About Music Icon Dave Tozer!
Dave Tozer working with Justin Timberlake
Dave Tozer is a producer, songwriter and musician. He has worked with several R&B, Hip-Hop, Rock and Pop artists including John Legend, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Justin Timberlake, John Mayer, Natasha Bedingfield, Estelle Swaray, Jazmine Sullivan, Elliott Yamin, Heather Headley and George Stanford.
Hailing from Bridgeton, New Jersey, Tozer taught himself guitar, bass and keyboard. After moving to Philadelphia in the late 1990s, Tozer honed his production skills at various Philadelphia-area studios and began working as a freelance musician playing everything from Hip-Hop and Rock to R&B and Pop. Through Max Blumenthal, a mutual friend, Tozer met University of Pennsylvania student John Stephens (later Grammy award-winning R&B star John Legend) and began a fruitful, professional relationship.
In addition to developing creatively with Legend, Tozer produced his three independently released albums: John Stephens (2000), Live at Jimmy‘s Uptown (2001) and Live at SOB’s. In 2004, Tozer contributed to eight tracks on Legend‘s Grammy Award-winning major label debut Get Lifted and his writing skills garnered him a publishing deal with Viacom-owned Famous Music Publishing.
2005 proved to be an important year for Tozer with the massive success of Get Lifted, which earned eight Grammy nominations. Legend won three awards including Best New Artist and Best R&B Album. Tozer was a producer on Get Lifted and the track “Stay With You,” which Tozer co-wrote and produced [3], was also nominated for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance.
In 2005, soon after the success of Get Lifted, Tozer was crafting songs for artists such as Heather Headley and Natasha Bedingfield. He has also lent his instrumental abilities to Kanye West‘s Grammy-winning single “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” and produced another Legend track for the Luther Vandross tribute album So Amazing: An All-Star Tribute to Luther Vandross. For Tozer, the year culminated in a deal with Sony Music as an in-house producer and a renewal of his Famous Music Publishing contract.
In 2006, Tozer worked on the track “Do U Wanna Ride” from Jay-Z’s comeback album Kingdom Come. Tozer also reunited with his old friend Legend and produced three songs from his acclaimed second album Once Again [4], including the iTunes single “On Top Of The World.”
In 2007, Tozer continued to work with several different artists, one of whom includes long-time friend, Mercury Records recording artist George Stanford. Along with contributing to the development of the Philadelphia-based artist, Tozer worked to get Stanford signed to Epic before he subsequently moved to Mercury. In addition to this, Tozer has also worked with Jazmine Sullivan (J Records), Free Sol (upcoming artist on Justin Timberlake’s label Tennman Records) as well as Ashley Hartman from the hit television show The O.C. and Elliott Yamin from American Idol.
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