Legendary Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier dead at 81 CBC News

Lamont Dozier, part of arguably the most successful songwriting team in popular music history at Motown Records and beyond, has passed away. He was 81.

Dozier’s death was revealed in social media posts by his son, Lamont Dozier Jr.

Paul Lambert, who helped produce the stage musical The First Wives Club wrote for the Dozier, The Associated Press also confirmed the death. The cause and date of his death were not given.

“Rest in Heavenly Peace Dad!” Dozier Jr posted on Instagram.

Dozier was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1990) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2009) along with Eddie and Brian Holland, after a career punctuated by dozens of chart hits, including a whopping 10 No. 1 pop -Singles, has been highlighted for The Supremes, including Where has our love gone?, baby love, come and see me, Stop! in the name of love and You can’t hurry, love.

Known as a master of melodic arrangement, Dozier also co-wrote the Motown hits heat wave and With no way out of Martha and the Vandellas, This old heart of mine by the Isley Brothers and Marvin Gaye’s How sweet it is (to be loved by you).

“There’s a mystical dimension to being a songwriter that’s hard to describe,” Dozier said in his 2019 memoir. How Sweet It Is: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Music, Motown and the Mystery of the Muse. “Sometimes you think a song should be like this, but this song will tell you if it’s meant to be something else entirely.

Holland-Dozier-Holland developed a strong relationship with The Four Tops at Motown, writing songs about unrequited and lost love that were tailored to Levi Stubbs’ aching vocals. your compositions I Can’t Help It (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) and Get in touch I’ll be there went to the top of the Billboard charts It’s the same old song, Standing in the shadow of love and Bernadette Landing in the top 5.

“I loved them all, but for me, Bernadette would embody the Holland-Dozier-Holland genius of captivating a listener’s ear and not letting it go,” said Motown founder Berry Gordy in his 1994 autobiography To Being loved: The music, the magic, the memories of Motown.

Motown helped “bring people together”: Dozier

In an interview with CBC Q In 2020, Dozier stated that many of his songs, including Bernadettebased on real experiences and people.

“She was my first muse, you could say,” Dozier said of a girl who had a crush on a schoolboy. “She was someone I remembered every time I sat down to write a song. And in later years, I would think about her and the way I was feeling, and I could conjure up those feelings to write and think about other songs Bernadette.”

Holland-Dozier-Holland, seeking greater autonomy that Gordy could not offer, eventually left Motown in the late 1960s. They formed Invictus Records where they continued to chart songs on the R&B and pop charts, highlighted by Freda Paynes band of gold and Just give me a little more time by the CEOs.

Dozier was born on June 16, 1941 in Detroit. Detroit’s black population tripled between 1940 and 1960, and Dozier was part of a wave of emerging talent singing in church choirs, high school talent shows, and on street corners.

While still a teenager, Dozier’s group The Romeos edited music for Atco Records, and Dozier himself – as Lamont Anthony – sang a handful of songs under Motown’s label before forging a writing partnership with the Holland brothers and initially working with the Marvelettes.

At the same time, Dozier’s then-wife, Ann, was working for Motown’s Anna Records subsidiary, reflecting the family atmosphere of the company’s early days.

“Most of what Motown did was bring people together,” Dozier told Mojo Magazine in 2018. “Because those were really disturbing times in the ’60s and people were divided on prejudice and all that stuff.”

Later collaboration with Simply Red, Phil Collins

As with some other Motown songwriters, some early Holland Dozier Holland efforts didn’t quite find the right formula for the talented but struggling Supremes trio of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson and Flo Ballard.

But the floodgates opened in the 1963s Where has our love gone?the first of five consecutive No. 1 hit singles they have written for the Supremes, a series up to and including Back in my arms again in 1965.

After leaving Invictus to the Hollands a decade later, Dozier went into business for himself. From 1974 with Out here on my ownhe would release a dozen solo albums under his own name.

In the 1980s, a collaboration with Phil Collins spawned the hit Two heartscharted Alison Moyet with his song Invisible and Simply Red also sought out the Motown legend.

“RIP, dear Lamont Dozier. One of the greatest songwriters of all time,” Simply Red lead singer Mick Hucknall said on Twitter on Tuesday. “Truly privileged to have written 4 songs together.”

Songwriting giant Carole King tweeted Tuesday that she’s aspiring to the Holland-Dozier-Holland standard while working with then-songwriting partner and husband Gerry Goffin.

Dozier told CBC Q that even after all your accomplishments, you “have to put it into the work”.

“As many hours a day as possible,” he said.

In addition to Dozier Jr., a performer, his survivors include songwriter and record producer Beau Dozier and composer Paris Ray Dozier.

Dozier was married to Barbara Ullman for over 40 years, who died in 2021.