Lamont Dozier

 They depart not single spies but in battalions.

Lamont Dozier was the middle section of Holland-Dozier-Holland, mainly the arranger in the Motown Hit Factory firmly among the very greatest of pop songwriters where we might also put Carole King, Smokey Robinson, Stephin Merritt and maybe David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Lennon-McCartney and by all means provide your own favourites.

We might in a way have been brought up to respect the sort of singer-songwriter that is 'authentic' because they do it all themselves. Dylan, Kate Bush, Adele. But pop music is 'product' like anything else, and Shakespeare was part of a theatre process involving other writers, actors and shareholders in a commercial enterprise as much as Handel, successfully, and Mozart, possibly less so. Tamla Motown was every bit as much of a production line as the car factories that Berry Gordy based it on with himself as the final arbiter of quality control and Holland-Dozier-Holland, along with Smokey Robinson, were where the creative process began.

When they finally fell out with Motown, a first major hit elsewhere, Band of Gold by Freda Payne, was a Motown record in all but name so it was fitting that Freda's duet with Cliff, Saving a Life, was written by Lamont's son, Beau.

One is spoilt for choice by the back catalogue but it was tremendous the other day in Tesco Express that this was being played 58 years on,