Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 8: 1975-2012

Here, finally, is the last of eight albums in my Covered series highlighting the songwriting genius of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, a.k.a. Holland-Dozier-Holland.

By 1975, the bulk of hits first written by Holland-Dozier-Holland were behind them. That was especially true since Lamont Dozier broke with the Holland brothers in 1973. Some lawsuits between them followed regarding splitting the profits from their record companies. However, despite these battles, the three of them remained friends and even occasionally wrote songs together after that.

But still, by 1975, generally speaking, the classic Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team was done. The Holland brothers generally still wrote songs together while Dozier went his own way. 

Weirdly, given that Holland-Dozier-Holland were caught in non-stop legal battles with Motown Records from about 1968 until the end of the 1970s, the Holland brothers wrote a lot of songs for Motown acts in the late 1970s. Apparently, the love of music overcame hard feelings. Dozier later commented, "The lawsuit was just our way of taking care of business that needed to be taken care of -just like [Motown owner] Berry Gordy had to take care of his business which resulted in the lawsuit. Business is business, and love is love." 

The first three songs here were written by the Holland brothers for the Motown acts Michael Jackson and the Supremes in 1975 and 1976. And "I Just Can't Walk Away" was a rare example of a new song written by the entire Holland-Dozier-Holland team after their 1973 falling out, and released by the Four Tops in 1983.

Most of the other songs here, however, were written by Dozier, either by himself or with other songwriters besides the Holland brothers. He had the most songwriting success by far after the 1970s. For instance, "Two Hearts," co-written by Dozier and Phil Collins, was a Number One hit for Collins in the U.S. in 1988. 

A couple of big hits here, though, weren't exactly willing collaborations. "Roll with It" was a Number One hit in the U.S. in 1988 for Steve Winwood. Originally, Winwood co-wrote it with a songwriter named Will Jennings. But it was so similar to the 1960s song "(I'm a) Roadrunner" written by Holland-Dozier-Holland that they were added to the songwriting credits. The exact same thing happened to the 1990 hit song "The Other Side" by Aerosmith. Holland-Dozier-Holland were added to the songwriting credits due to the similarity of that song to "Standing in the Shadows of Love," which they wrote for the Four Tops in 1966.

As far as business concerns went, the Holland-Dozier-Holland record company Invictus went out of business in 1977. That wasn't too surprising because that was around the time classic soul music went out of fashion, to be replaced by disco and then other musical trends. Note that Stax Records went out of business in 1975, and even Motown Records shrunk way down and then was sold off in the late 1980s.

However, after the decline of Invictus, Holland-Dozier-Holland carried on with a new record label, HDH Records and Productions. But while they did release some new music, that was more about managing the rights to their earlier successes. The three of them also reunited to write 22 new songs for a musical play called "The First Wives Club" in 2009. However, the play wasn't that well received, and it never made it to Broadway. 

The three of them remained friends until 2022, when Dozier passed away at the age of 81. As I write this in 2024, Brian Holland is still alive at the age of 83, and Eddie Holland is still alive at the age of 85. In 2021, Dozier released a memoir and the Holland brothers released one too. 

Shortly before his death, Dozier commented in an interview, "I feel like Eddie and Brian are my family. We have had great times and not so great times with each other, but all in all we have so much love for one another and nobody can ever change that. We wrote some incredible songs, and our catalog songs are like our children."

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Just a Little Bit of You (Michael Jackson)
02 I’m Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking (Supremes)
03 You’re My Driving Wheel (Supremes)
04 Going Back to My Roots (Richie Havens)
05 I Just Can't Walk Away (Four Tops)
06 Invisible (Alison Moyet)
07 Infidelity (Simply Red)
08 Two Hearts (Phil Collins)
09 Loco in Acapulco (Four Tops)
10 Roll with It (Steve Winwood)
11 The Other Side (Aerosmith)
12 Like I Do (For Real)
13 Spoiled (Joss Stone)
14 While You're Out Looking for Sugar (Joss Stone)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17429308/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1975-2012Vlum8_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/s9dsXwjG

The cover photo shows Holland-Dozier-Holland in 2003. From left to right, that's Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 6: 1968-1970

This is the sixth volume of my Covered series that focuses on the songwriting genius of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, better known as Holland-Dozier-Holland. Unfortunately, this is where things went off the rails a little bit, because this starts the time Holland-Dozier-Holland broke free from Motown.

