Brenda Holloway - Reconsider

Brenda Holloway was the voice that caused every true aficionado of Motown to melt when they heard her. She epitomised that cool soulfulness that lacked the commercial appeal of a Diana Ross, but stood head and shoulders above the rest for anyone who discovered her true artistry. Amazingly, forty three years after she first hit with "Every Little Bit Hurts", she still looks and sounds as wonderful as ever. The late great Barry White described her as the greatest female soul singer who ever lived, and many agree with him. I started working with Brenda quite early on with Motorcity, back in 1987. I was desperate to find her, and Mary Wilson, of The Supremes, gave me her phone number, so I flew her straight over to England to record "Give Me A Little Inspiration", and also a duet with Jimmy Ruffin called "On The Rebound". We then continued and finished our first album together in Los Angeles in 1990, "All It Takes" which was released when Motorcity had a deal with Charly Records. Then, in the mid 1990s, Brenda was over in England with Kim Weston, doing a series of Northern Soul gigs, so she came to stay with me, and we cut thirty more songs, including this song, "Reconsider", a remake of a Motown track which had remained unissued for thirty years. At first, after various bootleg acetates had done the rounds, it was indeed called "Reconsider", then it was called "Breaking This Poor Heart Of Mine" and now more recently, once it finally officially got released on a Motown compilation, it was called "Think It Over (Before You Break My Heart)", which doesn't even reflect the song properly. But by then we'd already released it, simply as "Reconsider". The wonderful and eccentric Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams, as a special favour to me, filmed Brenda performing our version of the song in Leon Haywood's studio in Los Angeles, in early 1999, just in time for The Strange World Of Northern Soul DVD.