Media Today

[Rick Plant]

Trump Under Investigation for Violating Espionage Act

Investigators pulled 11 boxes of sensitive and top secret information from Mar-a-Lago.

Former President Donald Trump is under investigation for several violations of the Espionage Act and illegally keeping "top secret" government documents when he left the White House last year, according to court documents unsealed Friday afternoon.

And the FBI was spurred to move so aggressively and search the former president's Mar-a-Lago oceanside estate in Florida because some of the documents they were seeking pertained to the nation's nuclear weapons, according to The Washington Post.

The FBI search warrant lists three federal statutes to justify the search at the Palm Beach mansion: 18 U.S.C. § 793, 2071, and 1519. That means the Justice Department—in a historic move—is investigating the former president for violating the Espionage Act, mishandling federal records, and falsifying official documents to obstruct an investigation.

Together, they present the possibility that Trump may face up to a decade in prison—and be barred from ever running for office ever again.

"They're investigating him for willfully gathering documents with the intent to cause harm... or that he saw [classified] markings on them and, knowing what they mean, failed to deliver them when the National Archives asked for them," said Jamil N. Jaffer, who founded the National Security Institute at George Mason University's law school.

Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart in West Palm Beach unsealed the records Friday afternoon, shortly after the Justice Department and Trump agreed that the records—which are normally kept private until criminal charges are filed—should be made public.

The seven-page search warrant and property receipt was signed FBI special agents and the Trump attorney present at the mansion during the search, Christina Bobb. In it, federal agents list what they grabbed when they searched the former president’s mansion: approximately 20 boxes including photo binders, handwritten notes, vaguely described information on the “President of France,” and a copy of the executive grant of clemency for Trump issued for his associate, GOP operative Roger Stone.

The Wall Street Journal and Fox News were the first to report that the FBI had seized 11 boxes of sensitive and “top secret” documents.

Trump's attorneys, Evan Corcoran and James Trusty, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump immediately countered that the documents were, from his point of view, no longer restricted.

"Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn't need to 'seize' anything. They would have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in a secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request," Trump's account posted on his own social media network, Truth Social.

The investigation is examining whether Trump unlawfully took highly sensitive documents from the White House and then failed to comply with requests from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Justice Department to return them voluntarily. Earlier this year, NARA found 15 boxes of missing presidential documents at Mar-a-Lago. Some of the files had been “torn up by former President Trump,” NARA said in a statement at the time, forcing officials to tape them back together.

As a result, NARA asked the Justice Department to look into whether Trump had potentially breached the Presidential Records Act, a Nixon-era law that forces departing presidents hand over all records when they leave office. (Ironically, Trump signed a law in 2018 that made breaches of the law a felony after Hillary Clinton’s email fiasco.)

On Friday morning, Trump denied a Washington Post report alleging that the feds carried out the search to locate classified documents about nuclear weapons, along with other items. He dismissed the report as a “hoax,” adding that those involved in the raid of his property were, in his view, “sleazy.”

Trump had also been critical of the search itself even while calling for the warrant to be unsealed. “Not only will I not oppose the release of documents related to the unAmerican, unwarranted, and unnecessary raid and break-in of my home in Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago. I am going a step further by encouraging the immediate release of these documents,” he fumed in a post on Truth Social on Thursday night.

His screed came after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice would seek to unseal the warrant. Garland added that he had personally approved the operation after “less intrusive means” of retrieving the documents proved fruitless.

The highly unusual disclosure—warrants typically remain sealed during an investigation—comes after a week of right-wing rage, with hardline loyalists repeatedly pushing the idea that the search was an illegitimate, politically motivated attack launched by a tyrannical regime. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential rival to Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, called the investigation a “weaponization of federal agencies.”

It was even a hill that at least one MAGA fan was literally willing to die on. Ricky Shiffer, a hard-boiled Trump stan who was enraged by the Mar-a-Lago search, was shot dead on Thursday after attempting an armed break-in at the FBI’s Cincinnati office. “Kill the F.B.I. on sight, and be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it,” an account using Shiffer’s name wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.

The FBI raid was just the beginning of a torrid week for Trump’s legal team. Less than 48 hours later, Trump was hauled before a civil hearing with New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office is investigating fraudulent practices in Trump’s business empire. The ex-president, who has previously criticized people who plead the Fifth, decided to do exactly that 440 times during the deposition.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-details-emerge-on-fbi-search-warrant-for-raid-on-donald-trumps-mar-a-lago-home

[Rick Plant]

Anne Heche Dead at 53

Anne Heche has died. She's survived by her two sons, Homer and Atlas. The actress was known best for roles in movies, such as 'Six Days Seven Nights' and 'Volcano,' as well as her TV performances, including 'Hung' and 'Chicago P.D.' Anne appeared on season 29 of 'Dancing With the Stars' in 2020, where she opened up about her past romance with Ellen DeGeneres and its lasting impact on Hollywood.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

US astronaut Jessica Watkins sets sights on Moon... and Mars



If you had the choice, would you rather go to the Moon or Mars?

The question is utterly theoretical for most of us, but for US astronaut Jessica Watkins, it hits a bit differently.

"Whichever comes first!" Watkins says with a laugh, in a lengthy interview with AFP from her post on the International Space Station (ISS).

At 34, Watkins has many years ahead of her at the US space agency NASA, and could very well be one of the first women to step foot on the Moon in the coming years, as a member of the Artemis team preparing for upcoming lunar missions.

Missions to Mars are off in the future, but given that astronauts often work into their 50s, Watkins could conceivably have a shot.

Either way is just fine, she says.

"I certainly would be just absolutely thrilled to be able to be a part of the effort to go to another planetary surface, whether it be the Moon or Mars."

In the meantime, Watkins' first space flight was a history maker: she became the first Black woman to undertake a long-term stay on the ISS, where she has already spent three months as a mission specialist, with three months to go.

The Apollo missions that sent humans to the Moon were solely staffed by white men, and NASA has sought over the years to widen its recruitment to a more diverse group of candidates.

The agency now wants to put both women and people of color on the Moon.

"I think it is an important milestone for the agency and the country, and the world as well," Watkins says. "Representation is important. It is true that it is difficult to be what you can't see."

The Maryland native added that she was "grateful for all of those who have come before me... the women and Black astronauts who have paved the way to enable me to be here today."

Geologist at heart

Born in Gaithersburg in the suburbs of Washington, Watkins grew up in Colorado before heading to California to study geology at Stanford University.

During her doctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, her research focused in part on Mars and she worked on NASA's Curiosity rover, which just celebrated 10 years on the Red Planet.

Watkins still has a soft spot for Mars. In fact, she has published a scientific study on the planet during her stint on the ISS.

"I would certainly call myself a geologist, a scientist, an astronaut," she says.

Watkins remembers the moment that she realized space and planetary geology -- the composition of formation of celestial bodies such as planets, moons and asteroids -- would be her life's work.

It came during one of her first geology classes, in a lecture about planetary accretion, or when solids gradually collide with each other to form larger bodies, and ultimately planets.

"I remember learning about that process... and realizing then that that was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and what I wanted to study," she recalls.

"The notion of being able to be a part of an effort to actually do field work on the surface of another planetary body is super exciting, and I look forward to being a part of it."

The Artemis program, a successor to Apollo, is aimed at slowly establishing a lasting human presence on the Moon. The end goal is to set up a base that would be a forward operating station for any eventual trips to Mars.

The first uncrewed mission under the Artemis banner is set to take off for the Moon at the end of August.

Watkins is one of 18 astronauts assigned to the Artemis team, to either provide ground support or eventually take flight.

Officially, every active NASA astronaut (there are currently 42) has a chance to be selected to take part in a lunar landing.

'Push the limits'

While previous mission experience may weigh heavily in NASA's choices for personnel for the first crewed Artemis flight, Watkins's academic background certainly should boost her chances of being chosen.

Being good-natured and having a healthy team spirit are also key for space flight teams, who spend long periods of time confined in small spaces.

Watkins says her colleagues would call her "easygoing," and her time playing rugby taught her the value of working on a team.

So how does she define being an astronaut?

"Each of us all have that sense of exploration and a desire to continue to push the limits of what humans are capable of. And I think that is something that unites us," she says.

Watkins says she dreamed of going to space when she was young, and always kept it in the back of her mind -- without ever thinking it could be a reality.

"Don't be afraid to dream big," she says. "You'll never know when your dreams will come true."

AFP

[Rick Plant]

Lyons Magnus adds 30+ nutrition drinks to recall over botulism threat, including Ensure, Pediasure


More than 50 beverages are affected by the Lyons Magnus recall

Lyons Magnus, which recalled 53 beverages including Oatly, Glucerna and Premier Protein drinks last month, has added more than 30 more drinks to the call back due to potential for botulism contamination as well as the previously mentioned Cronobacter sakazakii threat.

"This recall is being conducted due to the potential for microbial contamination, including from the organisms Cronobacter sakazakii and Clostridium botulinum," the Food and Drug Administration said in a release Wednesday. "Although Clostridium botulinum has not been found in products, consumers are warned not to consume any of the recalled products even if they do not look or smell spoiled."

Nor, it said, should consumers drink any products past their sell-by date.

Clostridium botulinum, the FDA warned, can bring on a severe form of food poisoning anywhere between six hours and two weeks after consuming a contaminated product. Symptoms may include:

Double or blurred vision
Drooping eyelids
Slurred speech
Difficulty swallowing
Muscle weakness
Botulism poisoning can result in death from respiratory paralysis.

The FDA had previously warned that Cronobacter sakazakii can cause bloodstream infections and meningitis. Infants, seniors over the age of 65, and people with weakened immune systems are the most susceptible to serious illness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Customers with questions about the recall are instructed to call Lyons' 24-hour Recall Support Center line at 1-800-627-0557. Products can be returned to the place of purchase for a refund.

Which products have been added to the recall?

The latest recall bulletin adds more than 30 new beverages as well as additional lot numbers of products announced in the July recall.

If you think you may have an affected product, you can match them up with lot numbers and sell-by dates here. The products may be sold in single cartons or by the case.

New additions as of Aug. 10:

Cafe Grumpy Ready to Drink Cold Brew Coffee
Ensure Harvest 1.2 Cal For Tube Feeding
Kate Farms Pediatric Peptide 1.0 Vanilla
Kate Farms Standard 1.0 Vanilla
Kate Farms Nutrition Shake Coffee
Kate Farms Nutrition Shake Coffee Chocolate
Kate Farms Nutrition Shake Vanilla
Kate Farms Standard 1.4 Plain
Kate Farms Peptide 1.5 Plain
Kate Farms Pediatric Peptide 1.5 Vanilla
Lyons Barista Style Sweet Cream Frappé Base
Oatly Oat-Milk Barista Edition
Oatly Oat-Milk Chocolate
Oatly Oat-Milk
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Vanilla
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Chocolate
Organic Valley Organic 1% Milkfat Lowfat Chocolate Milk
Organic Valley Organic 1% Milkfat Lowfat Milk
PediaSure Harvest 1.0 Cal For Tube Feeding
Premier Protein Café Latte
Sweetie Pie Organics Organic Lactation Smoothie Mango Banana
Sweetie Pie Organics Organic Lactation Smoothie Apple Pear
Sweetie Pie Organics Mango Banana Smoothie
Sweetie Pie Organics Apple Pear Smoothie
Rejuvenate Muscle Health+ Vanilla
Rejuvenate Muscle Health+ Chocolate
Sated Complete Keto Meal Shake Chocolate Flavor
Tone It Up Plant-Based Protein Shake Chocolate
Tone It Up Plant-Based Protein Shake Vanilla
Uproot Oatmilk Organic Oats
Uproot Peamilk Chocolate

Previously announced:

Lyons Ready Care
Lyons ready Care 2.0 High Calorie High Protein Nutritional Drink: Butter Pecan, Chocolate, Vanilla
Lyons Barista Style: Almond, Coconut, Oat non-dairy beverages
Pirq Plant Protein: Decadent Chocolate, Caramel Coffee, Golden Vanilla, Very Strawberry
Glucerna Original (sold only at Costco, BJ's and Sam's Club): Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla
Aloha Plant-Based Protein: Chocolate Sea Salt, Coconut, Vanilla, Iced Coffee
Intelligensia: Cold Coffee, Oat Latte
Kate Farms Pediatric Standard: Vanilla
Oatly: Oat Milk Barista Edition
Premier Protein: Chocolate, Vanilla, Cafe Latte
MRE protein shakes: Cookies & Cream, Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Vanilla
Stumptown Cold Brew Coffee With Oat Milk: Original, Horchata, Chocolate, Cream & Sugar Original
Imperial: Med Plus 2.0: Vanilla, Butter Pecan

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2022/08/11/beverage-recall-expanded-botulism-threat-ensure-pediasure/10300835002/

[Rick Plant]

Judge denies Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bid to quash subpoena in Trump election probe in Georgia



A federal judge on Monday denied Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bid to throw out a subpoena for his testimony before a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, as part of its investigation into possible criminal election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies in 2020.

The court rejected Graham’s contention that the subpoena should be quashed because of his status as a high-ranking government official, among other arguments. The subpoena requires the South Carolina Republican, who is a witness in the probe, to appear before the grand jury on Aug. 23.

District Attorney Fani Willis, who is conducting the investigation, “has shown extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham’s testimony” about “alleged attempts to influence or disrupt” Georgia’s elections, Judge Leigh Martin May wrote in Monday’s order in U.S. District Court in South Carolina.

Graham’s office said the senator plans to appeal the ruling. His attorneys are reviewing the ruling, their spokesperson Beth Huffman of law firm Nelson Mullins told CNBC.

The district attorney wants to question Graham about phone calls he made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the weeks after the November 2020 election. Graham’s lawyers argued that those calls were “quintessentially legislative factfinding” by a sitting U.S. senator, and as such are protected by the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution.

But that argument fizzled before May, who ruled that even if that clause protected Graham from testifying about the calls to Raffensperger, he could be still questioned about other issues relevant to the probe.

“The mere possibility that some lines of inquiry could implicate Senator Graham’s immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause does not justify quashing the subpoena in its entirety because there are considerable areas of inquiry which are clearly not legislative in nature,” May ruled.

In a statement later Monday morning, Graham’s office defended the calls to Raffensperger and accused the judge of ignoring relevant legal precedents.

“The Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause prevents a local official from questioning a Senator about how that Senator did his job. Here, Senator Graham was doing his due diligence before the Electoral Count Act certification vote — where he voted to certify the election,” the statement said.

“Although the district court acknowledged that Speech or Debate may protect some of Senator Graham’s activities, she nevertheless ignored the constitutional text and binding Supreme Court precedent, so Senator Graham plans to appeal to the 11th Circuit,” Graham’s office said.

Trump called Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, four days before Congress convened to confirm Biden’s electoral victory.

In that call, Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” him enough votes to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia.

“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump told him.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/15/lindsey-graham-bid-to-quash-subpoena-in-trump-georgia-election-probe-rejected.html

[Rick Plant]

Opinion: Trump is worried after FBI search -- and he should be

A week of stunning developments for the possible criminal liability of former President Donald Trump and his circle was capped off with this weekend's news that a Trump lawyer had signed a statement this summer saying that all material marked as classified in the former President's possession had been returned. Together with earlier revelations, this latest piece of the puzzle points us to the direction in which the Department of Justice is headed -- and when.

First, with the search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence now public, it shows the possibility of alleged crimes that are significant. The warrant is based upon probable cause to believe, first, that taking large quantities of materials to Mar-a-Lago violated the core federal criminal document preservation statute related to presidential records. It forbids the willful concealment, removal, or destruction of documents -- classified or not -- belonging to the government of the United States. The maximum penalty is three years' imprisonment.

More serious still is the possible violation of the federal Espionage Act, also listed on the warrant. Its violation carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Individuals are subject to conviction under the act if they willfully retain and fail to deliver information "relating to the national defense" upon the demand of a federal officer entitled to receive such information that has come into the individuals' possession.

This statute comes into play because the FBI retrieved 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago last Monday. Information is marked "secret" if its unauthorized release would cause "serious damage to national security." Information that would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security" is marked "top secret." If information is marked "TS/SCI," it is even more highly protected -- "top secret/sensitive compartmented information," meaning that it comes from sensitive sources or methods.

In short, while all the material recovered could be considered stolen government property, the classified documents that the FBI retrieved and that were marked "top secret" and "various classified/TS/SCI" are of special concern. Although the Espionage Act does not require that "information related to the national defense" be classified, these highly sensitive documents would likely fall under the definition of "information relating to the national defense" under the Espionage Act.

Finally, there is the offense of obstructing a pending federal investigation by concealing documents relating to that investigation. It carries the heaviest potential penalty: up to 20 years in prison. As grave as violations of the first two statutes are, interfering with a Justice Department investigation is especially serious.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing and claims the investigation is politically motivated.

Reporting has already detailed the concerning pattern of document turnover. It started with negotiations and voluntary requests from national archivists in 2021, resulting in the return of 15 boxes of materials in 2022. That was followed in the spring by a grand jury subpoena evidently compelling production of documents. Then investigators visited in June, taking still more documents with them and at some later point securing the recently reported, evidently false statement that all material marked as classified had been returned.

Neither that subpoena nor the lawyer's June delivery produced the 11 sets of classified information that the FBI said it took from Mar-a-Lago last week.

The warrant's release explains what Attorney General Merrick Garland was talking about on Thursday when he spoke of the "standard practice to seek less intrusive means" than a search warrant whenever possible. He was telling us that the Justice Department tried everything else (and then some) first.

Note that if Trump or others did not honestly comply with the subpoena, that's a separate possible crime. That might be why the department reportedly subpoenaed the surveillance footage of people going in and out of the document rooms.

Government officials were also understandably concerned about who had access to classified documents.

Further, if Trump and those around him, including his lawyers, made intentionally inaccurate statements to the government, they may be criminally liable for making false statements.

While this new report on a lawyer's letter casts added light on the situation, gaps necessarily remain. As is standard operating procedure, the Justice Department has not released the FBI agent's sworn affidavit supporting the search warrant. Such affidavits, and the evidence they contain, are closely held until soon after the DOJ files any criminal charges.

Disclosing affidavits prematurely can give away the government's case and inform targets what investigatory routes they need to block, what evidence to destroy and what potential witnesses' cooperation they need to forestall. That is why Garland should hold firm despite demands from some of the former President's allies in Congress to see the affidavit.

The ordinary reasons apply with even greater force in a case involving exceptionally sensitive national security data and a highly confidential informant. In our current, hyper-charged political environment, when an armed follower of Trump's social media site enters a Cincinnati FBI office with an apparent intent to kill, any public information on a reported Mar-a-Lago informant could easily put that person's life in danger.

Still, Garland has adeptly brought the picture into focus with his properly terse statement and release of the warrant -- while complying with the DOJ's stringent rules on what can and cannot be said. We shouldn't take the attorney general's integrity and prosecutorial experience for granted. After all, we just had Bill Barr, whose distortions as attorney general of the Mueller report may have emboldened Trump's belief in complete personal impunity from legal consequences. In the Nixon era, we had enabling Attorney Generals John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst, both of whom were convicted of crimes

Given Garland's care to follow the rules, we are going to have to be satisfied with his disclosures for a while. We are now in the window Garland laid out in his recent memo about the DOJ avoiding any actions that could be perceived as affecting an election before it takes place. (Although the window is often referred to as a three-month one, the memo is silent as to the actual number of days.)

Trump remains one of the most polarizing characters in American politics, and any action taken could have an impact on the midterm elections. That is so even though Trump has not declared his candidacy for 2024 and is not on any ballot.

The accumulation of allegations adds to the chances that Trump might be charged. It's not just the possible removal of documents, or even the more serious national security ones. It's that documents appear to have been withheld again and again.

Moreover, Garland's moves last week were not necessarily just about potential document crimes. As an earlier overview explained, the DOJ can use anything found pursuant to the search warrant to prove other possible crimes.

There are three fronts on which federal criminal investigations are likely to proceed, quietly before November but perhaps more loudly afterward: alleged document crimes, conspiracy to defraud the United States by seeking to overturn the 2020 election before January 6, 2021, and obstruction of Congress on January 6.

On Sunday, Trump may have dropped a hint that the FBI seized information related to the latter two. He complained on his site, Truth Social, that the FBI "took boxes of 'attorney-client' material, and also 'executive' privilege material which they knowingly should not have taken." We know that attorney-client and executive privilege arguments have loomed large in the January 6 investigations. Time will tell whether the FBI also swept up information relating to additional matters separate from the removal of classified documents.

Trump's groundless caterwauling this past week proves he's concerned about possible prosecution. He should be. There are just too many ongoing investigations to think that he can dodge them all.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/15/opinions/search-warrant-trumps-mar-a-lago-trump-criminal-liability/index.html

[Rick Plant]

Lamont Dozier, Motown songwriter, dies aged 81: The Motown master craftsman who created miracles under pressure

As one third of a legendary songwriting and production partnership, Dozier produced a slew of indelible hits that expressed the joy and frustration of a whole generation


'Love is love’ … left to right, Diana Ross, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland, on the occasion of the songwriters’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Photograph: Robin Platzer/The Life Images Collection

Lamont Dozier was not a man much given to discussing the mystical art of songwriting and inspiration. You might have thought he would be. There’s certainly something extraordinary about the sheer quality of the songs he wrote with Brian and Eddie Holland in the 60s and early 70s: Baby Love, Nowhere to Run, Stop! In the Name of Love, Reach Out I’ll Be There, Heatwave, I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch), Band of Gold, You Can’t Hurry Love, You Keep Me Hangin On and Bernadette among them – a catalogue that meant Holland-Dozier-Holland stood out even amid the riches of songwriting and production talent assembled at Motown. There’s a fair argument for calling this collection of songs the greatest in the history of pop.

And it wasn’t just that these songs were hits – they were the kind of hits that became indelibly imprinted on the brain of anyone with even a passing interest in pop music. But Dozier took a very prosaic attitude to it all, presenting himself not as the genius he clearly was but as a man who’d simply worked hard, “banging on that piano”. “There’s no such thing as writer’s block,” he contended a few years before his death. “That’s just being lazy. That’s just something you put in your own head. ‘I don’t feel it today’ – that’s bull***t.”

Perhaps that was just the attitude one developed in the hothouse hit factory environment of Motown where, Dozier recalled, songwriting sessions could last for 18 hours straight and founder Berry Gordy was given to announcing “so-and-so needs a hit because they’re going out of town and they need something right away”. The more successful the label got, the more Gordy seemed to pile on the pressure: in 1965, at the height of Motown’s golden age, he issued an edict: “We will release nothing less than Top 10 product on any artist. Because the Supremes’ worldwide acceptance is greater than the other artists, on them we will release only No 1 records.”

It was a challenging environment to which Dozier and the Holland brothers responded in the most incredible fashion. Each of them had started out as a performer in Detroit before being brought together by Gordy. Dozier thought they worked so well together because of their shared background in the church and a mutual love of classical music. They were, by all accounts, as determined and tough as their boss, and not above provoking the artists they worked with in order to get the best out of them. Diana Ross fled the sessions for Where Did Our Love Go in tears: she hated the song, which Dozier just maintained gave her vocal “the attitude it needed to become a big hit”. Their relationship with Marvin Gaye was also frequently volatile, the singer feeling provoked by the trio deliberately writing songs in a key he felt was too high for him, in order, Dozier said, “to be a little more imaginative, reach up to a falsetto”.

However much trouble their methods caused around Hitsville USA, you couldn’t argue with the end result. Holland-Dozier-Holland were skilled at drawing out performances of startling intensity from artists. Listen to Levi Stubbs’ voice on the Four Tops’ Standing in the Shadows of Love. Or his cry of “Just look over your shoulder!” on Reach Out (I’ll Be There). Or the 1971 single You Keep Running Away, where the singer’s agonies – “Just look at me, I’m not the man I used to be / I used to be proud, I used to be strong” – chafe against the ebullience of the musical backing. Meanwhile, the Supremes may have been painted as Motown’s poppiest and sweetest group, but there’s a genuine desperation about Ross’s lead vocal on You Keep Me Hangin’ On that is startlingly powerful when combined with the music’s churning relentlessness, the pounding drums, the one-note morse-code guitar.

Holland-Dozier-Holland’s songs occasionally contained a darker undercurrent than was immediately apparent. Martha and the Vandellas’ wonderful 1967 single Jimmy Mack was inspired when Dozier attended a songwriting ceremony in New York where the mother of the songwriter Ronnie Mack – who had died aged 23 from cancer – accepted an award on his behalf for the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine. It takes on a noticeably different hue if you consider that the subject of the Martha Reeves’ pleas to return might be dead.

Although never overtly political, Motown’s golden age played out against a backdrop of turmoil in America, much of it connected to the civil rights movement. And without ever making it explicit enough to harm their commercial chances, Holland-Dozier-Holland frequently seemed to be sending out coded messages to their black American audience. As the writer Jon Savage subsequently noted, the tense, Bob Dylan-influenced Reach Out (I’ll Be There) “offered advice and sustenance to communities … under extreme duress”. Martha and the Vandellas’ Nowhere to Run, meanwhile, presents itself as a love song but in reality was inspired by the state of America. Dozier later said its claustrophobic atmosphere had more to do with seeing tanks on the streets in the wake of riots and teenagers being shipped off to Vietnam than with romance.

