A record company needs a songwriting team, and Motown had one of the best in the business with “Holland-Dozier-Holland”, that is, Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland and Eddie Holland (the latter two being brothers).  According to Wikipedia:  “During their tenure at Motown from 1962 to 1967, [Lamont] Dozier and Brian Holland were the composers and producers for each song, and Eddie Holland wrote the lyrics and arranged the vocals.”  

I was frankly thrilled to see the three of them together on television once; they made a half-hearted attempt to perform one of their classic songs, but sadly not all that well – clearly their talents primarily lay elsewhere.  Eddie Holland did have some early success as a recording artist though.  Also, as with many if not most songwriting teams, the individuals co-wrote songs with others over the years. 

Holland-Dozier-Holland is a songwriting powerhouse; besides writing some of Motown’s best-known hits, they wrote most of the songs on entire albums for some of the biggest stars on the label.  For the Supremes’ second album Where Did Our Love Go (1964), not only did Holland-Dozier-Holland write the group’s three Number 1 hits that appear on the album (as well as 10 of their 12 Number 1 hits overall) – “Where Did Our Love Go”, “Baby Love”, and “Come See About Me” – they also wrote 5 of the 9 other songs on the album.  About Where Did Our Love Go, Wikipedia says:  “With the release of this album, the Supremes became the first act in Billboard magazine history to have three number-one hits from the same album.  It was the album that introduced ‘The Motown Sound’ to the masses.  It was also, at the time, the highest ranking album by an all female group.” 

For the Four Tops, Four Tops Second Album (1965) included two of the group’s best known hit songs, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” and “It’s The Same Old Song” that were both penned by Holland-Dozier-Holland; in all, they wrote 10 of the 12 songs on the album. 

(April 2015/1)