By John Lester (62.252.128.5 - 62.252.128.5) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 08:31 pm:

Ms Doris Holland at the Motown Museum

By Ralph (209.240.222.130 - 209.240.222.130) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 08:37 pm:

John,
Thanks for the great pics of Doris. Of course I know her but I still can't figure out why she was on the credits for the Xit album. I wonder what department she worked in at the time? She must have been helpful in some way. She is beautiful isn't she.

By John Lester (62.252.128.5 - 62.252.128.5) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 08:40 pm:

By John Lester (62.252.128.5 - 62.252.128.5) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 08:43 pm:

Ms Esther Edwards

By Ralph (209.240.222.130 - 209.240.222.130) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 08:45 pm:

Hmmmm....Did Doris work for Ralph Seltzer? It may be coming back to me John. Even if she did though, why the credits?? Still a mystery.

By Ralph (209.240.222.130 - 209.240.222.130) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 08:46 pm:

Great pic of Mrs. Edwards John. She is so special to my brother and me.

By john lester (213.1.128.91 - 213.1.128.91) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 09:34 pm:

David ...you posted them quicker than it took me to get home

I have to reward you now!

I shall tell you that I took pictures of the Motown sites some years ago...some of those places have been pulled down since....

The photos I sent were scanned by me...not very well I know but you separated them and posted them excellently....thank you

By Ritchie (62.254.0.6 - 62.254.0.6) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 09:36 pm:

John -

Gorgeous pics of two lovely ladies - hey, they could sell me a tee-shirt any time! (Keep 'em coming.)

By john lester (213.1.128.91 - 213.1.128.91) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 09:38 pm:

Ralph

Keep on thinking...I scanned them specially!!

On the album it credits

Believers - Harry Balk, Herb Eiseman, Doris Holland, Vi Carter, Donna Sekulidis, Ken Sands, Steve Smith, and the true American indians

Does that help!!

By john lester (213.1.128.91 - 213.1.128.91) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 09:42 pm:

After I won the Saundra Mallet Tamla 45 in an auction, Mrs Edwards said she wanted a picture taken with me......I was in my 30's...shows you how long ago it was!! (waist size that is!!)

I shall post that (well I shall ask David too!!) - not cos I am in it - it's just a really lovely picture of Mrs Edwards.

By Ian W (213.122.29.25 - 213.122.29.25) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 09:46 pm:

Can I have one of everything in the museum shop?

By Ritchie (62.254.0.6 - 62.254.0.6) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 09:56 pm:

Ian

Sorry, I suspect that the ladies are spoken for.

By Ian W (213.122.29.25 - 213.122.29.25) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 10:20 pm:

Bah! I always get left with the tee shirts. :<(

By david, glasgow, scotland (62.252.128.5 - 62.252.128.5) on Monday, July 01, 2002 - 10:31 pm:

John I would love to include any Motown buildings which are no longer with us in a Berry Gordy webisode.

How would you feel about that?

By John Lester (213.1.129.26 - 213.1.129.26) on Tuesday, July 02, 2002 - 07:00 am:

No problem..whatever you want.....I got things like the J&W building too....not Motown but still Detroit!

Sadly I never got the Invictus biuildings...

By david, glasgow, scotland (62.6.65.167 - 62.6.65.167) on Tuesday, July 02, 2002 - 07:39 am:

John I'll e-mail you a list of what is demolished (about one in three buildings).

The J&W building is still there. Thanks

By acooolcat (211.72.121.66 - 211.72.121.66) on Tuesday, July 02, 2002 - 12:17 pm:

What's the J and W building?
Graham

By david, glasgow, scotland (213.122.140.192 - 213.122.140.192) on Tuesday, July 02, 2002 - 02:10 pm:

Home of J&W record label.

By john lester (213.1.128.152 - 213.1.128.152) on Tuesday, July 02, 2002 - 07:16 pm:

I need to get my act together....keep on to me David...

