Monday, January 30, 2023

BARRETT STRONG

There's no chance I would've guessed Motown legend Barrett Strong was still alive until dying yesterday:

Although Money was a hit, Strong found that he wasn’t earning enough money to support his family, so in the early 60s he briefly began working on the factory floor at Chrysler. In the mid-60s, he returned to Motown as a staff songwriter, and with producer Norman Whitfield wrote many of the company’s most iconic tracks, including I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone, and War. The pair’s partnership with the Temptations, in particular, yielded a string of extremely successful, beloved tracks; in 1973, he was awarded the Grammy for best R&B song for Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone. 

When you hear his name you think of Money, which would be enough to fund any Hall of Famer's career. But look at this SHORT lost he wrote with his partner & fellow Motown legend of legends Norman Whitfield:

I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me), and the long line of "psychedelic soul" records by the Temptations, including "Cloud Nine", "I Can't Get Next to You", "Psychedelic Shack", "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)", and "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", amongst others.

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

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