For most of the 1960s, the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team and the Motown Records company was a match made in heaven. The hits kept coming seemingly endlessly. But there was trouble brewing. Berry Gordy, the head of Motown Records, was a business genius in some respects, but an idiot sometimes too. The Holland-Dozier-Holland team rightfully considered their songwriting and production to be a major part of Motown's success, and they wanted more creative control and better pay. Gordy, by contrast, could be a pretty ruthless business person, especially when it came to compensating songwriters, producers, and session musicians. So although I don't know the details, I'm guessing the Holland-Dozier-Holland team had good reason to feel undervalued.

Problems began in 1967. The team began a work slowdown while they tried to negotiate a better deal. When the deal didn't happen, they left Motown in early 1968. They immediately started their own record companies, Invictus Records and Hot Wax Records. Motown sued for breach of contract, and they counter-sued. The resulting legal battles would last years. They were still legally contracted to Motown's publishing company, so they couldn't release songs with their names credited as the songwriters without having to pay Motown. As a result, from 1968 until 1972, they usually credited their songs to Edith Wayne, who was a friend to the Holland brothers. 

The split between the team and Motown is a big tragedy for music, in my opinion. The three of them should have spent most of their working hours writing songs and producing them. Instead, a big chunk of their time had to go to fighting legal battles, and another big chunk had to go to setting up and then running their new record labels. For instance, they put out almost no new music in 1968, since leaving Motown and starting new record companies took up almost all their time. 

The three of them simply wore too many hats in their new roles. Keep in mind that when they wrote new songs, they didn't have any musical acts to perform them. They also had to be talent scouts and find the new acts for their companies. They found some good ones, like Freda Payne, the Chairmen of the Board, Honey Cone, and the like. But at Motown they had been writing songs for great, legendary acts like the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, and more. I don't blame them for leaving a bad deal with Motown, but one can only imagine all the great music that never came to be had they stayed there.

The first five songs, plus track 15, were still performed by Motown acts. That's because Motown didn't suddenly cease recording Holland-Dozier-Holland songs when they left. Motown had other talented songwriters, and I've highlighted many of them with my various Covered albums, but Holland-Dozier-Holland was the clear top songwriting entity, and Motown never really found an adequate replacement. So Motown kept releasing songs written by them until they exhausted all the good ones they still had the legal rights to.

Up until this album, I was posting the songs in the exact order of singles releases. From this album to the end of the series, I'm just posting by the year of release since it would be much more difficult trying to figure out the exact release dates. 

Besides, note the pace of hit singles slowed quite a bit. Each of the previous four albums in this series dealt with one year each, whereas this one deals with three years. There are still lots of great songs here. In fact, "Band of Gold" by Freda Payne even made Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 songs of all time. But there were lots of singles releases that were merely good. So I've been more selective to keep the quality level as high as it was for the Motown years. 

Holland-Dozier-Holland still had lots more music in them after this. Two more albums will follow before this series is over.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Forever Came Today (Supremes)
02 Gotta See Jane (R. Dean Taylor)
03 Leave It in the Hands of Love (Martha & the Vandellas)
04 Bring Back the Love (Monitors)
05 I'm in a Different World (Four Tops)
06 The Unhooked Generation (Freda Payne)
07 Crumbs Off the Table (Glass House)
08 Girls It Ain't Easy (Honey Cone)
09 Give Me Just a Little More Time (Chairmen of the Board)
10 Deeper and Deeper (Freda Payne)
11 Everything's Tuesday (Chairmen of the Board)
12 Westbound No. 9 (Flaming Ember)
13 [You've Got Me] Dangling on a String (Chairmen of the Board)
14 Band of Gold (Freda Payne)
15 Without the One You Love (Supremes & the Four Tops)
16 Hanging On to a Memory (Chairmen of the Board)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17410457/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1968-1970Vlum6_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yfPbAfjT

Unfortunately, I ran out of good photos of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team when they were young. The cover photo here is from 1988, probably from some awards ceremony.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 5: 1967

The Motown magic continues with another volume of the Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland songwriting team, better known as Holland-Dozier-Holland. Once again, they came up so many excellent songs that this volume in the Covered series only deals with a single year, 1967.

1967 was a year of great change in rock music, with psychedelia being all the range, and songs getting more sophisticated and diverse. But Holland-Dozier-Holland had a wildly successful formula, and they didn't change it much at all. Their thing was a poppy version of soul music, and I read an interview with them in which they said they didn't have much interest in rock music. But despite all the changing musical trends, the hits kept on coming.

