By Marilyn Lester***In recent programming looking beyond Great American Songbook staples, the 92NY Lyrics & Lyricists season opener zeroed in on modern classics with “Motown’s Heat Wave: The Songs of Holland-Dozier-Holland,” And it was a sizzler. The Geffen Stage at Kaufmann Concert Hall was rocking; all that was lacking was a mosh pit!
Showcased were 16 incredible Billboard-charting songs covering megahits for the label’s superstars, including the Supremes, the Four Tops and Martha and the Vandellas. Just hearing a portion of their catalog underscored the importance of Holland-Dozier-Holland for their profound influence on American music and culture. The team was a game-changer, with their work taking its place in the catalog of the modern American Songbook.
A cast of five supreme vocal talents— Derrick Baskin, Najah Hetsberger, Melrose Johnson, Ephraim Sykes, Curtis Wiley—delivered the goods with high energy, quick pacing and intricate movement, staged against a backdrop of curated projections (Kylee Loera and Taylor Gordon). And what rolled out in this feast of sigths and sounds were modern classics such as “Standing in the 
Shadows of Love” (Wiley, Baskin and Ephraim Sykes), “You Can’t Hurry Love” (Johnson, Hetsberger and Company), “Where Did Our Love Go” (Hetsberger and Company), “Stop! In the Name of Love” (Sykes and Hetsberger) and two all-company numbers: “Nowhere to Run” and the rocking closer, “Heatwave.”
The scripted show cast the quintet as various characters of the Motown scene, and of course, the three gentlemen of the five vocalists took the parts of the songwriters being fêted: Lamont Dozier and brothers Brian and Eddie Holland. But who were Holland-Dozier-Holland? Before teaming up, Eddie Holland was a solo performer for Motown. Dozier also performed and recorded, and Brian Holland was a Motown staff songwriter. As a team, between 1962 and 1967, they wrote 400 songs, including 25 number-one hit singles.
Why did it end? A legal dispute arose with Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. over profit-sharing and royalties, and until its settlement in 1977, they were prohibited from writing songs under their own names. Their careers took different directions, but their astounding work as hitmakers has lived on. Holland-Dozier-Holland were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Among many accolades and awards, they received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Songwriters in 1987.
“Motown’s Heat Wave” could not have registered success without its gifted musicians. The high-octane band, especially front-and-center trumpeter 
Jeremiah Flack, plus Taja Graves-Parker (trombone), Sherrod Barnes (guitar), Chelton Grey (bass guitar) and Daiquain Davis (drums) played tight and in a groove. At the piano was music director Michael O. Mitchell, whose updated arrangements and orchestrations imbued these 1960s hits with a contemporary flair while still celebrating the origin and intentions of the originals.
Mitchell also conceived the show, which was ably directed and choreographed by Brian Harlan Brooks, also staying true to the era but with a modern twist. The show’s script was written by Elizabeth Addison and proved the weak link in an otherwise sturdy chain. While the narrative provided adequate back-story information, it lacked necessary focus and inspiration, failing to generate the wonder and enthusiasm for these remarkable writers at a turning point in American musical and cultural history. A fine point: the performers, often reading directly from their scripts, were distracting, in an otherwise dynamic evening.
Photos by Richard Termine
