Funk and fire
The producer who put psych in Motown’s soul. By Geoff Brown.
PRE-EMINENT architect in the evolution of psychedelic soul at Motown, Norman Whitfield was a prolific songwriter during the ’60s, working well with Marvin Gaye (co-writing 1963’s US R&B Number 2 hit Pride And Joy), and forming a good partnership with Barrett Strong. But his ambitions were often thwarted while Smokey Robinson and Holland-DozierHolland monopolised A-listers like The Supremes, The Four Tops and The Temptations. Then Whitfield produced I Heard It Through The Grapevine.
The third act to record it, Gladys Knight & The Pips’ gospel-powered 1966 version scorched to Number 2 in the US pop charts (barely Top 50 in the UK), but when he returned to one of his two earlier versions, producing an ominous, moody Marvin Gaye take, his reputation was cemented. Gaye’s too.
That familiar, brooding work is where
Psychedelic Soul starts, followed by Gladys Knight’s The Look Of Love, as she invests the sweet Bacharach & David ballad with fiery, yearning passion. To fire, Whitfield next added funk – The Temptation’s Psychedelic Shack (1969) is this album’s calling card, unveiling Dennis Edwards’ thunderous lead vocal. The
next Whitfield signifier chosen by compiler Bob Stanley: 1972’s US Number 1 Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone, bass guitar and ticking hi-hat leading into a steadily building introduction – wah wah guitar, strings and brass – before the Tempts’ individual tones add colour to the storytelling lyric.
But as Whitfield gradually sidelined vocals and lyrics in increasingly elongated productions, The Temptations rebelled, and his Motown influence waned. Still, he’d produced one of their very best LPs,
Sky’s The Limit, not represented here. But the Tempts’ former mighty tenor David Ruffin feels the Whitfield funk on the title track to 1974’s solo LP Me And Rock & Roll Are Here To Stay.
Exiting Motown to set up Whitfield, funk of a different kind blossomed on Rose Royce’s Ooh Boy, recorded for the movie Car Wash, a gliding track with Gwen Dickey’s light vocal floating on the supple bass. But in general, he was happier with a gospel holler. It Should’ve Been Me, his 1972 song covered by Knight in ’75, is here roared to church by jilted Yvonne Fair.
Cherished project The Undisputed Truth followed him from Motown to Whitfield. From the former spell, I Saw You When You Met Her is brooding and expansive while You + Me = Love is sheer celebration, as is Willie Hutch’s And All Hell Broke Loose, a great dance track. At Motown, the producer’s use of B-listers yielded great hits like Edwin Starr’s War. Same couldn’t be said of his own label’s also-rans like Mammatapee or Spyder Turner.