Again, I managed to order the songs by the dates of the singles releases, more or less. I had to guesstimate with some songs that were only album tracks, or weren't Motown releases.

Speaking on Motown, as expected, the vast majority of songs here were put out on the Motown label. But there are a couple of exceptions. "Too Many Fish in the Sea" was a hit for the Marvelettes in 1964. It was a rare case in which the song was written by Norman Whitfield and Eddie Holland. I already have the Marvelettes version in my Covered series for Whitfield. So instead I used a version here by Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, a non-Motown band. I also decided to include "Your Keep Me Hangin' On" by Vanilla Fudge, even though I included the original hit version by the Supremes in the previous volume in this series. That's because both versions were massive hits, and yet are drastically different from each other. I like both versions quite a lot, as they bring out different aspects of the song.

This volume, unfortunately, is basically the end of Holland-Dozier-Holland at Motown Records. But it was far from the end for them, as they set up their own record companies and kept coming up with hit after hit. All that shall be explained in the next volume in this series.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Love Is Here and Now You're Gone (Supremes)
02 Jimmy Mack (Martha & the Vandellas)
03 Bernadette (Four Tops)
04 The Happening (Supremes)
05 There's a Ghost in My House (R. Dean Taylor)
06 All I Need (Temptations)
07 Too Many Fish in the Sea - Three Little Fishes (Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels)
08 7 Rooms of Gloom (Four Tops)
09 Everybody Needs Love (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 You Keep Me Hangin' On (Vanilla Fudge)
11 I'll Turn to Stone (Four Tops)
12 Reflections (Supremes)
13 Going Down for the Third Time (Supremes)
14 [Loneliness Made Me Realize] It's You that I Need (Temptations)
15 In and Out of Love (Supremes)
16 You Keep Running Away (Four Tops)
17 I Got a Feeling (Barbara Randolph)
18 Whisper You Love Me Boy (Chris Clark)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17429370/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1967Vlum5_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qLpjdSbN

The cover image is one where I had to create something out of very little. I was lacking having enough photos of Holland-Dozier-Holland together, so in this case I had to make one. I found three photos of them individually, probably all from the early 1970s. That's not too close to 1967, I know, but it was the best I could do. Then I colorized them using the Palette program, since all three were in black and white. Then I put them all together in Photoshop. Finally, I ran the merged image through Krea AI, which helped give more of a consistent look to the whole thing. It's still not ideal, but at least it's something.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 4: 1966

This is the fourth volume highlighting the unstoppable hit making machine that was the songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland (usually known as just Holland-Dozier-Holland). This volume deals with just the year 1966. If you're not listening to these albums, you're really missing out.

If anything, Holland-Dozier-Holland was even more successful in 1966 than any previous year. Consider that the previous three volumes in this series were from 40 to 44 minutes long, whereas this one is an hour long. They still were the top songwriting entity for Motown Records, writing and producing hits for pretty much all of Motown's top acts this year. After "only" having two songs in Rolling Stone Magazine's top 500 songs of all time, they had three in 1966: "Reach Out, I'll Be There" by the Four Tops, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by the Supremes, and "Standing in the Shadows of Love" by the Four Tops. 

Once again, I tried my best to list the songs by the exact order of the single releases. However, I had to guesstimate some, especially the few songs that were mere album tracks instead of singles. Those are songs I generally consider ones that should have been hits, but were overlooked or not properly promoted. Examples of those would include "Any Girl in Love (Knows What I'm Going Through)" by the Supremes and "Suspicion" by the Originals.

Generally speaking, these are all the original versions of each song. Note though that "Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)" was originally a minor hit for the band the Valadiers in 1961. Brian Holland wrote the song with some others. But it was a bigger hit in 1966 by the Monitors, when it had more relevance due to the increasingly bloody Vietnam War.

"Everybody Needs Love" by Mary Wells is another oddity. Wells left Motown in 1964, and didn't have much success with other record companies. This song was recorded by Wells in 1964 while she was still with Motown, but wasn't officially released until it came out on a Motown various artists collection in 1966.

This album is an hour long.

