01 LITTLE MISS RUBY 02 YOU (YOU YOU YOU YOU) 03 (WHERE'S THE JOY?) IN NATURE BOY 04 SHOCK 05 MERRY-GO-ROUND 06 IT MOVES ME 07 BECAUSE I LOVE HER 08 EVERYBODY'S GOING 09 MAGIC MIRROR 10 WILL YOU LOVE ME 11 WHY DO YOU WANT TO LET ME GO 12 THE LAST LAUGH 13 JAMIE 14 TAKE A CHANCE ON ME 15 YOU DESERVE WHAT YOU GOT 16 LAST NIGHT I HAD A VISION 17 IF CLEOPATRA TOOK A CHANCE 18 WHAT ABOUT ME 19 IF IT'S LOVE (IT'S ALRIGHT) 20 IT'S NOT TOO LATE 21 DARLING, I HUM OUR SONG 22 JUST A FEW MORE DAYS 23 BABY SHAKE 24 BRENDA 25 I'M ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN 26 I COULDN'T CRY IF I WANTED TO 27 LEAVING HERE 28 JUST AIN'T ENOUGH LOVE 29 CANDY TO ME 30 IF YOU DON'T WANT MY LOVE

01 ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS 02 BASHFUL KIND 03 RAIN AND THUNDER 04 HAPPY DAYS 05 I'M SO GLAD I LEARNED TO DO THE CHA-CHA 06 TRUE LOVE WILL GO A MIGHTY LONG WAY 07 GOTTA HAVE YOUR LOVE 08 A LITTLE BIT OF LOVIN' 09 LOVE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT 10 DAY DREAMER 11 SO GREAT IS MY LOVE 12 TWIN BROTHER 13 TWIN BROTHER 14 WELCOME BACK 15 (LONELINESS MADE ME REALIZE) IT'S YOU THAT I NEED 16 I'M GRATEFUL 17 HEART BROKEN, HEART BREAKER (AND THE CLOCK) 18 YOU'RE SWEETER AS THE DAYS GO BY 19 IT'S BEST TO BE SURE 20 HAPPY GO LUCKY 21 TOO LATE TO CRY 22 PRETTY LITTLE ANGEL FACE 23 TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS (ROCK ME A LITTLE WHILE) 24 I LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU 25 JAMIE 26 LEAVING HERE

Many artists have fallen into the music business almost by accident, but few as accidentally as the subject of our latest Motown collection: Eddie Holland, who attended an audition with a pal just to keep him company, and ended up the one with a recording contract. And many have had a single hit, and after a few unsuccessful years have given up their recording careers to take up a position in some other part of the business, but few with such spectacular results as Eddie, who together with his brother Brian and Lamont Dozier formed Holland-Dozier-Holland, one of the most successful songwriting teams of the 1960s.

Much has been written about Holland-Dozier-Holland’s songs and productions, but little about Eddie’s recording career, which spanned six years and resulted in 15 singles, one LP and a wealth of tracks hitherto unknown to the public. Our aim here is to present all of the records he cut from his 1958 debut through to 1964, when he withdrew from performing to concentrate on writing songs for the Supremes, Martha & the Vandellas, the Four Tops etc.

Following an extensive trawl of the Motown mastertapes in New York last summer, we’ve included everything we were able to find that Eddie recorded for Mercury, United Artists, Motown and the tiny Kudo label, where he appeared under his brother’s name on a commercial for a brand of wine. The set contains 56 tracks; including 30 new to CD, 18 of which have never been released in any form before.

The story of Eddie’s recording career is narrated in the bumper booklet by the man himself. Looking back, often with amazement and sometimes complete lack of recognition of some of the songs in this collection, he commented: “You know what is very clear to me? We were very, very fortunate to have a place where we could record that many pieces of product, and experiment that much, with somebody paying for it. That was like going to school, and somebody’s paying for your classes. That’s what Berry Gordy was doing. Can you imagine recording all those songs, learning your craft, and not even thinking about how much it was costing? I would say to you that Berry Gordy should be given an extraordinary amount of credit, because everybody was always criticising him. But you should pat him on the back and say, You know what? You made that possible.”