By M.McLeanTech (64.236.243.243 - 64.236.243.243) on Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 05:16 pm:

Ralph,

Regarding your July 1 posting above: Yes indeed! Doris Holland did work for Ralph Seltzer. Mr. Seltzer was my boss, and I had a lot of contact with him. Doris was his secretary for quite some time.

I considered Doris Holland to have a manner that was sublime in it's elegance. I once discussed this with Mr. Seltzer, and we were in complete agreement.

I am very sorry to hear that she has passed away.

Mike McLean

By Ralph (209.240.222.130 - 209.240.222.130) on Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 06:06 pm:

Mike,
Thanks for confirming this for me. I am also sorry to hear of Ms. Holland's passing.
She truly was an elegant woman.

By John Lester (213.1.132.178 - 213.1.132.178) on Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 08:58 pm:

Ralph...

You stil aint remembered about the dedication to Mrs Holland on the Xit album....give those brain cells a good shake!

By Ralph (209.240.222.130 - 209.240.222.130) on Sunday, July 28, 2002 - 10:25 pm:

You're right John,
The only thing I can figure there is that it was something I wasn't even aware of at the time. Maybe something to do with Tommy Bee, the groups manager and his association with Ralph Seltzer's office. As the producer I could only be somewhat in control of what went on the album cover, so it's origins could have come from anywhere. I'm betting on Tommy Bee though.

By M.McLeanTech (63.212.136.191 - 63.212.136.191) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 05:28 pm:

Ralph,

Perhaps I can offer a clue, and a story, on the subject of liner notes, Doris Holland, and Ralph Seltzer.

I know for a fact that Ralph Seltzer wrote the liner notes for a number of LP albums released by Motown Record Corporation. He wrote under the pen name "Scott St. James." I just looked through a stack of various LP's waiting to be placed back on the shelf, here in my office. I was quickly able to find a couple of examples:

The Supremes - More Hits By The Supremes - Motown 627
The Supremes - I Hear A Symphony - Motown 643

Mr. Seltzer is a somewhat formal and private person, and it seems to me to be in keeping with his personality that he would use a pen name. Perhaps he worked with his secretary, Ms. Holland, on those liner notes, and was more then happy to let her take all the credit. I don't know anything about this matter. I am only speculating about a possibility.

Mr. Seltzer was my boss, and I spent quite a lot of time with him, sometimes in situations where difficult issues were being discussed. I worked with him for many years, and became somewhat emotionally involved in the process of communicating with him about business matters. He had a collection of words and phrases that he was fond of using in his speech. I found these items fascinating. Here are a few:

"I can't RESOLVE IT ON THAT BASIS."
"He prefers to do it in that KIND OF WAY."
"The producers have many APPROACHES."

One weekend, I was having a few beers, and I happened to be listening to a Motown album (I am sure I could find it if I went downstairs and looked through all my Motown albums) with notes by Scott St. James. I knew at the time that Mr. Seltzer was writing under that pen name and I read the notes carefully.

The basic style was always very aggressive, positive, and gushing with superlatives. It was as if a writer of ad copy had taken speed.

Suddenly, to my astonishment, I noticed that several of his favorite phrases and words had worked their way into the copy. This struck me as hilarious, and I at once decided to pull a prank on him.

I wrote a letter addressed to Scott St. James, care of Motown Record Corp. at the Motown Center at 2457 Woodward, which was where we both had our offices at the time. I wanted the letter to appear as if it had been written by a teen-ager that had a very poor education. To get the appropriate handwriting, I wrote it with my left hand (I am right handed.) I made sure that every sentence had a good dose of grammatical errors and misspelled words, and I used a rambling style where the subject kept changing all over the place.

To keep him from losing interest, I made a lot of positive comments relating to various things that he had said in his liner notes for this particular album, which I had identified with the specific album number. Gradually, I eased the subject around until I focused in on the target: I made some highly specific positive remarks about how beautifully his use of each of his pet phrases and words had enhanced the text. Of course, these observations were absolutely absurd, in the context of the overall apparent source of the letter. I managed to come up with about four 6 by 9 inch size sheets of pink letter paper filled with this horrible handwriting. I kept the last page very short, so I could sign my real name and have the minimum possible chance that he would look ahead and realize that Mike McLean was spoofing him.

