Lamont Dozier, the middle name of the famed Holland-Dozier-Holland partnership that penned and produced “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Heat Wave,” and scores of other successes and helped establish Motown a vital record label in the 1960s and beyond, has passed away at the age of 81.
Paul Lambert, who helped create the Broadway musical “The First Wives Club” for which Holland-Dozier-Holland composed, confirmed Dozier’s death on Tuesday. He had no other information.
In an Instagram post, his son Lamont Dozier Jr. also acknowledged his father’s passing, writing, “Rest in Heavenly Peace, Dad!!!”
Holland-Dozier-Holland stood out even among such talented contemporaries as Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and Barrett Strong during Motown’s self-described climb to the “Sound of Young America” Over a four-year period, from 1963 to 1967, Dozier, Brian, and Eddie Holland crafted more than 25 top 10 songs and mastered the blend of pop and rhythm and blues that enabled the Detroit label and founder Berry Gordy to defy boundaries between Black and white music and compete with the Beatles on the airwaves.
They composed “Baby I Need Your Loving” and “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” for the Four Tops, “Heat Wave” and “Jimmy Mack” for Martha and the Vandellas, and “Baby Don’t You Do It” and “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” for Marvin Gaye. Through innumerable soundtracks, samplings, and radio broadcasts, cover versions by the Rolling Stones, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, and many others, as well as generations of composers and musicians inspired by the Motown sound, the music endured.
“Their structures were straightforward and uncomplicated,” Gerri Hirshey wrote in her 1984 Motown biography “Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music.” “Sometimes a song rockets to the top of the charts on the strength of its repeating hooks, like a fast-food jungle that hides invisibly until it resonates with genuine hunger.”
The polish of H-D-H was particularly suited for Motown’s flagship act, Diana Ross and the Supremes, for whom they composed ten No. 1 hits, including “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “You Can’t Hurry Love.” When “Nothing But Heartaches” failed to crack the top 10 in 1965, Gordy wrote a business letter demanding that Motown exclusively produce chart-topping singles for the Supremes. H-D-H complied by releasing “I Hear a Symphony” and other hits.
1963’s “When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes” was written by H-D-H for the Supremes and became the group’s first hit.
Holland-Dozier-Holland weren’t beyond formulae or closely copying a prior success, but they worked in a variety of moods and styles: “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” “Heat Wave,” and “Reach Out (I’ll Be There),” to name a few. Dozier focused on melody and orchestration, whether it was the eerie echoes of the Vandellas’ backing vocals on “Nowhere To Run,” the flashing lights of guitar that drive the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hanging On,” or the mesmerizing gospel piano on Gaye’s “Can I Get a Witness”
“All the songs began as slow ballads, but we sped them up in the studio,” Dozier said to the Guardian in 2001. “The songs had to be rapid since they were intended for adolescents; otherwise, they would have been better suited for adults. The sorrow was still there, but it was concealed by the upbeat beat’s sense of hope.”
Motown and H-D-heyday H’s ended in 1968 amid doubts and legal battles about royalties and other matters. H-D-H abandoned the label, and neither side would ever recover. The Four Tops and the Supremes were among the acts affected by the departure of their most reliable songwriters. In contrast, H-D-attempts H’s to establish their own company fell well short of those of Motown. Within a few years, the labels Invictus and Hot Wax ceased to exist, and Dozier would remember with dismay the Hollands’ rejection of future superstars Al Green and George Clinton. H-D-H did release numerous successes, including “Band of Gold” by Freda Payne and “Want Ads” by Honey Cone.
In 1988, Holland-Dozier-Holland were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and two years later, they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Dozier had a top 20 success with “Trying to Hold on to My Woman,” produced Aretha Franklin’s “Sweet Passion” album, and worked with Eric Clapton and Mick Hucknall of Simply Red, among others. Co-writing Phil Collins’ chart-topping “Two Hearts” from the 1988 film “Buster,” a mid-tempo, Motown-style ballad that garnered a Grammy, a Golden Globe, and an Oscar nomination, was his greatest accomplishment. H-D-H reunited for a 2009 theatrical performance of “The First Wives Club,” but their time back together was short and miserable. Dozier and the Hollands often argued, and Dozier quit before the show’s debut. Eddie Holland noted in “Come and Get These Memories,” a 2019 biography by the Hollands, “I don’t see us ever working with Lamont again,” the same year that Dozier released “How Sweet It Is.”
Dozier said that his early success interfered with his personal life, but he finally married Barbara Ullman, who passed away in 2021 after more than four decades of marriage. His offspring includes songwriter and record producer Beau Dozier and composer Paris Ray Dozier.
Dozier, like so many other Motown performers, was born in Detroit and reared in a musical household. His passion of words was validated by a grade school teacher who, he claimed, put one of his poems on the blackboard for a month because she thought it was so good. In the late 1950s, he became a professional vocalist and finally joined with Motown, where he first collaborated with Brian Holland and subsequently Eddie Holland, who composed the majority of the songs.
Some of Motown’s most popular songs and catchiest lines were inspired by Dozier’s personal life. He recalled his grandpa calling ladies as “Sugar pie, honey bunch,” the opening line and chorus of the Four Tops’ song “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)”. All three composers had issues with ladies called Bernadette, which prompted the Four Tops smash “Bernadette,” while a dispute with another Dozier lover inspired a Supremes classic.
Dozier told the Guardian, “She was fairly enraged since I was quite the ladies’ man at the time and had cheated on her.” “So she began berating me and hitting at me until I yelled, “Stop!” In the name of affection! And as soon as I said it, I heard the sound of a cash register and laughed. My girlfriend didn’t think it was very amusing: we split up. The only people who were pleased were the Supremes.”