Motown Producer Norman Whitfield Dies at 67

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The New York Sun

Norman Whitfield, who co-wrote a string of Motown classics including “War” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” has died. He was 67.

A spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said Whitfield died there Tuesday. He suffered from complications of diabetes and had recently emerged from a coma, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Whitfield was a longtime Motown producer who during the 1960s and ’70s injected rock and psychedelic touches into the label’s soul music. Many of his biggest hits were co-written with Barrett Strong, with whom he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.


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