Brian Holland had only a handful of recordings as a solo artist.

His first was for Kudo under the misspelled(?) name of Briant. Coincidentally the A side "Where's the joy nature boy" was written by the aforementioned Joe Howard. The flip side "Shock" was written by Berry Gordy and Robert Gordy.

Brian would soon find himself working with the newly formed Rayber Voices on Gladstone. 

When Rayber developed into Tamla and Motown, Brian would join forces with his brother Eddie, and Lamont Dozier, to form one of Popular Music's most successful song writing teams.

Towards the end of the sixties, H-D-H, formed their own label Invictus where Brian had a couple of releases including "I'm so glad".

There were two other releases on the Kudo label during it's short life, by Billy Kope and the Quadrells and Billy Sharp and his Sharptones.

Like all Kudo recordings these records performed at the lower end of the market, but as we have seen, historically the label provided a solid foundation for a number of future VIP's.

B&H Distributors address on Woodward is now occupied by a pharmacy

The first and second releases from Kudo were published by Lane and West.

Bill Lane's son, David, was able to tell me that his Father was also involved in the production of some of the Kudo sides.

Lane and West, whom David refers to as Rolo (Robert), were close friends who held each other in high esteem.

Lane was also the first black dee-jay on radio station WJR. His show was called "Swingin' down the lane".

The Marv Johnson 45 also included the name James Higgins, who was a partner of West's in the B&H Distribution company at 3959 Woodward Avenue. I think it is reasonable to speculate that the initials B&H stood for Bob and Higgins. David Lane thinks that Higgins was also an Attorney.

Ray and Berry Gordy's first release on Rayber was distributed by B&H as was most of their Tamla product prior to "Shop around".

It was unusual for someone so new to the industry to be involved in the more lucrative aspects of recording. 

Continued