A Sweet ‘Boy’ and a Pacesetting Trio

HOLLAND/DOZIER/HOLLAND DELIVER CHANGE

Ted Templeman caught my attention the other day.

You know, the record producer responsible for hits by Van Halen, the Doobie Brothers and Aerosmith, among others. Admittedly, not names normally seen in this space.

“The drumbeat-and-piano intro is the perfect hook,” Templeman writes in his new autobiography with Greg Renoff, A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music, “especially when accompanied by an almost gospel background vocal part. Then there’s the beat. It churns forward, propelled by sax licks and a perfect pairing of tambourine and drums. The other notable feature about this song is its great lyric, one that resonates with anyone who’s been part of a love triangle. But like so many other Motown hits about love and longing, the song sounds upbeat even though the lyrics are about heartbreak.”

Amen, Ted, amen.

The song? None other than “You Lost The Sweetest Boy,” sermonised by Holland/Dozier/Holland and testified onto tape by Mary Wells, down in the basement studio of 2648 West Grand, on Monday, July 22, 1963. Actually, that was when the song’s working title was “Your Loss, My Gain.” Over the next three weeks, it evolved – perhaps after feedback from one of Motown’s Friday morning product evaluation meetings – into “You Lost The Sweetest Boy,” and was sent to market just before Labor Day.

It remains one of the most underrated recordings of Wells’ tenure at Motown and of the company’s entire output that year – a stunning example of secular gospel, complete with a chorus that’s more forcefully spiritual than almost anything else out of Hitsville at the time, with the possible exception of Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get A Witness.” Among the voices behind Wells are the Supremes – as if you couldn’t identify Diana Ross at 95 seconds in – and a Temptation or two.

“You Lost The Sweetest Boy” is also one of the least-covered hits in the Holland/Dozier/Holland canon. In-house, there were versions cut by the Velvelettes (in French, no less) and the Marvelettes. Elsewhere, Motown evangelist Dusty Springfield performed the song on 1965’s The Sound Of Motown TV special, and during the last show of her 1966 BBC-TV series, Dusty.

The Velvelettes’ French interpretation of “You Lost The Sweetest Boy” was “Tu Perds Le Plus Merveileux Garcon Du Monde,” recorded circa 1963 with producer Pierre Berjot as part of Berry Gordy’s effort to internationalise Motown. It stayed in the can, however, until the release of the group’s The Motown Anthology in 2004. The Marvelettes tackled the song (in English) with producer Norman Whitfield in 1966, but that, too, stayed out of hearing range until their Forever More: The Complete Motown Albums Volume 2 in 2011.

“It was one of the very first songs I did,” Brian Holland recalled of “You Lost The Sweetest Boy” in Come and Get These Memories, his autobiography with brother Edward. “But it was so complicated. I knew what I shouldn’t have done but I did it anyway. I was trying to write something I thought Smokey might write, something sophisticated like he would do, and it was a good try but it didn’t quite work.”

That’s arguable. In its final form, “You Lost The Sweetest Boy” bears little resemblance to Robinson’s cooler, more polished work with Wells, and that was noticed by at least one critic upon the single’s release. “Mary established her reputation on a slightly out-of-key style that was highly distinctive but wore a little thin by the fourth record,” wrote Bob Mitchell in the San Francisco Examiner. “Here she is in a brand new bag with a bright up-tempo sound that should please followers old and new.”

The sound, of course, was also that of Holland/Dozier/Holland finding their feet within Hitsville, staking out a style, searching for the most effective way of working together, and seeking commercial validation. The year of 1963 began for them with a minor R&B hit, the Marvelettes’ “Locking Up My Heart,” and continued positively with Martha & the Vandellas’ “Come And Get These Memories” – the record which Berry Gordy is said to have identified as the first example of the Motown “sound” he was searching for.

