MURFREESBORO
— Rarely does an MTSU guest speaker have an audience dancing before he gets on stage, but Lamont
Dozier's nonstop string of Motown hits playing over the speakers Oct. 21 was
undeniable.
The man who co-created "Baby Love,"
"Heat Wave" and "Can't Help Myself," among more than 50 No.
1 hits, took an enthusiastic, multigenerational crowd on a joyful trip through
musical history — his own and much of America's — Oct. 21 in MTSU's James Union
Building.
Before the evening was over, the Rock and Roll Hall
of Famer had the audience on its feet, singing along with him and surprise
guest Nicole C. Mullen to “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" as he
danced on a small stage in the Tennessee Room.
"You have to have a great work ethic, seven
days a week. You got to apply yourself. You have to believe that you can make
it,” Dozier, the middle third of Motown’s iconic Holland-Dozier-Holland team,
advised a student.
“Don’t listen to people telling you the business is
this way or that way. You might be that one guy that breaks it wide open again
playing some stuff that blows everybody’s mind.”
Praised by Dr. Greg Reish, director of MTSU’s
Center for Popular Music, as “someone without whom our music and our lives
would be different,” Dozier is now the second Fellow of the Center for Popular
Music, an honor reserved for “a rare few people whose legacy and influence is
so vast and so deep as to be inestimable.”
”I’m still giving my expertise in the art of
songwriting as well as being able to encourage people not to give up. If it’s
their true love and destiny, they can make it,” Dozier responded in expressing
his gratitude for the fellowship.
“If a poor guy from Detroit, Michigan, can do it,
anybody can do it. Thank you for this. This is wonderful and so much
appreciated.”
Barry Gibb was the inaugural Fellow of the Center
for Popular Music in 2013, honored, like Dozier, for his extraordinary
accomplishments in music.
Dozier helped create the music of an era, alongside
brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, with
songs like the Four Tops' "Baby I Need Your Loving," the Supremes'
"Stop! In the Name of Love," Martha and the Vandellas' "Nowhere
to Run," Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" and
50 more No. 1 hits.
The child poet, raised on his uncle’s boogie-woogie
and his aunt’s Chopin, kept the MTSU audience laughing as he shared tales from
his ongoing career.
His days as the teenaged doo-wop leader of The
Romeos, the raucous five years at the cinderblock home-turned-record label
called Motown, his leadership at his own record label and million-selling record
production work with American and British artists all were fair game for
Dozier’s conversation with Fred Cannon, a MTSU recording industry professor and
Dozier’s former label manager.
“I used to come in every morning and sit down at
the piano and get warmed up playing ‘Heat Wave,’” Dozier recalled of those
heady years when he made $25 a week — “which amounted to about bus fare, plus
they gave us lunch in the room upstairs” — for 18-hour days composing and
producing hits for Berry Gordy’s stable of artists.
His inside story of the “fussing and crying” chaos
that ultimately led to “Where Did Our Love Go,” the first in a string of No. 1
hits for the poor neglected “no-hit Supremes,” had the MTSU audience in gales
of laughter.
The audiophiles in the audience particularly
appreciated a story of Motown engineer Michael McClain’s unexpected
contribution to the unique sounds of the Supremes’ “Reflections" and how
taking apart an instrument added to the distinctive beat of the Four Tops'
"Reach Out, I'll Be There."
Dozier and his partners
left Motown and continued working together until the mid-’70s, when Dozier
resumed his solo recording career. He’s continued as a successful solo artist
and producer, working with artists like Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Simply
Red, and served as a songwriting instructor at the University of Southern
California as well as a leading advocate for copyright protections.
“Ideas are everywhere,”
Dozier said before the event, while touring the Center for Popular Music. “You
just have to know where to where to look, and listen.”
The Center for Popular Music at MTSU is a research center
devoted to the study and scholarship of popular music in America. Established
in 1985 by the Tennessee Board of Regents as one of 16 Centers of Excellence
across the TBR system, MTSU's CPM maintains an archive of research materials
stretching from the early 18th century to the present and develops and sponsors
programs in American vernacular music.
For more information on the Center for Popular Music and
its projects and special events, visit http://www.mtsu.edu/popmusic.
The Dozier celebration was part of a yearlong
series of events celebrating the launch of the College of Media and
Entertainment at Middle Tennessee State University. For more information about
the college, visit http://www.mtsu.edu/media.
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