Eddie Holland was born in Detroit in 1939. He made his first recordings in 1958/9 at Mercury and Kudo Records, before joining Tamla Records in 1959. The single “Merry-Go-Round”, written and produced by Berry Gordy, was issued in February of that year on the Tamla label and was then picked up by United Artists in May. Two more singles were recorded in Detroit and released by United Artists. They made little impression. Berry Gordy decided to switch Holland to the Motown label in 1961 for the next single, “Jamie” / “Take A Chance On Me”. “Jamie” is a big improvement on his early singles, with a much looser vocal delivery and a chugging up-tempo beat. It was co-written by Mickey Stevenson, the producer, and Barrett Strong, who were able to put much more feeling into the finished song.
It brought Holland his first chart entry, as the single peaked at number thirty on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number six on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. Sadly, the next two single releases in 1962 failed to match the success of “Jamie”. Nevertheless, Berry Gordy approved the release of an album in 1962 entitled “Eddie Holland”, with Holland working on production with Mickey Stevenson.
There have been several compilations of his songs issued in Europe and Japan, the best of which is “It Moves Me”, containing fifty-six tracks (two by Brian Holland) covering the Mercury and the Motown recordings, released by Ace Records UK in 2012.
Despite showing signs of early promise, Eddie Holland wasn’t really comfortable performing live. He switched his attention to songwriting and production, following in the footsteps of his brother Brian. When Lamont Dozier followed a similar path, the three soon started working together, with Eddie Holland developing his skills as a lyricist. The team of Holland, Dozier, Holland went on to achieve great things!
