Barrett Strong (February 5, 1941 – January 29, 2023) was born in West Point, Mississippi and was an American singer and songwriter and the first artist to record a hit for Motown. He is best known for his work as a songwriter and some of his most famous work at Motown including the lyrics for many of the songs recorded by the Temptations.
Although, Barrett Strong was born in Mississippi, he grew up in Detroit where he sang and played piano with his four sisters in a gospel group called The Strong Sisters. While touring local churches, they befriended many soul stars including Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke.
Barrett Strong was just 18 when he agreed to let Berry Gordy manage him and release his music and was among the first artists signed to Berry Gordy’s fledgling label, Tamla Records. He want on to be the performer on the company’s first hit, “Money (That’s What I Want)”, which reached Number 2 US R&B chart in 1960. It went on to sell over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America.
“Money” was later recorded by several acts, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Kingsmen, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Searchers and Buddy Guy.
Barrett Strong claimed that he co-wrote “Money” with Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford, and his name appears on the song’s original copyright registration with the United States Copyright Office. However, Berry Gordy disputed these claims and said that Barrett Strong’s name was only included on the registration because of a clerical error.
In the mid-1960s, Barrett Strong became a Motown writer lyricist and teamed up with producer Norman Whitfield. Together, they wrote some of the most successful and critically acclaimed soul songs ever to be released by Motown, including “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” by both Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight & the Pips, “War” by Edwin Starr, “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)” by Paul Young, 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 many others.
Many of Strong and Whitfield’s songs had roots in political activism. Edwin Starr’s “War” was inspired by Barrett Strong’s cousin who was a paratrooper and was badly injured in Vietnam.
“I Heard It Through The Grapevine”, took its title from the days of the US Civil War, when the “grapevine telegraph” was a system of communication used by slaves. Barrett Strong heard the phrase on the streets of Chicago and took it to Whitfield and they worked it into a song about great romantic betrayal.
Smokey Robinson’s Miracles recorded it first, in 1966, but Berry Gordy decided not to release it. A year later, Marvin Gaye recorded his own version, but it was also not released as a single and was buried as an album track.
It was only when Gladys Knight & The Pips sped the song up, putting a lighter spin on its aching melody, that it got the seal of approval from Berry Gordy, and their version reached number two in 1967.
Marvin Gaye’s dark, hypnotic reading of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was finally released 11 months after the Pips’ version and became Motown’s biggest-selling single.
Barrett Strong received a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song in 1973 for “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”. Strong and Whitfield also co-wrote the ballad “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”, a 1971 Billboard Number 1 which was also the last Temptations single to feature original members Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams.
After Motown moved from Detroit, Michigan, to Los Angeles, California, Barrett Strong left the label and resumed his singing career with Epic in 1972. He then left Epic for Capitol Records, where he recorded two albums in the 1970s.
In the 1980s, Barrett Strong recorded “Rock It Easy” on an independent label, and wrote “You Can Depend on Me”, which appeared on The Dells’ “The Second Time” album in 1988.
Barrett Strong was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.
Strong released his album “Stronghold II” which he wrote and composed in collaboration with Eliza Neals in 2008, in digital format only.
In 2010, Strong appeared in “Misery”, his first music video in his fifty years of recording music, co-produced by Eliza Neals and Martin “Tino” Gross.
Barrett Strong died in Detroit on January 29, 2023, at the age of 81.
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