Norman Whitfield, the producer-songwriter most responsible for dragging Motown into the second half of the 1960s and making the label’s music at least tolerable for the whitest of rock fans, has died. Despite my poke at those of you who fail to dig the beauty of the earlier model of Motown’s output, I love Whitfield’s work. Come on, you Rockist lunkheads, for Norman’s sake go back and learn to dig the earlier stuff too!
From The Guardian:
Whitfield’s big chance came when Holland-Dozier-Holland stormed out of Motown in early 1968 in a row over profit-sharing. Inspired by Sly and the Family Stone’s wild arrangements, he wrote the hard-driving, socially aware Cloud Nine with lyricist Barrett Strong (who is himself currently recovering from a stroke) for the Temptations. Despite Gordy’s reservations over its perceived pro-drug message, it changed Motown overnight. Suddenly, topical comment and audacious psychedelic arrangements were on the agenda, and Whitfield-Strong were on a roll: Ball of Confusion, Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone, War and Smilin’ Faces Sometimes all smouldered with tension and paranoia befitting the era of Vietnam, Nixon and the Black Panthers. War actually sounds like war; Ball of Confusion is indeed a ball of confusion.
Here’s an attempt at framing discussion over this man’s death beyond the Mad props we should be sending toward Cloud Nine: What rock band do you think was most influenced by Whitefield’s work? I’ve never read anything to this effect but I’ve always thought a lot of the Stones’ early to mid-70s moves into funky territory were heavily indebted to Whitfield’s productions. Think about how cool some of those only halfway successful tracks, like “Fingerprint File”, might have sounded had Whitfield actually sat behind the board.
For me, Whitfield is major, up there with any producer of the rock era. “Heard it Through The Grapevine” and “Papa Was Rolling Stone” are both groundbreaking and accessible as only the highest strata of popular music is. I always suspected that the eleven minute version of “Papa” was a influence on the creation of dub. Throw in his work with Rare Earth and The Undisputed Truth and you’ve got most of my favorite Psychedelic Soul records.
“I Can’t Get Next To You” and “Ball Of Confusion” both floor me every time I listen to them. Just perfectly written, produced and performed.
The former has that faux-party start and builds perfectly off the blues trope of a signer assigning himself mountain-chopping, hurricane-birthed superpowers, turning that inside out against the unrequited love Motown/Smokey formula. I don’t know if Whitfield or Strong did the lyrics, but the “I can live forever, if I so desire” and “Unhappy am I, with all the powers I possess” lines stand out to me as great turns of phrase. Meanwhile, the breakdown in the middle somehow sonically nails the visual essence of the band. You hear it and even if you’ve never seen the Temptations, you know exactly what they’d be doing on stage at that moment.
I just read the other day that it’s Whitfield doing the count-in at the beginning of Ball of Confusion. The Temptations’ performance is great – Paul’s verse, which ends with “cities ablaze in the summertime,” is one of my favorite vocal performances – but the song itself earns it, maybe even demands it.
The horns that come in before the chorus have the effect of increasing the song’s scope, almost like a camera pulling back to show more of the city/country/world. And the other bits of instrumentation that wind in and out expand each time to create more of a busy, city sound until that part about 2:45 in that sounds halfway between Rhapsody In Blue and the Jetsons theme. Add all that to the way the drums and bass drive it, and Ball of Confusion is like the psychedelic R&B equivalent of “The Second Coming”.
I like the take on his influence on something like Fingerprint File, by the way. That’s one of my favorite lesser-loved Stones songs, and I never made a connection before, but listening to it now, I hear it.
I’d be interested to read what other rock songs people think fall into that lineage.