By Bruce Barton
Visitors to the Northern California Songwriters Association’s 21st annual conference Sept. 8-9 were like musical detectives in search of an unsolved mystery: how to write a hit song.
Though the odds of scoring a hit are great, that didn’t stop dozens of aspiring songwriters from descending on Foothill College to attend an event offering tips for making it in the music industry. Seminars included such topics as the state of the music industry, how to write a hit melody and how to market your music.
Highlighting this year’s affair, “Creation: Craft: Connection,” was the appearance of Lamont Dozier, the middle man in the famed Holland-Dozier-Holland team that penned the bulk of the 1960s Motown classics. Dozier called himself “the idea man” among a team that wrote “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” for Marvin Gaye, “You Can’t Hurry Love” for the Supremes and “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” for the Four Tops, among numerous others.
Dozier, flanked by admiring association members, exuded a calm confidence that befits a songwriter with the Midas touch. He talked of writing songs that set the listeners up for powerful choruses that hook them in. “We wrote melody to stir the human psyche,” Dozier said with a laugh.
After his team’s initial successes, Motown owner Berry Gordy gave them carte blanche to write as they pleased, Dozier said.
“We wrote for the woman,” he said. “We made the guy out to be the bastard.”
He felt today’s hit producers are “more in tune with the production of a track” than writing a good song. “Some lyrics don’t make any sense - they’re so juvenile,” Dozier said.
After the big string of 1960s hits, Holland-Dozier-Holland eventually disbanded. But Dozier still writes hit songs to this day, including some for young artists. “It’s my lot in life,” he said with a smile.
A native of Detroit, Dozier found out he had the knack at age 11 when he composed a poem in elementary school that his teacher recognized as something special.
“She said, ‘Lamont, you have a gift here.’ I took her advice (to pursue songwriting),” Dozier said. “I had a musical background. My mom was a choir director.”
By age 15, Dozier, a lead singer with his group, the Romeos, was signed to a record label and recorded a 1957 hit, “Fine Fine Baby.” He joined Motown in 1962.
“Most songwriter guys, they want to start up by getting the girl,” Dozier said.
The Northern California Songwriters Association is a non-profit group dedicated to providing “environment, opportunities and tools to nurture, educate and promote songwriters,” according to its mission statement.
The group offers opportunities such as “open mic” nights, song screenings, in which songwriters submit tapes to industry experts for critique, and networks for connecting with other musicians.
For more information, call 654-3966 or (800) FOR-SONG. You can also e-mail info@ncsasong.org or logon to the group’s Web site, www.ncsasong.org.
