Barrett Strong, a pivotal figure in the history of Motown Records who sang the label’s first big hit, Money (That’s What I Want), has died aged 81.
Strong co-wrote classic songs such as I Heard It Through the
Grapevine, War and Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone. His death was announced on Sunday
on social media by the Motown Museum. No cause of death was given.
Strong’s hits were “revolutionary in sound and captured the
spirit of the times,” Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, said. “Barrett was
not only a great singer and piano player, but he, along with his writing
partner Norman Whitfield, created an incredible body of work.
Strong had yet to turn 20 when he agreed to let his friend
Gordy, in the early days of building a recording empire in Detroit, manage him
and release his music. Within a year, he was a part of history as the piano
player and vocalist for “Money,” a million-seller released early in 1960 and
Motown’s first major hit. Strong never again approached the success of “Money”
on his own, and decades later fought for acknowledgement that he helped write
it. But, with Whitfield, he formed a productive and eclectic songwriting team.
While Gordy’s “Sound of Young America” was criticized for
being too slick and repetitive, the Whitfield-Strong team turned out
hard-hitting and topical works, along with such timeless ballads as “I Wish It
Would Rain” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)." With “I
Heard it Through the Grapevine,” they provided an up-tempo, call-and-response
hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips and a dark, hypnotic ballad for Marvin Gaye,
his 1968 version one of Motown’s all-time sellers.
As Motown became more politically conscious late in the
decade, Barrett-Whitfield turned out “Cloud Nine” and “Psychedelic Shack” for
the Temptations and for Edwin Starr the protest anthem “War” and its widely quoted
refrain, “War! What is it good for? Absolutely ... nothing!”
“With ‘War,’ I had a cousin who was a paratrooper that got
hurt pretty bad in Vietnam,” Strong told LA Weekly in 1999. “I also knew a guy
who used to sing with (Motown songwriter) Lamont Dozier that got hit by
shrapnel and was crippled for life. You talk about these things with your
families when you’re sitting at home, and it inspires you to say something
about it.”
Whitfield-Strong’s other hits, mostly for the Temptations,
included “I Can’t Get Next to You,” “That’s the Way Love Is” and the
Grammy-winning chart-topper “Papa Was a Rollin' Stone” (Sometimes spelled “Papa
Was a Rolling Stone”). Artists covering their songs ranged from the Rolling
Stones (“Just My Imagination”) and Aretha Franklin (“I Wish It Would Rain”) to
Bruce Springsteen (“War”) and Al Green (“I Can’t Get Next to You”).
Strong spent part of the 1960s recording for other labels,
left Motown again in the early 1970s and made a handful of solo albums,
including “Stronghold” and “Love is You.” In 2004, he was voted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame, which cited him as “a pivotal figure in Motown’s
formative years.”
Whitfield died in 2008.
The music of Strong and other Motown writers was later
featured in the Broadway hit “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the
Temptations.”
Strong was born in West Point, Mississippi and moved to
Detroit a few years later. He was a self-taught musician who learned piano
without needing lessons and, with his sisters, formed a local gospel group, the
Strong Singers. In his teens, he got to know such artists as Franklin, Smokey
Robinson and Gordy, who was impressed with his writing and piano playing.
“Money,” with its opening shout, “The best things in life are free/But you can
give them to the birds and bees,” would, ironically, lead to a fight — over
money.
Strong was initially listed among the writers and he often
spoke of coming up with the pounding piano riff while jamming on Ray Charles’
“What’d I Say” in the studio. But only decades later would he learn that Motown
had since removed his name from the credits, costing him royalties for a
popular standard covered by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many others and
a keepsake on John Lennon’s home jukebox. Strong’s legal argument was weakened
because he had taken so long to ask for his name to be reinstated. (Gordy is
one of the song's credited writers, and his lawyers contended Strong's name
only appeared because of a clerical error).
“Songs outlive people,” Strong told The New York Times in
2013. “The real reason Motown worked was the publishing. The records were just
a vehicle to get the songs out there to the public. The real money is in the
publishing, and if you have publishing, then hang on to it. That’s what it’s
all about. If you give it away, you’re giving away your life, your legacy. Once
you’re gone, those songs will still be playing.”
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