It helped that H/D/H had their own working space at West Grand. “It was an office, but it was a small office,” Lamont Dozier once told me. “Actually, it was little bigger than a closet with a piano in it, and a little reel-to-reel Webcor recorder. It was on the second floor.” This was, he added, Brian’s office, earned by Holland’s earlier success writing and producing hits for the Marvelettes with Robert Bateman.

Inside and outside the closet, it must have been an exciting summer. The record which was to elevate H/D/H’s status within Hitsville, “Heat Wave,” was released on July 10, shortly after “Come And Get These Memories” had peaked inside the Top 30 of trade-paper pop charts. On July 17, the team recorded “Can I Get A Witness,” just five days before adding Mary Wells’ vocals to its twin, “You Lost The Sweetest Boy.”

“We realised early on,” Eddie Holland explained to me in 2004, “that other producers would look at a track, the rhythm, the vocal, the sweetening – be it the horns, strings – almost as one and blend these instruments almost as one. At Motown, the philosophy was more, ‘Let’s hear the bass pumping, let’s hear that foot hitting the drum,’ to drive that track on. The rest of it was then added. That’s what caused those records to sound so dominant all the time.”

***A delight for Dave and TMAS members***

The exact line-up of musicians on “You Lost The Sweetest Boy” remains unknown, but given that the recording session took place just two days before that of “Can I Get A Witness” – for which the players have since been identified – the chances are high for a match, or close. That’s Johnny Griffith on piano – so forceful on both – and, of course, drummer Benny Benjamin, locking down the rhythm. The bass belongs to Clarence Isabell, while the horn section includes Hank Cosby (tenor sax), Paul Riser (trombone) and Marcus Belgrave (trumpet). The baritone sax solo on “Sweetest Boy”? That’s Mike Terry, unmistakeably.

“Mary Wells’ latest for Motown is a change-of-pace’r that can really zoom skywards,” adjudicated Cash Box when the single was released on August 30. “It’s an exciting gospel-like thumper…that has a happy romantic ending for the thrush. Also keep tabs on the infectious up tempo handclapper on the other end.” Billboard called it “a potent rhythm tune that falls into an unusual cadence and the background is filled with [a] sharp shooting group of gals and guys.” The record charted strongly in both trade weeklies, swiftly followed by its flipside, “What’s Easy For Two (Is So Hard For One),” as radio stations found the Smokey Robinson-created tune also connected with audiences.

Across the Atlantic, listeners had fewer opportunities to hear either side. “You Lost The Sweetest Boy” was the third Motown 45 released (in November 1963) by EMI Records in the U.K. under its new license deal with the Detroit firm. If EMI was disappointed by the single’s 3,000 sales, members of the Mary Wells Fan Club and Tamla/Motown Appreciation Society, newly formed that autumn in England by Dave Godin, were joyful just to have it available.

Still, nothing would have compared to the feelings experienced by Holland/Dozier/Holland as 1963 came to a close. “You Lost The Sweetest Boy” had slipped off the charts a few weeks earlier, but Motown’s hottest new creative boys were responsible for a total of four records on the final Billboard Hot 100 of the year. “They were masters of getting the right combinations of instruments. The melodies were invariably infectious. And underneath it all, they had these pumping rhythms going at these spot-on tempos. It was like they had an intuitive feel for crafting hits.”

Amen, Ted, amen.

Music notes: this week’s West Grand Blog playlist is short but, uh, sweet. It contains both of Mary Wells’ studio takes of “You Lost The Sweetest Boy,” and a live version first heard on Recorded Live: The Motortown Revue Vol. 2, issued by Motown in April 1964. (I know the world is now digital, but allow me to recommend the physical CD set which contains that album and three more, The Motortown Revue Collection, from 2005.) Also on the playlist are the above-cited recordings of “Boy” by the Velvelettes and the Marvelettes. The 2001 CD compilation which contained Dusty Springfield’s take, Good Times, doesn’t seem to be available on digital services, but here’s a link to a videoclip of her performing the song. And bookwise, don’t forget Peter Benjaminson’s Mary Wells: The Tumultuous Life of Motown’s First Superstar, published in 2012.