Born in Harlem, before rising to fame in Detroit while employed by Berry Gordy's Motown Records, Norman Whitfield did epic soul like nobody else. Infusing touches of the psychedelic and political, Whitfield and lyricist Barrett Strong helped move Motown away from sugary soul hits, towards a more topical point of view, and a musical blend suited to the social changes of the late sixties. Although Whitfield had been producing The Temptations since 1966, his big break came when the previous songwriting team at Motown, the Holland-Dozier-Holland trio, left the label over profit-sharing disputes. This gave the Whitfield-Strong partnership the break they were looking for, and a hit with references to the abundant drug culture of the times,
Cloud Nine by The Temptations, began a series of standout songs for Marvin Gaye, Edwin Starr, and Gladys Knight & the Pips.
His most recognizable songs,
Papa Was a Rolling Stone and
Heard it Through the Grapevine remain potent to this day, and stand as near perfect examples of what Whitfield achieved at Motown. Flamboyant arrangements, social commentary, and extended track lengths were suddenly the norm at the label, and through his own personal enterprises, The Undisputed Truth and Rare Earth, Whitfield took soul to places never heard before. Originally influenced by Sly Stone's innovation, he cleverly married Stone's raw sound to the slick dynamics of Motown's vocalists, and changed the sound of soul in the mainstream forever.
Whitfield is described by Berry Gordy in his memoir
To Be Loved as a tall, shy man who earned a living in his teens as a hotshot pool player. He did his time, like many others, as an junior assistant at the Hitsville studio, and even when established as a producer struggled to get many of his projects off the ground, due to Gordy's tight quality control and often cut throat business mind. Perhaps this rubbed off on Whitfield, and by the mid-seventies his ego had risen to the point where his own picture was bigger than that of the Temptations on his last production for the group, 1973's compelling
Masterpiece.
The following year he set up his own label, Whitfield Records, leaving Motown, and found further success with Rose Royce, recording their infamous
Car Wash soundtrack in 1977, before slowly falling into obscurity. He returned to work at Motown in the mid eighties, but the music and ideas were a pale comparison to his earlier work, and few notable songs came out of the period.
Notoriously shy and unwilling to be interviewed, much of the motivation behind Whitfield's music remains hard to identify clearly. Was Whitfield a politically minded activist using soul music as a conduit for change, or simply a business savvy producer who spotted a hole in a saturated marketplace? Whatever the reality, Whitfield opened up soul music to new horizons, and laid the path for Marvin Gaye's
What's Goin' On, The Ohio Players, and Isaac Hayes to push the boundaries even further out.
His often grandiose, orchestrated soul classics include
War,
Smiling Faces Sometimes,
Ball of Confusion,
Wishing on a Star, and
Ain't Too Proud to Beg, a body of work that is as impressive as it is distinctive. Whitfield passed away in 2008, aged 69, after battling diabetes, and being convicted of tax evasion. He was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame in 2004, alongside lyricist Strong, in respect to their work on Motown. NormanWhitfield remains a mysterious figure whose consistency and creativity make his music a pleasure worth indulging in.
