Jeremy Bradley- Legendary songwriter and producer - and music icon, really - Lamont Dozier is joining us on the line right now. Hello, Lamont.

Lamont Dozier- Hi, Jeremy. How are you?

JB- I'm good, thanks. How are you?

LD- Good.

JB- The Grammys are here once again. We see the best that music has to offer. You've worked with some of the best. What stands out in your mind this year? Do you have any picks?

LD- Oh, God. You know, there's a lot of the songs and it's hard to say which is my pick. There are a couple or three of them that I really like. For some reason this year a lot of things stand out more. I think the music is beginning to change in respect to having hooks. And I'm a hook man, you know. (laughing) So the hooks are really sounding good this year for nominations and there's no one in particular that stands out.

JB- OK. Well, I want to get your take on today's music then. These days there's such a quick rotation of songs on the radio. You know, you're at the top of the charts one day and then you can drop right off. Why is that? Is it that the industry's moving so fast and people are putting out music so quickly?

LD- I think so. That has a lot to do with it. I think everybody's always looking for that hit - one big hit to take them over or keep their career going. So, you've got a lot of people scrambling for that top spot. That could, like you say, be one of the main reasons. And there's a lot of competition. More people are jumping into the business.

JB- Do you think that, today, we're so fascinated with celebrity gossip and drama, that sometimes it's not even necessarily about the music. For instance, with Britney Spears, is the mere hype of her troubled life enough to make her reach number 1, as she did with her recent single? Some people are calling it a comeback. What's your take on that?

LD- I don't think it's a comeback. It's more of her… she's already in the business. She's more or less getting herself together mentally, thanks to her father and other people that are really getting to connect with her, I guess. Or reconnect and get her on the right track. She just swayed away, which a lot of these people do. They go in for all the wrong reasons and to get notoriety a lot of times and they get waylaid along the way. They get into things they shouldn't have gotten (sic) into. I think she's finding herself and beginning to realize this is a business and you have to be serious about it.

JB- But do you feel her last single - and maybe not necessarily her specifically - but because all the hype about this new song, is it really about the song or all the publicity she's had because of her troubles that she got to number 1?

LD- Actually, the song is good. I don't think a song really gets to be number 1 unless it's good because the public will shoot it down if it doesn't have the right stuff. I particularly like the song. The main song… I can't think of the title right now.

JB- Womanizer.

LD- Yeah, Womanizer. I thought it was very well produced for what it is, it's a young, dance, feel good type of thing. I liked it, actually. In this particular case I think it's deserving to be number 1.

JB- As I mentioned at the top, the Grammys are here. I'm sure you've gone to your fair share of Grammy events. Do you have a moment that just makes you so proud of somebody you've worked with when you see them win? Or when you see them doing really well on the show?

LD- Oh, God. Norah Jones was somebody that really jumped out at me when she won. I remember going into a record store here in California and when the song came out ("Don't Know Why") - I was in the store and they had one copy, actually. The kid that was putting the records out, I told him, "You all should have more than just this one copy of this record because it's going to be a big seller." He looked at me like I was crazy: "Oh yeah, OK thanks, sir." (laughing) And then it went on to win five or six Grammys, you know. I just felt good that she did that because I knew what that record was. And I knew she, as an artist, what she would mean to our musical community.

JB- You've been involved with the Grammys for quite a while. You've done Grammy Camp and other initiatives to get people involved in music. Let's rewind for a second though. You've been in the industry for quite some time. When did it all start for you? When did you realize that love of music?

LD- When I was about 12 or 13. Prior to that, probably when I was about 10 or 11 I wrote a poem that my schoolteacher in elementary school was very impressed with poem that I had written, called A Song. And it told about all the different feelings a song gives the average human being in this world, and how it soothes the savage beat. Anyway, she thought it was very poignant that a nine- or 10-year-old kid would write something like this and kept it on a blackboard for, I don't know, maybe a month almost. What that did for me was just stirred me on to become a better poem writer, and subsequently a song writer - starting putting music to my poems. By the time I was 15, I started my own doo-wop group in the '50s. Made my first record when I was 15 with Atlantic Records.