Patrice Holloway - 'Love & Desire: The Patrice Holloway Anthology'

OK Dear Reader, you need to know something important. *You* can download a total of seven songs by Patrice Holloway from iTunes and only five of those songs from Amazon. *I*, on the other hand, have a total of 25 songs by Patrice blasting out from my stereo even as I type. Jealous? You should be!

My copy of 'Love & Desire' arrived today from Amazon and there was rather a lot of excitement in the Plastic Bag when I placed it in the player to get my first listen to songs I've never heard before from the 60s - there's always that frisson of 'will I like them?'. The answer is simple: I do! The songs come from her Capitol and Motown years but most have never been issued so it's great to have them at long last - thanks go to Keith Hughes and Mick Patrick for tracking them down. It's just a bit sad that Patrice isn't alive to see that she finally has her own album.

Patrice has a lovely voice and it's a mystery why she wasn't one of the Motown greats in the mid/late 60s. The songs are a bit of a mixed bag, coming from different periods and labels, but all are well worth the wait. I was particularly surprised by 'That's The Chance You Gotta Take' that sounds like an early Jackson 5 song.

The CD comes with a nice, thick booklet with a few new photos of Patrice (there aren't that many around) and a nice write-up of her career. She made her first record in 1963 when she was 12 years old (a local hit in LA) but never had her own big hit. Despite that, everyone over a certain age will have heard her singing backing vocals or heard songs she's written. She sang on Joe Cocker's 'With A Little Help From My Friends', on Diana Ross's 'Some Day We'll Be Together' and was one of Barry White's first backing singers. There are nice snippets in the booklet from Brenda Holloway (big sis Brenda), from Gloria Jones and Thelma Houston and others.

Obviously I need to listen to the record multiple times to love it, but it's great to have so many of Patrice's songs in one place at last. Hopefully it'll be available to download soon!