I knew that there was a very good chance that nobody in the Motown Center mailroom would know who to deliver the letter to after it was delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, so I went down every day and snooped. The mailroom was wide open, and I could simply walk in and look around with no one there to see what I was doing. Sure enough, I soon found the letter in a cubbyhole for letters with an unknown recipient. I took the postmarked envelope containing the letter and put it in an inter-office mail envelope and had my secretary write "Ralph Seltzer" on the envelope so he would not recognize my handwriting. I dropped the envelope in the inter-office mail.

Next day I got a call from Mr. Seltzer. He was absolutely in stitches. He told me that he laughed so hard when he read my signature on the letter that he almost fell off his chair. I never heard, or saw, Mr. Seltzer so completely cracked up over a joke, before or since, as he was over my little prank. Needless to say, I was very pleased with myself.

Mike McLean

By david, glasgow, scotland (62.252.128.5 - 62.252.128.5) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 06:06 pm:

Nice one Mike!

Keep them coming please.

By Ralph (209.240.222.130 - 209.240.222.130) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 06:06 pm:

Mike,
Thanks for your thoughts. However, on this one it sounds like something generated by Tommy Bee due to the "Believers " top line. Still, the question remains, why was Doris Holland a " believer "?

Mr Seltzer was/is a very interesting and complex man. He and I had a very good relationship while I was at Motown. When I first came to the company he intimidated me somewhat, even though it was he along with Harry Balk that hired me. Once we really got to know one another a very warm relationship developed.
My office would become a sort of hang-out for many of the producers and Mr. Seltzer would often compliment me for maintaining what he called an " open office " as opposed to Betty Ocha who seemed to spend her day, wearing sun glasses, hiding behind a closed office door smoking Kools. When my first marriage was going on the rocks, he had a few comforting conversations with me to help alleviate the guilt I was dealing with. All in all, Ralph Seltzer will always be held in high esteem in my memories of Motown.

By Ritchie (62.254.0.6 - 62.254.0.6) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 06:42 pm:

Personally, I found his brother - Al K. - always had a calming influence on my stomach ;o)

By Ralph (209.240.222.130 - 209.240.222.130) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 06:45 pm:

Hey Ritchie...
BLLLLLLEEEEAAHHHH!!!

By M.McLeanTech (63.210.120.119 - 63.210.120.119) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 08:59 pm:

Ralph, it seems that someone made a bad smell during our sermon. The same thing that happens to a rest room when you add the word "public" also happens to a forum.

By Carl Dixon London (62.31.32.130 - 62.31.32.130) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 09:01 pm:

Mike - love the story! The collection of words and phrases are great. I used to do the same where I worked in the 70's. Not as exciting as Motown of course, but nevertheless, one guy used to say things like:

'No darling, I'll tell you how to cook the peas' - when on the phone with his wife. He also used to say things like 'it's a retrograde step backwards' and ' you've got to push, push for the answer'.
I had the whole office bringing me these phrases and I sent them out to the rest of the company as a newsletter! It then evolved into a monthly list of all the managers expressions and was published via good old typewriters, photo stat machines and the post. Even to this day I use some of these expressions myself when lost for words. Kind of juvenile, but harks back to my earlier days after leaving school. Another Dutch colleague used to say 'I don't want your problem's, I want your solutions'.

The sad thing is, I must do the same these days. I wonder if anybody is making notes of my expressions?

Good story Mike. I like the pink paper and left hand touch.

By M.McLeanTech (63.210.120.119 - 63.210.120.119) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 09:11 pm:

Carl,

My dad used to say:

"TAKE AN INVENTORY OF YOURSELF!"

That was one of his pets. The trouble is, I have always been afraid of what I would find.

Thank you very much for the kind words. I have to run to work now. Do know that I appreciate it.

Best wishes,

Mike McLean

By John Lester (213.1.137.54 - 213.1.137.54) on Monday, July 29, 2002 - 09:12 pm:

Love it love it love it...

That's why I am on this forum everyday......I love it.