on the R&B charts in 1973. Both it and its follow-up, “I’ve Come to Stay,” are gorgeous, impeccably crafted ballads, and along with B-sides “I Can’t Hold On Much Longer” and “The Day You Leave,” comprise one of the most unjustly neglected discographies of any Music Merchant act.
Smith Connection broke from the smoothly melancholic sound of their first two singles for their final 45, the uptempo, Clavinet-powered funk of “I’m Bugging Your Phone,” in which the brothers reveal their lovesick romeo act was maybe a front for their neurotic obsession. Group leader Michael L. Smith would join Motown a few years later as a songwriter and producer, and also had a moderately successful solo career under the name Michael Lovesmith in the ‘80s.
The only act who represents a bigger missed opportunity for Music Merchant than Smith Connection is Eloise Laws, whose later stint on Invictus Records was covered in Part 4 of this series. Before switching to HDH’s flagship label, however, Laws released a pair of outstanding singles on Music Merchant, all four sides of which were written and produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland themselves. Despite its pedigree, “Tighten Him Up” sounds very unlike HDH’s usual sound – instead, imagine something like Allen Toussaint producing Gonna Take a Miracle-era Laura Nyro. Yet its also one of the most invigorating releases on any of HDH’s labels during this era, precisely because it gives them a chance to stretch outside of their comfort zone.
“Love Factory” is more straightforward but still a highlight of the set, paying reference to the label’s Motor City homebase by comparing a man’s habit of going through women to a GM assembly line. One more of Music Merchant’s many mysteries is how someone with Laws’ voice, presence, and material could have failed to break through. Fortunately, however, her recordings – “Love Factory” in particular – were given a second life when they were rediscovered on the UK’s Northern Soul scene in the ‘80s.
While Laws was one of several Music Merchant artists who deserved fame, none seemed as engineered for stardom as the young siblings Al and Tyrone Chestnut, also known as Brotherly Love. There may have only been two of them, but their bubblegum sound was clearly intended to tap into the market established by the Jackson Five. While both the duo’s singles are competently made, they also illustrate how rare the Jacksons’ talent truly was. Young Michael Jackson sounded like a child but also had full control of his voice; lead Chestnut’s vocals, in contrast, are more shrill and infantile, which make his pleas for the love of an older girl/woman in “Mama’s Little Baby (Loves Lovin’)” more off-putting than cute.
Follow-up single “Growing Pains” fares somewhat better, but still sounds flat and simplistic compared with the intricate, hook-heavy construction and unstoppable energy of “I Want You Back” and “ABC.” Brotherly Love never threatened the Jackson Five for chart dominance, but they did beat them in terms of longevity, recording to this today under the name The Chestnut Brothers.
The identity of Raynel Wynglass is shrouded in mystery, though one rumor suggests it’s a pseudonym for Motown producer Raynard Miner. “Bar B Q Ribs” is an odd track: a spoken word comedy record, in which Wynglass performs as both a male character and as his aggrieved girlfriend Geraldine, who insists on going out to eat. Yet the funky, horn-heavy groove, produced by Just Brothers’ Johnny Terry, elevates the record from a novelty to a genuinely sizzling track (so to speak).
While “Bar B Q Ribs” may be an outlier in the Music Merchant discography, the strangest inclusion is likely the group Warlock. HDH had signed white rock bands before – Flaming Ember on Hot Wax, Lucifer on Invictus – but both those groups bore some traces of R&B influence, and neither of them had album covers that looked like this.
Warlock’s LP is filled with self-penned, prog-oriented material, but their single is the classicly HDH “You’ve Been My Rock”; the pun in the title is presumably intended. It’s actually a pretty amazing rev-up – a rock-soul hybrid somewhere between Flaming Ember and The 8th Day – even if the lead singer’s metal-ready howl seems an odd match. The dissonance is even greater on the B-side, the uptempo, gospel-influenced “The Judgment Day.” The narrator implores sinners to change their ways, but only really comes alive when he gets to wail “hellllllllfiiiiire!”
Sweet Rock, Music Merchant’s other rock band, is in some ways even stranger. Warlock at least had a clear identity, even if it wasn’t an obvious fit for the label. The two sides of Sweet Rock’s lone single, however, don’t even seem like they were recorded by the same band. A-side “Big Train” sounds like a remake of an old rockabilly song (though apparently it’s an original), tinged with a slight early ‘70s, “Stuck in the Middle With You” sheen. Its bombastic B-side “1984,” on the other hand, is a faithful cover of the single by hippie-prog band Spirit – something more suited to Warlock than the mystery group behind “Big Train.”
Given Music Merchant’s small discography, the Harmless boxset rounds out these last two discs with a handful of previously unreleased recordings from all three of HDH’s labels, including three remixes by legendary producer Tom Moulton. A few of these tracks are worth a brief comment.
“Don’t Burn the Bridge” and “I Think You Need Love,” here recorded by Eloise Laws, would later turn up on the album that HDH produced for Dionne Warwick, Just Being Myself, in 1973. The boxset also includes two sides of a single recorded by Satisfaction Unlimited: the dreamy “Bright City Lights” and the subtly driving “Why.” The group was signed to Hot Wax, but the label fell apart before any singles could be released. Fortunately, they did manage to put out an LP, Think of the Children, in 1972, which contains the album version of both tracks.
Music Merchant’s collapse in 1973 was swiftly followed by that of Hot Wax, with Invictus folding soon afterward. Apart from the latter two labels’ brief revival in 1976-77, the post-Motown HDH empire lasted less than five years, from Honey Cone’s “While You’re Out Looking for Sugar” in 1969 to Eloise Laws’ “Touch Me” in 1974. In that short span of time, these three men and their three labels managed to release everything from Top 10 hits to cult obscurities, from carbon copies of their Motown-era recordings to futuristic funk.
Not every single chronicled over the seven parts of this series has been a stone-cold classic, but the overall level of quality is astonishingly high, persevering artistically even as the labels foundered financially. Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland may have lacked the business sense of Berry Gordy, but Holland-Dozier-Holland: The Complete 45s Collection is a fine testament to their taste, talent, and influence on their own terms.
(Cover photo of Smith Connection from Under My Wings.)
