Friday, June 06, 2008

Lost Soul: Patrice Holloway


The fourth in a series of soul classics that have fallen through the floorboards









Patrice Holloway, one of the finest of all soul singers, has never had a career retrospective issued: this is not just an oversight, it’s both an insult to her legacy and an injustice for music fans.

Her trio of singles for Capitol in 1966/7 - Stolen Hours / Lucky My Boy; Love And Desire / Ecstasy; Stay With Your Own Kind / That's All You Got To Do – is one of the greatest runs of three singles by anyone, ever.

Patrice’s year of birth is a matter of dispute, but what’s clear is that she was a teenager when she made these records. Before her Capitol soul classics, she made a great double-sider with her older sister, Motown star Brenda Holloway, and Sherlie Matthews as The Belles, the storming Don’t Pretend/Words Can’t Explain (1966) and a couple of singles for Motown’s VIP label, the second of which, 1964’s For The Love Of Mike, was criminally shelved.

With her sister and their cousin, Patty Hunt, they released two singles as The Wooden Nickels. Nobody But You gets the Northern crowd excited, but it’s 1965's Should I Give My Love (never reissued, sadly) that I’m uploading. Channelling the teen melodrama of the Shangri-La’s, the sexual trepidation of The Shirelles and the symphonic bliss of Spector (yes, that is Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto you can hear), Should I Give My Love is, like almost everything Patrice Holloway recorded, brilliant.

Patrice Holloway recorded her final solo single in 1972 and continued her music career in the background as a session singer. She died in 2006 of a heart attack. The Rev Frank Wilson (yes, that Frank Wilson) delivered her funeral eulogy.

4 comments:

Simon said...

Great post. Great track too; I've been listening to tunes like The Shirelles Don't Go Home, the Marvelettes Don't Mess With Bill and The Jaynetts Sally. This fits right in! Thanks!

kidfrostbite said...

Yes! Absolutely top tune. Loving your lost soul series, please keep them coming.

Cocktails said...

Hello, just discovered your site and wanted to say thanks for posting this single. I've loved those capitol singles for years and have always wanted to hear more by Patice Holloway.Should I Give my Love is fantastic - cheers for that!

Fire Escape said...

Thanks, all - glad you like 'em. There's plenty more where that came from.