Norman Whitfield

Music producer, arranger, and songwriter Norman Jessie Whitfield was born on May 12, 1941 in New York City. A native of Harlem, Whitfield spent his early teen years hanging out in local pool halls. Norman moved with his family to Detroit, Michigan when he was in his late teens. At age 18 he wrote and produced songs for Detroit's Thelma Records. Whitfield began hanging around Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. offices at age 19. Motown record label founder Berry Gordy Jr. gave Norman a job in the quality control department that determined which songs would or would not be released as singles. Whitfield eventually joined Motown's in-house songwriting staff. His early successes for Motown included such songs as Marvin Gaye's "Pride and Joy," "Too Many Fish in the Sea" by the Marvelettes, and both "He Was Really Saying Something" and "Needle in a Haystack" by the Velvelettes. From 1966 to 1974 Norman produced numerous enormously successful records for the Temptations. Among the many soul classic songs Whitfield co-wrote, produced, and/or arranged are "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "Ain't Too Proud to Beg," "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)," "(I Know) I'm Losing You," "Cloud Nine," "War," "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone," "I Can't Get Next to You," and "Smiling Faces Sometimes." Norman's work at Motown not only beget substantial record sales and various Grammy Awards, but also helped create the whole lowdown funky Motown sound. Moreover, Whitfield was a major instrumental figure in the late 60s psychedelic soul sub-genre. However, Norman became increasingly dissatisfied working with Gordy and left Motown to form his own label Whitfield Records in the mid 70s. Whitfield scored a massive #1 hit smash with the supremely rousing and syncopated "Car Wash" by Rose Royce in 1976. In the early 80s Norman started working again with Motown; he produced the 1983 hit single "Sailing Away" by the Temptations and produced the soundtrack for the movie "The Last Dragon" in 1985. Whitfield and frequent songwriting collaborator Barrett Strong were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004. In 2005 Norman plead guilty to income tax evasion charges and was placed under house arrest. Whitfield died at age 67 from complications of diabetes on September 16, 2008 in Lake Tahoe, California.