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Lamont Dozier
Adds Broadway Lights To His Musical Panoply
Quincy Jones and Lamont Dozier at the 50th Annual Grammy Award
Announcement—Photo Courtesy of The Recording Academy® /Wireimage.com © 2007
Photographed by Andrea Wyman
If anybody knows what women should sing to make the audience
fall in love with the music, it would be Lamont Dozier, part of the
iconic writing/producing team of Holland/Dozier/Holland, who racked
up all those hits during Motown’s heyday.
Long before Berry Gordy and Motown
came calling, however, Dozier's heart
belonged to the theatre. But Lamont couldn't
escape the juggernaut that HDH became as
they wrote and produced dozens and dozens
of songs including 25 Number 1 hit singles
such as "(Love is Like a) Heat Wave" for
Martha & the Vandellas and "How Sweet It
Is (To Be Loved By You)" for Marvin Gaye.
Their most celebrated productions were
probably the singles they created for The Four
Tops and The Supremes, including a string
of five consecutive U.S. #1 singles for The Kanye West and Lamont Dozier at National Grammy “Two Hearts.” Dozier is continuing in that
Supremes, beginning with 1964's "Where Did Career Day in Los Angeles—Photo Courtesy of The Recording direction as well, now “working with some of
Academy® /Wireimage.com © 2006 Photographed by Rick Diamond
Our Love Go.”
Now he's back with his first love and knee deep in shows bound
for Broadway. First up, is an original score for the stage production
of "First Wives Club," the 1996 buddy movie starring Goldie Hawn,
Diane Keaton and Bette Midler. An exuberant Dozier confides,
“We actually wrote 30 songs for the play,” but they’ve fine-tuned
it down to just 20 for the production. The ‘we’ Dozier is talking
about is, amazingly for the first time in 30 years, the HDH team
again --Lamont, Brian and Eddie Holland together again. But he
emphasizes they have come together for “one time only” to do this
show for producers Paul Lambert and Jonas Neilson. The show’s
director is Francesca Zambello and the librettist is Rupert Holmes
HDH’s collaboration on the musical actually evolved from an idea
that producer Lambert had. He’d wanted to do a musical about the
trio, and although the project didn’t work out, a relationship had
sprung up from the many conversations about Broadway. So when
Lambert was approached about the “First Wives” project, he was able
to tap the trio to join him.
It’s been a work in progress for four years and will debut at the
venerable Old Globe theatre in San Diego, “probably next July,”
Dozier says, adding “some casting” has been done and they had
a reading about four months ago, but now everything is “moving
forward” to make the July deadline. He thinks they will “probably go
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By Ruth Adkins Robinson
Ne yo, Lizzy Moore and Lamont Dozier at 49th Annual Grammy Award Career
Day presented by Gibson Foundation—Photo Courtesy of The Recording Academy® /
Wireimage.com © 2007 Photographed by Rick Diamond
to Dallas and perhaps one other city,” before heading to its Broadway run
in 2010.
The Grammy winning, Oscar-nominated Dozier is busier than
ever these days. He’s working on three other
original musicals for Broadway. They are in
various stages of development, with a variety of
Broadway producers. Among them, Dozier says,
is one with Al Kasher, who did “Seven Brides
for Seven Brothers” and one is “a Latin play.”
No stranger to success on the big screen
either, Dozier was nominated for his Academy
Award for Best Music, Original Score for
“Buster” which was shared with Phil Collins.
That collaboration also won the duo a Golden
Globe, a Grammy and a BMI Award for Most
Performed Song from a Film. That song was
the major studios here on musical films,” he
explains from his Los Angeles valley home. He is “writing the entire song
scores,” he adds, and working on a few independent film projects “some
extremely talented film producers have brought to me.”
On the recording front, he just finished working with Solange Knowles
and Mark Ronson on a great track called “6 0’clock Blues,” which is
featured on Solange’s new album on Geffen Records. Then there’s also a
project with Kanye West and other new artists, including Nikki Jean, who
sang the hook on Lupe Fiasco’s song “Hip Hop Saved My Life.” Another
artist to watch, Hannah Sidbie, was brought to Lamont by Jeremy Geffen
and The Firm.
A Trustee for NARAS, where he serves alongside Jimmy Jam, Neil
Portnow, and Tom Sturges of Universal, among others, Dozier was just
appointed Chairman of the Advocacy Committee at NARAS. And every
year, he is at Grammy Career Day and Grammy Camp.
A 1990 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and the Songwriter’s
Hall of Fame in 1988 as part of HDH, Dozier, individually, was the
2007 recipient of The Thornton Legacy Award, USC Thornton School
of Music’s highest award. In fact, USC created The Lamont Dozier
Scholarship in perpetuity for each year beginning last year, and he is the
first Artist In Residence Professor of the newly created Major of Popular
Music at Thornton School of Music. Now teaching too, Lamont says he’s
loving it all.
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