When a person writes as many perfect songs in as brief a period of time as Lamont Dozier did, other people's temptation is to liken the labor to that of a machine or a robot or an industrial plant.
How else to understand the ability to pump out tunes like "Heat Wave," "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)," "Stop! In the Name of Love," "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)" and "Standing in the Shadows of Love" — songs that defined the sound of Motown Records and by extension of young America, as the label's slogan accurately put it — over the course of less than half a decade?
Even Dozier himself, who died Monday at age 81, reached for the comparison: Referring to the songwriting and production team he formed at Motown with brothers Brian and Eddie Holland, Dozier wrote in his 2019 memoir, "We thought of H.D.H. as a factory within a factory."
