Lamont Dozier (Born 16/06/1941)

He was born and raised in Detroit and surrounded by music as a child. His own musical grounding included a stint in the local Baptist church choir and exposure to his aunt's classical music excursions on the family piano - influences that would stay with him for the rest of his life.
He began writing early, around twelve years of age, and sang with the local group The Romeos as early as 1957. He also did a stint in the doo-wop band The Voicemasters (signed to Atco Records) before he joined Motown in 1962 as an artist, producer and songwriter.

He recorded a one off release with Eddie Holland before they both hooked up with Eddie's brother Brian to create what was to become one of Motown's finest writing and production teams - they were responsible for many of the label's greatest recordings over the next five years or so.
Look at just a few of the team's credits. The Four Tops:- 'Baby I Need Your Loving', 'Reach Out I'll Be There', 'Bernadette', 'It's The Same Old Song' and 'I Can't Help Myself'. The Supremes:- 'Where Did Our Love Go', 'Baby Love', 'You Can't Hurry Love' and 'Stop In The Name Of Love'. If we look a little further afield we find the team also responsible for Marvin Gaye's 'How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You' and Martha And The Vandellas 'Heatwave' and 'Jimmy Mack', with Lamont making both lyrical and musical contributions.

The team left Motown in 1968. According to Dozier "We became disenchanted with our Motown contracts, which were just totally out of date for all the revenue we were bringing into the company....."
The team started the Invictus and Hot Wax companies, continuing to have mainstream pop successes with the likes of Freda Payne's 'Band Of Gold' and Chairman Of The Board's 'Give Me Just A Little More Time'. According to Lamont however, Invictus was not a particularly well run company (Dozier admitting that running a business was not his strongest positive attribute) and it eventually fell on hard times. In 1972/3, he split with the Hollands and resumed his own solo recording career (he did have a regional hit with 'Why Can't We Be Lovers' before he left Invictus).

He signed with ABC Dunhill and released the excellent albums "Out Here On My Own" and "Black Bach". The Primer considers the latter to be one of his finest releases although other critics are less enthusiastic. Check out the excellent cuts 'Let Me Start Tonite', 'Put Out The Fire', 'Rose' 'Thank You For The Dream' and the stellar 'All Cried Out' and see what you think! The albums kept him in the US charts with hits 'Trying To Hold On To My Woman', 'Fish Ain't Bitin' and the aforementioned 'Let Me Start Tonite'.
In 1976 he made the switch to Warner Brothers and issued the highly regarded "Peddlin' Music On The Side" which included the hit 'Goin' Back To My Roots' (an 80s chart hit for the band Odyssey).
He also continued to write and produce for other artists. He produced Aretha Franklin's "Sweet Passion" and in the 80s he wrote the Alison Moyet hit 'Invisible' and the platinum selling 'You Got It' for Simply Red.
There were several overlooked albums in the late 70s/80s as Lamont's song-based, melodic style lost significant ground to the disco scene of the time. He re-emerged with a fine album on his own Megaphone label, "Bigger Than Life", which included an 18 minute tribute to his own heritage ('The Motor City Scene') which was both vibrant and celebratory when it could so easily have been an exercise in nostalgia.

Just a look at his top ten singles compositions should be enough to confirm Lamont's importance to rhythm and blues and popular music. But he has also kick-started any number of careers through his production talents and he has produced a body of solo work which, whilst dipping in quality occasionally, has a tremendous amount to recommend it to any soul fan. The 2CD retrospective "Going Back To My Roots" is a stellar walk through Lamont's back catalogue. These sorts of releases often get deleted ridiculously quickly, so get it here while you can. If you can't get it for any reason, there is also a single CD available (hopefully) called "The Legendary Lamont Dozier" - no subsitute for the retrospective, but it might be your only option.