Behind the Songs: WHITFIELD & STRONG

As featured in: Performing Songwriter, May 2004.  Visit performingsongwriter.com to order back issues or subscribe.

By Bill DeMain

Though it has become one of Motown’s signature songs and most successful singles, Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” almost didn’t get released.

The song began its life in 1967, when Hitsville staff writer Barrett Strong (“Money”) hammered out the changes on a $40 piano that had only 10 working keys. “I was always a fan of Ray Charles,” Strong told MOJO in 1997, “And this, like so many of my best feels, was based on what he was doing.”

Strong was told by some higher ups that his tune was too bluesy, but he found a sympathetic ear in up-and-coming producer Norman Whitfield. After the pair completed the song, it was recorded by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, then The Isley Brothers. Neither version troubled the charts.  The third time was the charm. With Whitfield producing Marvin Gaye, the tale of jealousy and paranoia came alive, its brooding Wurlitzer-driven groove and stabbing strings swirling around a fierce, pleading vocal.

For Marvin, the song would always carry some thorny memories. “Norman and I came within a fraction of an inch of fighting,” he told biographer David Ritz. “He made me sing in keys much higher that I was used to.  He had me reaching for notes that caused my throat veins to bulge.”

At one of Motown’s weekly quality control meetings, Marvin’s version of “Grapevine” was shelved, after being deemed not commercial enough for release. An angry but determined Whitfield marched back into the studio, this time recasting the song as an Aretha-style shouter for Gladys Knight (you can almost sing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” over the track). It shot to No. 2 on the charts.

But that didn’t satisfy Whitfield. A year later, he was still lobbying hard for the release of Marvin’s version, which he was convinced was a classic. In his autobiography, To Be Loved, Berry Gordy recalls, “I told him it was too late. It would be crazy to release the same song on Marvin so soon after it had gone to No. 1 on Gladys and the Pips.”

“Norman kept pushing and pushing, and he almost lost his job,” Strong told MOJO. “Berry finally said, ‘Get out of my face. Mention that record again and you’re fired.’”

Gordy eventually relented and the song was added as filler to Marvin’s 1968 LP, In the Groove. The story may have ended there if it wasn’t for a Chicago DJ—when he spun the song instead of the suggested single, the phones lit up (remember when radio could actually surprise listeners and break a record?) Other stations soon followed suit.  Within weeks, the In the Groove album had been retitled I Heard It Through the Grapevine, and the single had sold more copies than any previous Motown release.

“I Heard It Through the Grapevine” has gone on to become a staple of oldies radio, and,
thanks to exposure from The Big Chill soundtrack and the California Raisins TV commercials,
a permanent part of our popular culture.

WITH psychedelic soul workouts like “Cloud Nine,” “Runaway Child, Running Wild” and “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today),” Norman Whitfield and songwriting partner Barrett Strong had taken The Temptations light years from the finger-snapping bonhomie of “My Girl.”

For their masterpiece, they pulled out all the stops.  Over a mind-expanding 11 minute and 45-second symphonic canvas, they unfolded their drama of a deadbeat ghetto father. If Berry Gordy had a problem the year before with Marvin Gaye’s socially conscious “What’s Going On,” one can only imagine what he made of cold, hard realism like “Some bad talk going around saying Papa had three outside children and another wife.”

For radio, the epic was pared down to half its length. That concession aside, it still broke all the rules of a typical hit. Songwriters know the conventional wisdom of keeping an intro short. Before Dennis Edwards sang the opening line, there was a full two minutes of instrumental build-up—moody strings and horns parrying with a thumping bass and hi-hat figure.

Reportedly, Edwards hated the song when he first heard it. He had a hard time getting past the reference to a specific date in the opening line (“It was the third of September”); in an unhappy coincidence, his own father had passed away on that very day.

Bass singer Melvin Franklin also recalled his initial doubts about “Papa” to writer Don Waller, “With Norman it was all about technique, because he always came in with huge productions.  When I’d hear all that stuff, I’d try to figure out just what we were gonna even do on it.  You know, where do we fit?”

But all five Tempts staked out their turf, sliding into the roles of sons to the delinquent father. For all its production grandeur (there’s really only one chord throughout!), the song finds its emotional core in the visceral vocal performances. Just those spoken asides that announce the choruses (“Mama just hung her head and said, ‘Son … ’) are enough to give you goosebumps—even on the 5,000th listen.

The Cinemascope soul pioneered by Whitfield in “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” stands as a milestone in R&B, and it heavily influenced the next generation of writers and producers—Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Barry White, Thom Bell, and especially the Philly Soul sound of Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff.