Norman Whitfield, 67, Stalwart Motown Songwriter

Norman Whitfield, who died Tuesday, helped create the Motown sound by writing and producing scores of hits including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Just My Imagination.”Sick in recent years with diabetes and other ailments, he was said to be 67 and died in a Los Angeles hospital.As the main producer for the Temptations from the mid-1960s, he also wrote and arranged the group’s hits “I Wish It Would Rain” and “Cloud Nine,” which won a Grammy in 1968, Motown’s first. Whitfield’s productions grew grittier in the early 1970s, culminating in “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” the epochal, streetwise funk tune that won two Grammys in 1973, including one for Best R&B Instrumental Performance, for the B-side reprise.A selective list of Whitfield’s hits reads like a sonic biography of an era: “Too Many Fish in the Sea” (1964), “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” (1966), “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (1967), “War” (1970), “Smiling Faces Sometimes” (1971), “Just My Imagination” (1971), “Papa Was a Rolling Stone (1972), “Car Wash” (1976), and “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” (1978).And then, as evanescent as a pop tune, he was gone, releasing no further records. He emerged next at the induction ceremony for the National Academy of Popular Music’s Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony in 2004.A native of Harlem who as a teenager had more familiarity with pool halls than dance halls, Whitfield moved to Detroit and started hanging out at the outskirts of the music scene. He played tambourine on a few records with marginal groups and then became a regular part of the crowd at Berry Gordy’s Motown studios. Mr. Gordy eventually made Whitfield head of “quality control,” listening to records and assigning them a number score, according to the Internet site allmusic.com.He started writing songs at Motown and eventually teamed with Barrett Strong, a lyricist who performed on Motown’s first hit, “Money” (1962). By the mid-1960s, he was producing the Temptations and his compositions were being sung by several other acts on the Motown roster. “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was first sung by Marvin Gaye, but Mr. Gordy rejected it. The song became a major hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips. A new version by Gaye went to no. 1 on the American charts in 1968 and became one of the biggest hits in Motown history.Meanwhile, Whitfield was incorporating new elements into his music, including psychedelia (“Cloud Nine” [1968]) and urban grit. With the Temptations chafing under his lush productions and Motown declining, Whitfield left in 1975 to form his own label, Whitfield Records. He attributed his move in a 1979 interview with the Los Angeles Times to “a de-emphasis of creativity” at Motown.Whitfield recruited several acts, including ex-Motowners Junior Walker (who’d had a hit with “War”) and The Undisputed Truth (“Smilin’ Faces”). He helped start new ones, too, including Rose Royce, who scored a big hit in 1976 with “Car Wash.” He said he limited himself to 10 acts on the label: “That way the roster is small enough to let me work with all the artists and put my personal touch on the record.”But there were no more hits after 1979 for Norman Whitfield. He produced another album for the Temptations, “Sail Away,” and a few movie soundtracks.After his induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004, he next showed up in the public eye in 2005, when he was convicted of failing to report $4 million in income. Already ailing, he was fined and sentenced to probation in view of his failing health.

Norman Whitfield, 67, Stalwart Motown Songwriter

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