Barrett Strong, Motown icon and ‘Money’ singer, dies at 81

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NEW YORK (AP) — Barrett Strong, one of Motown’s founding artists and most talented songwriter who sang lead on the company’s hit single “Money (That’s What I Want)” and later collaborated with Norman Whitfield on classics like “I Heard It Through” , “War” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”. He was 81 years old.

The Motown Museum announced his death Sunday via social media, and did not immediately provide further details.

“Not only was Barrett an amazing singer and pianist, but, along with his writing partner Norman Whitfield, he created an incredible body of work,” Motown founder Berry Gordy said in a statement.

Strong was just 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 part of history as the pianist and vocalist for “Money,” a million-seller released in early 1960 that was Motown’s first major hit. Strong never again came close to the success of “Money” on his own, and decades later he fought for recognition that he helped write it. But, with Whitfield, he put together a productive and eclectic songwriting team.

While Gordy’s “Sound of Young America” ​​was criticized for being too glossy and repetitive, Whitfield-Strong’s team delivered stern and thematic work, along with timeless ballads like “I Wish It Would Rain” and “Just My Imagination (Run With Me)”. With “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” they delivered an up-tempo, call-and-response song for Gladys Knight and the Pips and a dark, hypnotic ballad for Marvin Gaye, his 1968 version, one of Motown’s all-time sellers.

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As Motown became more politically conscious late in the decade, Barrett Whitfield penned “Cloud Nine” and “Psychedelic Shack” for The Temptations and for Edwin Starr’s protest anthem “War” and his widely quoted, “War! What’s It for? Nothing?” never!”

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“With ‘War’,” Strong told LA Weekly in 1999, “I had a cousin who was a paratrooper who was badly wounded in Vietnam. He was badly wounded by shrapnel and crippled for life. You talk about these things with your family when you’re sitting at home, and it inspires you to say something about it.”

Other hits for Whitfield-Strong, mostly for the Temptations, included “I Can’t Get Next to You”, “That’s the Way Love Is” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” (sometimes spelled “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”) “). Artists whose songs they have covered have ranged from The Rolling Stones (Just My Fantasy) and Aretha Franklin (I Hope It Rains) to Bruce Springsteen (“War”) and Al Green (“I Can’t Be On Your Side”).

Strong spent part of the 1960s recording for other labels, leaving Motown again in the early 1970s and producing a handful of solo albums, including “Stronghold” and “Love is You”. In 2004, he was voted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which cites him as “a pivotal figure in Motown’s formative years”.

Music by Strong and other Motown writers later appeared in the Broadway hit “Ain’t They 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 to play the piano without the need for lessons, and with his sisters formed a local gospel group, the Powerful Singers. In his teens, he became acquainted with artists such as Franklin, Smokey Robinson, and Gordy, who admired his writing and piano playing. Ironically, “Money” with its opening cry, “The best things in life are free / But you can give them to the birds and the bees”, will lead to a fight – over the money.

Initially listed among the writers, Strong often spoke of his innovation with his piano blitz while jamming to Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” in the studio. But only decades later did he learn that Motown had removed his name from the credits, costing him royalties for a folk standard covered by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and many others and a souvenir on John Lennon’s jukebox. Strong’s legal alibi was weakened because he took so long to ask for his name back. (Jordy is one of the song’s credited writers, and his lawyers claimed Strong’s name only appeared due to a clerical error.)

“Songs outlast people,” Strong told The New York Times in 2013. “The real reason Motown does business is publishing. Records were just a way to get songs out to the public. The real money is in publishing, and if you’re publishing, hang on to it. That’s all there is to it. If you give it up, you give up your life and your legacy. Once you’re gone, it’s on These songs are in action.”

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