Beautiful, talented and possessor of one of the most soulful
voices to grace the label, Brenda Holloway recorded sultry ballads and
powerhouse dancers for Tamla Records between 1964 and 1967. With Brenda’s
hugely anticipated appearance on a double-bill with The Velvelettes in London for Modstock 2014 fast approaching (18th April at the 229 Club), it was a real thrill to chat to my favourite Motown lady on the 'phone about her experience of being a West Coast artist signed to the Detroit hit
factory.
Are you looking
forward to coming over to London for Modstock?
I’m very excited about this trip, I’m really happy, thank
you for inviting me. And The Velvelettes, I look forward to being with them.
Those are some beautiful sweet women. They were very nice to me when I went
over to Motown. I like to do live shows because you can put more feeling in it.
When you have a good crowd you can perform better. You feed off your audience,
and they love you, so you have to do a good job.
I think British
audiences have always taken you to their heart. Have you noticed that?
I have. When British audiences listen to the music it’s
just an everyday thing for them but over here they don’t regard it as hit music
because it’s not in the charts at that moment, so it’s a totally different
feeling you get, like it’s back in the day when you first recorded those songs.
They appreciate the artistry and they’re so happy to see us when we come over,
it’s a treat for the artist.
Can you tell us how
you came to sign to Motown?
I used to sing and was raised in Watts in Los Angeles and
I had a group called the Watesians. This was five local girls who went to high
school with me, including my sister Patrice, and we used to sing at Record
Hops. When Hal Davis heard about the group and came to hear us. He took a
liking to me and took me to a disc jockey’s convention in Los Angeles, at Coconut
Grove. I had on this gold pantsuit and gold heels and was singing Mary Wells
songs from room to room to every DJ. I sang from about ten o’clock until four
o’clock and then said to Hal “Look, these heels, and this pantsuit, I’m getting
tired”. There was this group of men that came in to the room, listened, and
left. So when told Hal I wanted to go home they came back in. This man spoke
out and said “I like what I see and I like what I hear and I want to sign you
up”. I said “Sign me up to what?” and he said Motown and I was like “Oh my
God!” I was so excited and said “Call my mum, call my mum, and tell her to put
on her best clothes as I’m going to sign.” I didn’t ask her if I could, I was
just going to do it, but I needed her to okay it. She got dressed up, looked so
pretty, and I signed with Motown that day. I was seventeen years old. Berry Gordy
told me there was one stipulation to this; I needed to graduate at high school
before he’d let me put anything out.
The first record
Motown put out was “Every Little Bit Hurts” in 1964 and it was a hit. Was that
a surprise?
I was walking around in college, nobody ever noticed me
before, but then everybody was like “Are you Brenda Holloway?” I said, yeah, I
guess. They said “you have a record out”. I didn’t know, they didn’t tell me
anything. They didn’t tell me when they were going to release it. It was only
when everybody told me I had a record out, and I got all bashful, and everybody
was on me at school. I just stopped going to school. I couldn’t study anyway; I
was so excited to have a hit record. I did graduate from high school but not
from college, but I later went back and got a degree in dental work.
How did you manage
to get on the 1965 Beatles tour of the United States?
When the Beatles had their tour I spoke to Jackie
DeShannon, who’d been on their tours overseas, and said “Please Jackie, can I
get on the tour, I’ll do anything”. And they called me. I used to go to sleep
listening to their records like “Eleanor Rigby”. It was so much fun. We had
pillow fights in the air. And John would figure out the meals and say we could
have whatever we want. See, I came from a family with one parent, my mother,
raising us and we never got enough food, so when told I could have whatever I
want, it was so wonderful. I had steak, I had string beans and I had mashed
potatoes.
How were your
performances received? Did the crowd like you or were they just waiting for the
Beatles?
Really they were waiting for the Beatles to come on, I
was too. But they did accept me, they clapped and they were happy, but you
know, it was a Beatles tour. The crowd broke loose and just charged, the audience
looked like cattle. We just threw wigs, and guitars, and everything, to get out
of their way. We flew with the Beatles to each venue; they were so down to earth,
such good guys.
You were a trained
musician. Didn’t you play the violin and the flute and other instruments?
