Holland & DOZIER & HOLLAND

[sutnop]

When I was thinking of producers/creators of music I couldn't find anybody in my head that compete with these treacharous trio

let me know what you think of them

when do you think they made the best music

who are your favorite producers if not Holland Dozier Holland

why did Lamont Dozier not persue his singing carrear further personally I really love his voice

are their any other producers that you think stand a chance of competing with them

[eddie]

Actually Lamont Dozier did release about 8 solo albums from 1972ish to 1991. He did fair but I guess could have been more prolific.
Holland Dozier Holland are not my favorite producers. Their music is a tad sing songy.
My favorites are Gamble, Huff, and Bell who are always consistent. La and Babyface's work from 1983-92 rank a very close second. Barry Estmond wrote, produced and redined the glossy standards for soul ballads back in the 80's. Going back to the beginning of soul music, I would have to say Burt Bacharach and Hal David threw distinguished melodies Dionne Warwick's way and music never sounded the same. A huge fan of Dionne's was Issac Hayes. He took many songs and various others and elongated them and embellished them. Without Bacharach, I strongly feel R&B would be more bluesy and lack melody.

In my opinion, the best produced album of all-time was Gerlad Alson's solo debut in 1988 for Motown. Jam and Lewis was a bit over produced; Teddy Riley was too New Jack and inconsistent. Alston's record was produced by Stan Shepard and James Varner of By All Means. They wrote and sung backrounds on it and issued 3 albums in this era. Two discs were on Island and one was on Motown. Honestly I can't get enough of this underrated group.

[ol'skinflint]

for having the good sense not to follow Motown's disastrous decision to leave Detroit and go to LA. Their departure seemed to coincide with Motown losing their signature sound, not to mention most of their most popular artists. And I still prefer HDH's classic productions to those of popular producers like Jam/Lewis and LA/Babyface. Classic Motown records had a human, organic sound missing from music today, which probably explains why it's still so popular. I sure like the way the late Edwin Starr described it in one of his last performances: "You can tell the difference between REAL music and computer music." Word.

[sutnop]

Eddie

Gerald Alston you say I'l have to check it out

Ted Riley is this the same Ted Riley that later formed a modern RnB group in the 90's?


ol'skinflint
Yea I agree with you that Motown lost its signature sound after becoming Mo-West, but I think they also expanded their horizones some of the music coming out of LA is quite good in my opinon also, you just need your
100% Bull **** filtering sun glasses
if you know what I mean


For instance I loved Rick James productions for himself and Teena Marie
on other Hand I strongly disliked the Mary Jane Girls (altough some here might argue that they were ahead of their time)

also
I think some of the newer productions include the signature sound

be sure to check out
The Three Degrees - Dirty old man

if you think otherwise

[ol'skinflint]

which recent Motown production has their signature sound (without having sampled it, however). I'm not saying I don't like any of it (Johnny Gill's slammin' "Rub You the Right Way" is my favorite, along with most of Stevie Wonder's recent records). But Motown's classic records sounded the way they did because of the equipment they used back then, and because of the advances in technology, that equipment is no longer available. This explains why when you hear some of Motown's former artists doing their classics now, they don't sound quite the same (especially that jangly sound so many Motown records have). I recently heard both Martha Reeves and Brenda Holloway doing some of their Motown work, and though both sounded very good, they didn't sound the same as they records. And I sure would like to know what so many of the former Motown writer/producers are doing now (Norman Whitfield, Mickey Stevenson, Frank Wilson, Hal Davis to name just a few...)And did you know that most artists left Motown because they claimed the company was not exactly generous or fair when it came to compensating the artists....