Holland, Dozier and Holland left Motown in 1968, following a dispute with Berry Gordy over royalty payments. The trio had tried to negotiate better terms in 1967, with the expectation that their successes should lead to higher rewards, but Berry Gordy did not see things that way. Holland, Dozier, Holland began to wind down their efforts at Motown, producing fewer songs, hoping to force Berry Gordy’s hand. The response, however, was a firm no. Gordy then set up a new songwriting team, to replace the famous trio and waited for them to resign. When they did, he instigated legal action against them for breaking their contract with Jobete Publishing. This meant that the trio could not publish any songs elsewhere until the courts had settled the issue.
Fortunately, the legal dispute did not stop them from setting up two new record labels, Invictus and Hot Wax, in 1969 and continuing their work as producers, but it did prevent them from publishing new songs in their own names. The solution they adopted was to continue writing and publishing new songs using pseudonyms to hide their identity. Most of these new songs were credited to Ronald Dunbar and Edith (or Edythe) Wayne. They also occasionally used the pseudonym Edythe Graighead.
Ronald Dunbar was an employee at their new company, who had been writing songs since at least 1961, when he was credited as co-writer of the Valadiers’ Motown hit “Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)”. He is credited as a songwriter on the early Invictus hits that were clearly the work of Holland, Dozier, Holland, but he is also credited on later hits, writing with other Invictus staff members such as General Johnson, with whom he co-wrote “Patches”. It seems likely that his claims to have worked on at least some of the new H-D-H songs are true, but his role was probably that of lyricist. He may have worked alongside Eddie Holland, thus justifying the credit.
There has also been much written about Edith (or Edythe) Wayne, with references to her as a family friend of the Holland brothers, or a cleaner at Invictus, or Eddie Holland’s future wife. It is possible that she was all three! However, no-one has ever claimed that she could write music in the style of H-D-H. Edythe Wayne, possibly deliberately mis-spelt, was obviously a pseudonym for the three ex-Motown songwriters. Lamont Dozier has explained that they added Dunbar to make things more credible and also to facilitate the collection of royalties. Ronald Dunbar has claimed that he really did co-write the songs. The truth is probably somewhere in-between, with Dunbar having varying inputs to the Edythe Wayne songs. After two years as Edythe Wayne, Holland, Dozier and Holland were able to write again under their own names in the early seventies, but the legal issues were not fully resolved until 1977. Ronald Dunbar went on to make a major contribution to Invictus and Hot Wax, taking over many of the responsibilities of Holland, Dozier, Holland as a songwriter and producer.
H-D-H also invited a number of Motown staff to come over to Invictus to join the new set-up. Producer/songwriter William Weatherspoon signed, and quickly formed a songwriting partnership with Angelo Bond. Two key members of the sound engineering team at Motown were also recruited to the H-D-H Sound Studios, namely Lawrence Horn (chief mixer) and Bob Dennis (mastering specialist). Other staff members (who had not worked at Motown) were Greg Reilly, Barney Perkins, Ed Redd and Jerry Hall. All the recordings were engineered at a converted old movie theatre, called The Tower Theater, on Grand River Avenue, which was acquired by Holland-Dozier-Holland. The building was a beautiful Art Deco structure, designed by Arthur K. Hyde and opened in 1935. It was demolished towards the end of the seventies, when Invictus ceased operations.
In 1972 a third record label Music Merchant was created, to which a small number of artists were contracted. The logo used on the new label bore a resemblance to Berry Gordy’s Motown logo, which seems a very dangerous choice to make! Over the next year, its releases (with distribution by Buddah Records) had very little success, with only one single making a chart entry. As a result, the label was folded in 1973. During the same year Hot Wax ran into financial difficulties, and that label was also shut down. Several of the Hot Wax and Music Merchant artists moved to Invictus, which continued operating until 1977.
By 1973, Lamont Dozier decided that he wanted to relaunch his performing career as a solo artist by moving away from H-D-H Productions. Harold Beatty was invited to fill the gap. Dozier signed for Warner Brothers and had several chart successes. However, disputes had arisen before he left which could not be settled amicably, and in 1975, Holland-Dozier-Holland Productions and Invictus Records sued Dozier (and thirty-one others), accusing him of conspiring to restrain the company’s trade, amongst other charges. The case was finally settled in Dozier’s favour by a federal judge in 1982. Thus, the second phase of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s music career came to a sad end in a courtroom, just as the first had done.
Dozier continued to write songs, however, including number one hit “Two Hearts” with Phil Collins and “Loco in Acapulco” for the Four Tops, both of which were featured on the soundtrack of the film “Buster”. He later wrote “Invisible” for Alison Moyet and four album tracks with Mick Hucknall for Simply Red. Whilst relocated in Europe, Dozier became extremely successful during the whole of the 1980s and was a wonderful ambassador for Motown’s musical legacy.
One of his last major collaborations was a song that he co-wrote with Joss Stone and his son Beau Dozier, entitled “Spoiled”, which was included on Joss Stone’s second multi-platinum album “Body and Soul”, which was number one on the Official UK Pop Albums Chart, week-ending 9th October 2004 (1 week) and on the Official UK R&B Albums Chart, week-ending 9th October 2004 (2 weeks). The album went platinum in Europe according to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), selling over one million copies!
The length of Lamont Dozier’s career and the consistent quality of his work is the true mark of his talent.
Meanwhile, the Holland Brothers continued working at Invictus. Later they wrote several songs that were recorded by Michael Jackson, the Supremes, and Diana Ross. In 1984, Holland, Dozier, Holland settled their differences and reformed H-D-H Records to re-issue compilations of some of their greatest songs. They also resurrected the Music Merchant label and started issuing new material.