I was going to be a concert violinist before Motown
invaded my life. I studied professionally. I just loved the violin. For the
first twelve, thirteen, fourteen years of my life I was in orchestras and
played symphonies. My boyfriend was my violin. I used to practice in the
backyard and dogs would bark and people would be “Can you get off that squeaky
thing?” My neighbours hated me. I had to practice outside as my mum didn’t want
to hear it either. But I could really play.
Did you play your
violin on any of your records?
I played it on one of my albums, The Motown Anthology. A live version of “Summertime” recorded in
Detroit in 1966. I played and I sang and it sounded really very well.
Motown got a good
deal with you: you were a singer, a musician, a songwriter.
Yes but everyone at Motown was scared I was going to take
their boyfriends. I already had a boyfriend in Los Angeles. I don’t like to
have boyfriends at work; they just think they have power over you.
Were all the
Motown guys hitting on you?
They were talking to me but I was like “Oh no, I don’t do
that”. So they kind of left me alone. I went and practiced my violin by myself.
Because I was from the West Coast and would fly in and be in a hotel room and
they were doing their own thing.
Did it feel
different being from the West Coast and then going up to Detroit? Did you feel
any separation from the other artists based in Detroit?
They felt like I was another type of star because I
didn’t come from their stable. The girls were kind of feeling I was going to be
some kind of competition for them. But I just feel like I always had my own
slot, you know. But I became very envious of them with their hits when I got
there. Say, when I got to Detroit, they’d be cutting a session with me and if
Gladys Knight flew in for just one night they’d cut my record on her, and I’d
be like where’s my stuff? That would really upset me and disturb me because I
wanted to get my stuff done too. But I
was young and inexperienced.
What was Smokey
Robinson like to work with in the studio?
He was wonderful. He was very relaxed, he knew
everything. Knew all the songs, he could sing them and show them to you. He
would let you be yourself in the studio. I did “Operator” with him and “When
I’m Gone”, which was a good song for me. If only I’d stayed in the studio with
Smokey but I ran away.
At Motown some of
the ladies had etiquette lessons and guidance from Maxine Powell. Did you have
those?
Maxine showed me a lot of things about how to sit and
stand but Berry actually sent me to charm school here in California for a whole
year and a half. So although Maxine showed me a lot of stuff, because that was
her nature, she just wanted you to be a lady at all times, the major stuff I
learned out here.
Your clothes
caused some comment as they were different, a bit more hip, than some of the
other girls. Did you choose your own wardrobe?
I was so fortunate because my mother had a best friend
who owned a dress shop so I dressed out of her store. She was able to go get
everything I needed, everything to match, all the new stuff. When I went to
Motown I had a full wardrobe and a lot of them didn’t, so it was “What is she
trying to do?” I was just trying to sing but I had a lot of beautiful clothes.
I read Berry Gordy
thought you were too sexy for British audiences which was why he wouldn’t let
you tour over here.
For real? Oh my god, there’s no such thing as too sexy!
That’s just somebody’s opinion. No such thing. I don’t know, they just labelled
me like that but I never saw myself like that in any way. I was just regular. I
didn’t think I was anything special, although evidently other people thought I
was.
Did you know what
songs you’d be recording when you got into the studio? Did you have much time
to prepare or were you presented with them there and then to sing?
I don’t know what the other artists did but I liked to
live with my songs. I would come in a week ahead and just stay there and go
over and over and over the song until I could put me into it. That was why my
songs had so much feeling because I lived with them before I ever went in the
studio. Day and night, because I didn’t have any children, I didn’t have any
connections with people in Detroit, so all I did was stay there and rehearse
the tunes over. So if Smokey cut the record, and I cut the record, it would have
a Smokey Robinson feel to it and a Brenda Holloway feel to it. I like to study
my songs, I’m not Aretha Franklin, I can’t just go in and sing. My sister
Patrice could hear something once and sing it but I’ve never been able to do
that.
“Reconsider,” is a
great song and one which is huge over here nowadays yet didn’t see a release at the
time. When where you aware that song was so popular on the soul scene?
