Html tags in dynamic textbox - should be easy

Is there some kind of order that html tags have to be in to work? I have this in my textfile:

sortMC=<b><u>Memos</u></b><br><FONT COLOR=’#738DD9’><a href = “www.blahblahblah.com”><u>blah website</u></a></FONT><br>

The underlined colored text link to “blah website” works fine as does all text coming after the last break <br> tag (not shown here). However the first part - <b><u>Memos</u></b> doesn’t work (that first <br> does though as I can see the breaks in between sections of text that I have set up). Is there a simple explanation for this? I have tried using <B> </B> also and still no luck.

Thanks for any help!