01 Put Yourself in My Place (Chris Clark)
02 Greetings [This Is Uncle Sam] (Monitors)
03 Shake Me, Wake Me [When It's Over] (Four Tops)
04 This Old Heart of Mine [Is Weak for You] (Isley Brothers)
05 Helpless (Kim Weston)
06 [I'm a] Road Runner (Jr. Walker & the All Stars)
07 Love Is like an Itching in My Heart (Supremes)
08 I Guess I'll Always Love You (Isley Brothers)
09 You Can't Hurry Love (Supremes)
10 Any Girl in Love [Knows What I'm Going Through] (Supremes)
11 Little Darling [I Need You] (Marvin Gaye)
12 Reach Out, I'll Be There (Four Tops)
13 Function at the Junction (Shorty Long)
14 Everybody Needs Love (Mary Wells)
15 Heaven Must Have Sent You (Elgins)
16 Love's Gone Bad (Chris Clark)
17 I'm Ready for Love (Martha & the Vandellas)
18 You Keep Me Hangin' On (Supremes)
19 Suspicion (Originals)
20 [Come Round Here] I'm the One You Need (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
21 Standing in the Shadows of Love (Four Tops)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402924/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1966Vlum4_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Yi2mc7hd

The cover image is from around 1970 apparently. That's probably right, given that the two Holland brothers grew goatees which weren't there on any pictures of them from the 1960s. The original of the image was in black and white, but I converted it using the Palette and Photoshop programs. Then I improved the image detail with the Krea AI program.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 3: 1965

The non-stop hits keep on coming with Volume Three of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland (usually known as Holland-Dozier-Holland) for my Covered series on songwriters. All the songs in this volume were released in 1965.

In 1965, Holland-Dozier-Holland were in a hit making groove. Look at how many of the songs here were big hits that still get played on the radio. 

Their accomplishment is even more impressive considering that they not only wrote all these songs, they produced nearly all of them too. In case you're curious, I found a 2022 with all three of them were they explained their successful formula. Here are some excerpts.

Brian Holland: "Lamont and I would start writing the songs on piano. Eddie would also be there early on, and we would discuss what the melody and structure should be. Lamont and I would then start recording the tracks, which would be the actual tracks for the master (not just demo tracks)."

Lamont Dozier: "In the recording studio, Brian and I would split the room. Brian would work with the drummer (usually Benny Benjamin). I would get with the keyboard players (usually Earl Van Dyke or Joe Hunter) and show them how to play the track and chords. I would also give the bass lines to James Jamerson, then he would inject his own bass ideas to make it stronger. We wanted to guide the musicians, so we could create our own sound. We would never let the band just go in and play the chord sheets. We were very focused on what we had in mind for these productions."

Brian Holland: "We would record the full track, which would include the melody with a scratch vocal, without lyrics yet. Although sometimes, we would have the title, and some of the chorus lyrics. Then we would give the track to Eddie, who would go off and write the lyrics."

Eddie Holland: "When I got the track, I would spend many days writing. I would lock myself away. I had a townhouse in Detroit; I would close all the curtains and shades, and there was no telephone. I didn’t go out much; most of my life was devoted to writing lyrics."

So basically, together with the Motown backing band later nicknamed the Funk Brothers, they did it all. The only thing the star performer would have to do is come in and sing the lead vocals, helped by the guide vocals already done by Holland-Dozier-Holland. Some groups, like the Temptations, would often do their own backing vocals, but in most cases that was done already as part of the Holland-Dozier-Holland production too, by a little known female trio called the Andantes. Incredibly, they sang backing vocals on about 20,000 songs, which was about 90 percent of all the songs recorded for the Motown label! 

Virtually all the songs here are the original hit versions by Motown artists. As with the previous volumes, I did my best to order the songs by their release dates, though I had to guess for a few of them.

There is one non-Motown version here though, and that's "1 2 3" by Len Berry. This was a big hit originally written by Berry and two others. But it turns out the song had a great similarity to the song "Ask Any Girl," a B-side for the Supremes. So after two years of lawsuits, Holland-Dozier-Holland were added to the songwriting credits and got a share of all the royalties.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Stop, In the Name of Love (Supremes)
02 Beauty Is Only Skin Deep (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
03 Nowhere to Run (Martha & the Vandellas)
04 Back in My Arms Again (Supremes)
05 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch] (Four Tops)
06 Lonely, Lonely Girl Am I (Velvelettes)
07 It's the Same Old Song (Four Tops)
08 Mother Dear (Supremes)
09 Nothing but Heartaches (Supremes)
10 1 2 3 (Len Barry)
11 Take Me in Your Arms [Rock Me a Little While] (Kim Weston)
12 Love [Makes Me Do Foolish Things] (Martha & the Vandellas)
13 I Hear a Symphony (Supremes)
14 Something about You (Four Tops)
15 My World Is Empty without You (Supremes)
16 Everything Is Good about You (Supremes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402922/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1965Vlum3_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cCmxZH6k