Oh, I love what you guys did to that. I only knew about
it when I came over to the UK for the first time for the Northern Soul shows I
was doing, because it had another title – “Think It Over” - in the United
States, but you guys made it “Reconsider”. I like “Reconsider” better because
that’s what the song was all about. And “Crying Time”, I forgot I ever did
that. My nephew found it on YouTube. “Granny, did you cut this?”
My favourite is
“Starting The Hurt All Over Again”. Such an adult narrative to that song and
your delivery is so strong, so emotional.
Well thank you. I didn’t have a real happy childhood, you
know, because my mum she worked so hard, she was a single parent and my father
he had so many problems, but that was how I released all my energy was through
my singing. If I had something to say I could convert it into a melody and sing
it, so that’s how I released a lot of stress, even today. It’s good therapy for
me.
“You’ve Made Me So
Very Happy” was at the end of your time with Motown in 1967 and was a
significant hit.
Oh it was a big hit. It sold over four million copies and
is still selling. I wrote it with my sister and Frank Wilson, and Berry Gordy
was the executive over everything. When I got stuck writing the bridge Frank
Wilson was able to put that bridge in there. Berry and I fought in the studio;
we were like back and forth. “I don’t want to do it like that Berry”. “You’re
gonna do it like that”. The way I wanted to do it was the way Blood Sweat &
Tears cut it. I put mine out, it was okay, but Blood, Sweat & Tears somehow
got the idea and they really, really did that song justice. I’m really happy
but when I go and sing it I have to try and remember how I sang it because
theirs is bigger than mine and theirs is more familiar to me.
What prompted you
to leave Motown?
Because I was just fed up with not having hits out and
everyone around me were having hits. I didn’t have the foresight because I left
the company in the middle of a Smokey Robinson session. I could have killed
myself. He was cutting all these songs on me and I wanted a hit, like everybody
else, but I didn’t have any patience. You know, there’s so much that goes along
with the entertainment business backstage. You see a lot of other stuff that
goes on that people don’t see and it kind of confuses you. I was a young kid.
After you left
Motown what happened to your career?
I just laid it down. I went in the church, married a
minister, and just left it and tried to do the best raising my kids but a lot
of times we don’t think that if you have a talent you have to use it or it dies
out. By me being in the church we have this stereotype of what we think God
wants us to do but what he really
wants us to do is to use that talent. Then I met this guy in the ‘90s, he was
my boyfriend, and he said I needed to be back out there. So I started singing
at this high school called Inglewood and then Brenton Wood – the “Oogum Boogum”
man - came and he saw me and so I started touring with him. After that I just
got back into it and have some friends overseas who were telling me about the
Northern Soul and everybody started hooking me up and I did some things for Nightmare
Records. So, I’m still singing and thank God I still have a voice and plan to
use it as long as I can. It’s really wonderful. I’m just one of the other
people until I get over there and I’m a superstar! I love it.
When you look back
is there anything that sticks in your memory as highlight: a record, a concert,
anything particularly special?
Cutting the album, Every
Little Bit Hurts, where I did “I’ve Been Good To You” and “Unchained
Melody” and those type of songs, that was one of the highlights, because I did
that for my mother. Then the other highlight was when I first went to Europe in
the 1980s and Ian Levine and I wrote a song over the telephone and I really
loved it, “Give Me A Little Inspiration”, it turned out so well. And when I
first went to Motown and saw snow for the first time in my life and I saw
Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Martha & The Vandellas, Diana Ross, Florence
Ballad, Holland, Dozier and Holland, Smokey Robinson, Ivy Jo Hunter; that was
like being in Disneyland. It was like, if I could just grab you guys and keep
you with me. It was such a thrill to see The Temptations, The Four Tops, to see
everybody in person. People told me I’d never get on Motown; I was three
thousand miles away. When I got to Detroit and I saw the Motown family, it was
just too much. It was awesome. So, my life has been beautiful.
The above interview was conducted for Nutsmag - many thanks to Rob Bailey for asking me to do it - and originally appeared here.
Brenda Holloway and The Velvelettes play Modstock 2014, celebrating 50 years of mod culture, on Friday 18th April 2014. Info and tickets here.
The Artistic Of Brenda Holloway, the classic 1968 Brenda compilation, is now available on Kent/Ace Records with eight previously unreleased cuts from the Motown vaults, available here.