Immediate, accessible pop music that is emotionally impactful and rich with meaning: it was an incredible trick to pull off, but Holland-Dozier-Holland did it again and again. It wasn’t enough to save their relationship with Motown. Promised and then denied their own sub-label, and angry about the way money was distributed in the company, they first went on a go-slow, then left entirely in 1968. The ensuing litigation went on for years, and forced them to use a pseudonym – Edythe Wayne – when writing for artists on their own labels, Invicta and Hot Wax.

They had more hits – Freda Payne’s Band of Gold; Give Me Just a Little More Time by the Chairmen of the Board – maintaining the same breathtaking standard that they’d kept at Motown. But Dozier became disillusioned: he claimed the Holland brothers passed on the chance to sign both Funkadelic and Al Green, and their rejection of the latter pre-empted his decision to leave, and another lawsuit. He pursued a successful solo career as a performer: 1973’s gorgeous Take Off Your Make Up and the following year’s Trying to Hold Onto My Woman suggested songwriting powers undiminished by the break-up of the partnership, and the Afrocentric 1977 album track Going Back to My Roots enjoyed a long afterlife thanks to multiple cover versions. Somehow his friendships with both Berry Gordy and the Holland brothers survived the legal disputes: “Business is business,” he shrugged, “but love is love.”

He moved to London in the 80s and kept writing: he was behind Alison Moyet’s 1984 hit Invisible, and collaborated with Mick Hucknall, who one suspects couldn’t believe his luck, on a string of tracks for Simply Red. Sometimes he dealt in material that nodded to the classic 60s Motown sound, such as the Four Tops’ Loco in Acapulco or Phil Collins’ Two Hearts. None of it was ever likely to supplant Holland-Dozier-Holland’s 60s output in anyone’s affections, but clearly his hitmaking touch was intact.

In his later years, he dabbled in musical theatre, taught courses at the University of Southern California and seemed happy to give interviews in which he reflected on Holland-Dozier-Holland’s peerless achievements; the pressure they’d worked under at Motown; the havoc it had wreaked on their personal lives; the way they’d come up with this song or that song. Ultimately, however, every interview seemed to come back to the same unassuming theme. “It was blood, sweat and tears,” he told the Guardian in 2015. “We just worked and worked … until we came up with things.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/09/lamont-dozier-foreman-motown-hit-factory


Lamont Dozier, Motown songwriter, dies aged 81

Lamont Dozier, the Motown legend behind hits for artists such as the Supremes, the Four Tops and the Isley Brothers, has died aged 81.

The news was confirmed by his son Lamont Dozier Jr on Instagram. No cause of death has been released as yet.

As one third of production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, Dozier was responsible for 10 of the Supremes’ 12 US No 1 singles, including Baby Love and You Keep Me Hanging On.

The trio was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Ronnie Wood, who covered the trio’s 1963 single Leaving Home in 2001, paid tribute to Dozier on Twitter. “God bless Lamont,” he wrote. “His music will live on.” Mick Hucknall, who worked with Dozier in the 1980s, also tweeted his condolences calling him “One of the greatest songwriters of all time.”

Born in Detroit, Michigan on 16 June, 1941, Dozier started his musical career working for a few Detroit labels with little success. His luck changed in 1962 when he and songwriting brothers Brian and Eddie Holland started work at Motown. They hit the ground running, scoring three hits – Come and Get These Memories, Heatwave, and Quicksand – for Martha and The Vandellas.

They were followed in 1964 by Where Did Our Love Go, the first of 10 US chart-toppers the trio would write for The Supremes. Four years later, having helped define the Motown sound, Holland–Dozier–Holland left the label to start the Invictus and Hot Wax labels. Dozier would go on to record as a soloist for both labels.

After leaving Holland–Dozier–Holland in 1973, Dozier focused on his solo career, with one of his early singles, Going Back To My Roots, later becoming a huge success for disco group Odyssey in 1981.

Seven years later Dozier collaborated with Phil Collins on the US No 1 Two Hearts, winning the pair a Golden Globe and a Grammy. Dozier also worked with other British artists during the 80s, including Alison Moyet and Simply Red.

Dozier is survived by his six children.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/09/lamont-dozier-motown-songwriter-dies-age-81