The cover photo is almost certainly from the same photo session as the photo I used for the 1964 album in this series. The three of them look to be wearing the exact same clothes, and were around a piano in both. But when I colorized this one with the help of the Palette program, I picked different colors for their clothes, so it wouldn't look so similar. I also moved them a bit in Photoshop so they'd be closer together. Finally, I ran the image through the Krea AI program to improve the detail level.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 2: 1964

Earlier today, I posted Volume One of my Covered songwriting series for the Motown team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, commonly referred to as Holland-Dozier-Holland. I explained quite a bit about them in my write-up for that volume, so I suggest you read that to learn more. They were such successful hit makers that this and the next three volumes in the series will cover just one year. This one showcases their hits from 1964.

As you can see from all the classic songs in the song list, Holland-Dozier-Holland were really hitting their stride in 1964. Three of the songs here made it to Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 songs of all time: "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby I Need Your Loving," and "Baby Love." I'm surprised "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" didn't make that list too.

As with most of the other albums in this series, I went the extra mile, and tried to order the songs chronologically not just by year of release, as I usually do with Covered albums, but also putting them in the exact order they were released. I couldn't manage that for all the songs, because a few were album tracks where I couldn't accurately figure out release dates.

Pretty much all the versions here are the original hit versions, by Motown artists. However, "Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)" is by the Action, a non-Motown band from Britain. 

Also, note that two of the songs here, "Just Ain't Enough Love" and "Candy to Me," were performed by Eddie Holland, a member of Holland-Dozier-Holland. As I mentioned in Volume One, he had some early singles, including a hit in 1961. But this was the last gasp of his 1964 recording career, since he suffered from stage fright and found being a songwriter and producer worked much better for him. 

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Live Wire (Martha & the Vandellas)
02 Run, Run, Run (Supremes)
03 You're a Wonderful One (Marvin Gaye)
04 In My Lonely Room (Martha & the Vandellas)
05 Just Ain't Enough Love (Eddie Holland)
06 The Girl's Alright with Me (Temptations)
07 Where Did Our Love Go (Supremes)
08 Baby I Need Your Loving (Four Tops)
09 Candy to Me (Eddie Holland)
10 Girl [Why You Wanna Make Me Blue] (Action)
11 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Marvin Gaye)
12 Baby Love (Supremes)
13 Come See about Me (Supremes)
14 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (Marvin Gaye)
15 He Was Really Sayin' Somethin' (Velvelettes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402266/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1964Vlum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iuhYh4g8

Of all the cover photos I made for this series, this is probably the one I manipulated the least. Unlike most of the others, the original had them in these exact poses. But it was in black and white, so I colorized it with the help of the Palette and Photoshop programs. I also ran it through the Krea AI program to help with the detail. I don't know when the photo was taken, but I'm guessing it was in the mid-1960s, based on the short haircuts and clothing styles and such.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 1: 1961-1963

This has been a long time coming. I consider the songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland - typically just referred to as Holland-Dozier-Holland, one of the greatest songwriting entities of all time, right up there with the likes of Lennon-McCartney and Bob Dylan. They wrote so many worthy songs that I've made eight albums for my Covered songwriter series. I believe that's the most so far, beating out the songwriting duo of Gerry Goffin & Carole King with six albums.

If you think about the dozens and dozens of Motown classic hits from the 1960s, Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote most of them. Unfortunately, they left the Motown company in 1968 due to a disagreement about their role and how much they should be paid. But they formed their own record companies and continued to write many hits well into the 1970s. Their collaboration slowly fell apart that decade, but they still had some individual successes well after the 1970s, even into the 2000s.

It's hard to even fathom just how successful the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team was. They wrote about 400 songs together. About 130 of those were hits on the U.S. pop charts. And that doesn't even include more hits that weren't written by all three of them. About 40 of their hits reached Number One on either the pop or soul charts. Just for the Supremes, they wrote ten Number One pop hits! Also, nine of their songs have made it to Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 songs of all time. I'm sure that's more than anyone else I've included in my Covered series so far.

Eddie and Brian Holland are brothers, with Eddie being two years older. As I write this in 2024, both of them are still alive and are in their 1980s. Lamont Dozier died in 2022 at the age of 81. All three of them were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Brian Holland was the first to start a musical career, putting out a solo single in 1958. He didn't have much success at first, but that single was produced by Barry Gordy, the future owner of Motown Records, and he gradually got more involved with that company, which was founded in 1959. 

