Motown's policy was to build one act at a time or their favorites.

In 1980 Holloway released a gospel album Brand New! that went unnoticed. When Mary Wells who was Motown's first solo hit-maker left the label Motown began billing Holloway as the next female solo star and soon had Holloway recording several songs originally intended for Wells including her next top 40 single "When I'm Gone" which like many of Wells' hit singles had been composed by Smokey Robinson. A follow-up album to have been called Hurtin' and Cryin' was scrapped by the label and Holloway began to consider that Brenda Holloway was being disregarded by the company perhaps in part because Brenda Holloway was not based in Detroit.

Brenda Holloway (born June 21 1946) is an American singer and songwriter who was a recording artist for Motown Records during the 1960s. She left Motown after four years at the age of 22 and largely retired from the music industry until the 1990s after her recordings had become popular on the British "Northern soul" scene.