Lamont Dozier

Lamont Dozier, the middle name of the celebrated Holland-Dozier-Holland team that wrote and produced “You Can't Hurry Love,” “Heat Wave” and dozens of other ...

Like so many Motown artists, Dozier was born in Detroit and raised in a family of singers and musicians. Holland-Dozier-Holland were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years later. H-D-H reunited for a stage production of “The First Wives Club,” which premiered in 2009, but their time back together was brief and unhappy. The prime of H-D-H, and of Motown, ended in 1968 amid questions and legal disputes over royalties and other issues. “All the songs started out as slow ballads, but when we were in the studio we’d pick up the tempo,” Dozier told the Guardian in 2001. “I like to call Holland-Dozier-Holland ‘tailors of music,’” he said Tuesday during a telephone interview.

He was part of a songwriting trio that churned out hit after hit in the 1960s, including “Heat Wave” and “Baby Love.”

H-D-H scored their first notable successes with “Heat Wave” in 1963 by Martha and the Vandellas and, a year later, “Where Did Our Love Go,” performed by the Supremes. A remarkable run was underway. For their own labels, the trio’s most successful work was “Why Can’t We Be Lovers” in 1972. “Everything we touched turned to gold.” “We wanted to get the same feeling of a ballad, without it being a ballad.” As part of “quality control” each Friday, H-D-H and other songwriters had to write down their songs from the week, and Gordy and other executives would vote on the ones they liked. “But it was always about love though — hot, cold or whatever,” he said. The songwriters, session musicians and others had to punch a clock. For 1965’s “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” he recalled his grandfather flirting, “a twinkle in his eye,” with local ladies in their Detroit neighborhood. But he believed he developed a sense of chord structure and power from listening to his aunt, a classical pianist, practice in Detroit when he was young. He called the Motown sound, at its best, a mix of the chord progressions of classical music and the soulful energy of gospel. In 1988, Mr. Dozier worked with British rocker Phil Collins on “Two Hearts” for the film “ Buster,” with the song earning a Grammy and an Academy Award nomination. “But I’d still listen,” he recalled in a 2015 interview.

With brothers Eddie and Brian Holland, Dozier crafted many of Motown's biggest hits, taking the Supremes, Four Tops and others to the chart tops.

He had the music in him; he had the soul of music in him," he said. But it’s been here for 60 years, and that’s a great feeling — all over the world.” His songwriting work continued, and he was tapped for collaborations with Motown-enamored British artists such as Simply Red, Boy George and Phil Collins. With Collins, Dozier won a Golden Globe for the 1988 song “Two Hearts.” But by the 1980s, married to Barbara Dozier with young children, he said he found stability. Dozier was a melody man and song polisher, working with Brian Holland on the music and production side as Eddie Holland finessed the lyrics. A royalties dispute with Gordy and Motown prompted Holland-Dozier-Holland to leave the company in 1967. For music fans in the 1960s, the credit “Holland, Dozier, Holland” was a ubiquitous sight on 45s, stamped on the label of hit after hit. But he was always in a quiet mood." "Lamont was a good friend and will be missed by the entire Motown family." Dozier was gentle-natured but ambitious, heading to Los Angeles in 1973 to pursue a career as a solo artist. Alongside brothers Eddie and Brian Holland, Dozier was a studio force with a golden touch. The cause of death has not been determined and an autopsy will be conducted, a spokeswoman said.

Dozier was part of the wildly successful songwriting and producing trio Holland-Dozier-Holland that wrote and produced some of Motown's biggest hits.

"Thank God for both our grandmothers, the Hollands' grandmother was very seminal, and mine was the head of the choir at my church," Dozier told The News for a story in 2005. Then they hit with the Four Tops' "Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch" and "Standing in the Shadows of Love." They had a total of 25 Top Ten singles from 1963-67, including a dozen that reached the number one spot. "I was the guy my friends would come to when they needed something written," he told The Detroit News for a story in 1999. Eddie Holland handled the lyrics while Brian Holland and Dozier wrote the music. At 13, he founded a group called the Romeos and was signed to Atco Records in 1957. And Dozier did a lot for the music world.

Lamont Dozier, the Motown songwriter behind major hits, including the Supremes' “Baby Love” and “You Keep Me Hanging On,” has died at the age of 81, ...

He founded the Romeos at age 13 and was signed to Atco Records in 1957, the hall said. "I’ll never forget meeting and working with him along with the Holland Brothers in 2006," Williams said. After the Romeos disbanded, Dozier joined the Voicemasters, a doo-wop band on Anna Records. He signed exclusively to Motown Records in 1962 as an artist, producer and songwriter, according to the hall of fame. According to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Dozier, who was born and raised in Detroit, grew up "surrounded by music as a child" and started writing lyrics and music before he was a teenager. You definitely made this place better." The Holland-Dozier-Holland team was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1888 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.