Brian brought his brother Eddie into the Motown company. At first, Eddie tried to have success as a performer. He did have a hit in 1961 with the song "Jamie," which reached Number 30 on the U.S. singles chart. He put out a steady stream of singles from 1958 until 1964, with a couple more minor hits. One of them, "Leaving Here," is included here. But he suffered from stage fright and ended his career as a performer in 1964. He and his brother decided they preferred songwriting and producing.

The first really big success any of these three songwriters had was with the song "Please Mr. Postman." There were no less than five songwriters credited for the song, but one of them was Brian Holland. The song was a huge success for the Motown act the Marvelettes, reaching Number One on the U.S. singles chart in 1961. 

Shortly after that, Lamont Dozier started to enter the picture. He had been a member of various bands as far back as 1957. He even released three singles in 1961 under the name "LaMont Anthony." But in 1962, he joined the Motown company and soon started working with the Holland brothers, both writing and producing songs.

I found a 2022 interview with Holland-Dozier-Holland that took place shortly before Dozier died that year. In it, they described how their songwriting partnership worked. Brian Holland explained, "I mainly wrote the melodies and tracks with Lamont, and Eddie wrote the majority of the lyrics. Occasionally, Lamont and I would also come up with lyric ideas." 

Eddie Holland further explained, "Early on, Brian and Lamont were already writing together, and they were very prolific at writing melodies and producing tracks. It was the lyric writing which slowed them down. So I suggested that I join the team as a lyricist, so that their production output would be much higher. With the three of us, we were able to finish many songs and produce more projects."

Here's the Wikipedia entry for the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team. You can also find entries for each of them individually, but those don't say much:

Holland–Dozier–Holland - Wikipedia

Some of the first songs on this album were written by only one or two members of this threesome, often with others. The first song here written by all three was "Come and Get These Memories," a hit for Martha and the Vandellas in 1963. Shortly thereafter, the three of them composed "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave," which was a massive hit by Martha and the Vandellas later in 1963, and has been a hit multiple times since then.

From that point on, it was like they could do no wrong. They soon became the top songwriting entity for Motown, and were usually assigned to write songs for the biggest stars signed to that label. Lamont Dozier later recalled, "It was just an awesome time (back at Motown). We had a huge amount of success. During this period, whatever we touched seemed to go straight into the Top 10. It was as if we stumbled onto the best door on 'The Price Is Right,' where the prizes just keep on coming and coming!"

Normally with albums in this series, I sort the songs chronologically, but loosely, based on the year of release. But because the Holland-Dozier-Holland team had so many hits one after another, I've strived to order them even more accurately, so you can see the exact order of their hits. I've only made occasional exceptions to that. For instance, I bumped up "Come and Get These Memories" a bit so there wouldn't be four Marvelettes songs in a row.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Please Mr. Postman (Marvelettes)
02 Playboy (Marvelettes)
03 Someday, Someway (Marvelettes)
06 Come and Get These Memories (Martha & the Vandellas)
04 Strange I Know (Marvelettes)
07 [Love Is Like A] Heat Wave (Martha & the Vandellas)
05 Locking Up My Heart (Marvelettes)
08 Mickey's Monkey (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
09 You Lost the Sweetest Boy (Mary Wells)
10 Can I Get a Witness (Marvin Gaye)
11 I Gotta Dance to Keep from Crying (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
12 Quicksand (Martha & the Vandellas)
13 When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes (Supremes)
14 A Love like Yours [Don't Come Knocking Everyday] (Martha & the Vandellas)
15 Leaving Here (Eddie Holland)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402265/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1961-1963Vlum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cDyiGUhr

One reason I didn't post Holland-Dozier-Holland albums in my Covered series prior to this is I didn't think I could make worthy album covers. But recently with my discovery of the Krea AI program, I can finally make the covers I wanted. The problem is there simply aren't that many photos of these three songwriters, either solo or together, until they started appearing at awards ceremonies when they had reached old age. For this cover, I couldn't find any good photos of them from 1961 to 1963. Instead, I used a photo of Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier together in 1965, plus another photo of Eddie Holland from that time period. Both photos were in black and white, so I used the Palette program to convert them to color. Then, using Photoshop, I rearranged their bodies so their heads were closer and at the same height level. Finally, I used the Krea AI program to increase the image detail and quality.

From right to left, that's Eddie Holland, Brian Holland, and Lamont Dozier.