Lamont Herbert Dozier is an American songwriter and record producer, born in Detroit, Michigan. Dozier has co-written and produced many US Billboard #1 hits. Dozier is best known as a member of Holland–Dozier–Holland, the songwriting and production team responsible for much of the Motown sound and numerous hit records by artists such as Martha and the Vandellas, The Supremes, The Four Tops, and The Isley Brothers. Along with Brian Holland, Dozier served as the team’s musical arranger and producer.
The internationally acclaimed, Grammy-award winning music master has spent more time before and after those heady years as a recording artist in his own right, as well as a solo and collaborative songwriter and top producer. He has indelibly impacted pop music for five decades.
The Detroit-born Dozier grew up listening to his father’s record collection of pop/jazz singers, sang in the Baptist gospel choir and absorbed the classical music his aunt played on the family piano. He signed to Berry Gordy’s hometown Motown label, the Sound of Young America, in 1962 as a triple threat, Artist, Producer and Songwriter. It was there he hooked up with Brian Holland and later on, his brother Eddie, setting the standard of ‘60s R&B and soul, fulfilling Lamont’s dream of a music that could cross over to pop radio, where it dominated the era, until the trio’s departure in 1968 to set up their own Invictus and Hot Wax labels.
After stints on Warner Bros. (the hit single, “Going Back to My Roots”) and Columbia, Dozier relocated to Europe, where he hooked up with British producer Pete Waterman of the team of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, working with the likes of Alison Moyet, Simply Red, Boy George and Eric Clapton. He collaborated with Phil Collins on the soundtrack of the Genesis star’s movie Buster in 1988, by writting and producing the #1 hit single “Two Hearts” and also earning them a Grammy, a Brit Award, a Golden Globe, Britain’s distinguished Ivor Novello honor and an Oscar nomination.
In 2002 solo album, Lamont Dozier…An American Original, garnered him a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Album. The year 2003 brought forth the prestigious BMI Icon Award to Lamont Dozier, while 2004 crowned these accomplishments with the British Special International Ivor Novello Award given to Lamont Dozier.
Lamont is currently serving in his second term as Trustee for NARAS, the organization known for The Grammy Awards. Previously he had served two terms as Governor. Lamont spends much of his time at Grammy Board meetings, speaking on songwriter panels for both Grammy Camp, and Career Day in Schools on behalf of the Grammys, wishing to give back the knowledge that he has learned throughout his many years in the Music Industry. This is extremely fulfilling to Lamont, as he loves to educate young aspiring talent about the do’s and don’t’s in the business he knows so well.
An inductee to both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and, in 2009 the recipient of the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame’s most coveted award, The Johnny Mercer Award for lifetime achievement, Dozier continues to push the envelope.
Lamont Dozier continues to work with the best of the latest generation of artists, including Kanye West, Joss Stone, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, members of the Black-Eyes Peas, Solange Knowles and popular Grammy Award winning producer, Mark Ronson. Lamont’s most recent hit single is an instrumental titled “Living In High Definition” which is on the newest George Benson album, Songs and Stories. He is currently working in the studio with many new and exciting artists who are getting ready to debut this year.
One of Lamont’s proudest accomplishments is having been awarded the 2007 Thornton Legacy Award through the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. USC/Thornton also created a Lamont Dozier Scholarship in perpetuity for their students. Lamont is presently serving as an Artist In Residence Professor at USC/Thornton where is he actively involved in the new Popular Music Major which is the first program of its kind in the country.