Heaven Must Have Sent You: The Holland/Dozier/Holland Story

This 3-CD overview of the Holland/Dozier/Holland team's legendary songs won't necessarily replace your other Motown comps, but there's a lot of rarities here, and amateur songwriters (and students) can trace the development of their craft.

If you don't know who that graying trio of gentlemen are on the cover of this three-disc box set, you could be forgiven: Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland, and Brian Holland weren't performers, or at least, not any you might know by sight. Yet together, they penned the scores of classic songs that comprise the bulk of Motown's rich legacy -- from 1962 to approximately 1967 or so, almost any Sound of Young America 45 you heard was crafted by these three, working together as a team.

So why buy an album dedicated to songwriters? Because, for one thing, this collection assembles their biggest hits as well as excellent H/D/H songs that never quite made it to mass consciousness like The Marvelettes' "Locking Up My Heart" and The Elgins' "Darling Baby." You can also find some great hit covers made after the boys left the label (Chairmen of the Board's "Give Me Just A Little More Time"), non-Motown covers like The Band's "Don't Do It" and Dusty Springfield's "When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes," tributes such as Shalamar's "Uptown Festival Part 1," and, most intriguingly, cuts performed by memebers of the trio themselves. (Eddie Holland has made it to a box set or two with his early sides as a performer; the others, not so much.) As a Motown comp, well, this isn't one. But it is one of the more distinctive soul box sets you'll ever hear, centered around a real pop philosophy and branching out into many different eras and styles. Can a Funk Brothers tribute be far behind?