Brenda Holloway

Motown was more than Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye and the Supremes. But you wouldn't know it by listening to any oldies station. Terrestrial or satellite, the folks at the controls are content--and have been for the past 30 years--to play "Baby Love," "Heard it Through the Grapevine" and "My Girl" until the wheels fall off them jokers.

So today, we're standing on a suitcase, moving that Nehru jacket aside and breaking out the lantern flashlight to lay a beam on some Motown artists and songs that deserve a little more love.

Did you click the vidclip above and check out that tasty-looking Brenda Holloway [fine and can sing, too? why didn't she have a bigger career] getting down in 1967 with "Just Look What You Have Done." Her biggest hit was "Every Little Bit Hurts" from 1964 and check this out: She opened for the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965, then co-wrote "You Make Me So Very Happy", a hit by Blood Sweat and Tears in the 1970s. Maybe she's home counting her stacks from her royalty checks.

Shorty Long's "Function at the Junction," is an absolute jam from 1966.


The Marvelettes' "Too Many Fish in the Sea."


Jr. Walker & The All Stars, doing "Shotgun" live on Shindig in 1966.


[I saw Junior Walker in the mid 1980s at Biddy Mulligans. Twenty years after "Shotgun," he could still jam.]

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles aren't forgotten, but the poignant "Come Round Here" could use a little more love. Smokey's falsetto is rockin' here...and how the Miracles and the other background singers sorta wander against the groove--tight.


Oh wait. Back to Brenda Holloway. Look at this video. She's past 60 now and the voice still sounds good. And she still looks good. She could be my mama...or rather my lil mama...if she wasn't married: