The Complete Eddie Holland

It took a Belgian recording company to finally release a complete collection of Eddie Holland recordings. Motown only released one album on Holland, and it didn't contain many of his better recordings; United Artists never released an album on Eddie Holland. The compilers only missed "You Deserve What You Get," the follow-up to "Jamie," but did include "Welcome Back," an unissued Motown recording, and many hard-to-find United Artists cuts. The sound quality is poor, especially on "Everybody's Going," which is virtually unplayable. However, in this case, you take the bitter with the sweet. What you have is 78 minutes and 31 tracks of a Jackie Wilson soundalike who's in the Rock Hall of Fame as one of the greatest pop songwriters in history. Three songs here didn't make Holland's first album -- "Just Ain't Enough Love," "Candy to Me," and "Leaving Here" -- and they're among his best, showing that he had the voice to sell a Holland-Dozier-Holland song as well as anybody. If he had chosen to, he could have been a significant recording artist, but obviously his head was elsewhere. "Brenda" is one of few compositions that Eddie wrote alone; the tender ballad was later recorded by the Four Tops. "Merry-Go-Round" was first released on Tamla, then United Artists, but despite some clever lyrics and a good reading from Holland, it flopped. Many recordings from his first LP are overblown attempts, musically and vocally, to make Holland a pop artist and may not go over well to lovers of that classic Motown sound. This collection would be much better if digitally remastered, and channeled for stereo. ~ Andrew Hamilton