NORMAN WHITFIELD DEAD AT 65
Soul legend NORMAN WHITFIELD has died after a lengthy battle with diabetes. He was 65.
The Motown producer and songwriter penned some of soul music’s biggest hits for acts like The Temptations and Marvin Gaye.
He co-wrote and produced classics like I Heard It Through The Grapevine, War and Papa Was Rolling Stone.
A Harlem, New York native, Whitfield first made it big in the early 1960s when he arrived at Berry Gordy’s Motown as a songwriter. He was just 19 at the time.
He took over all production for The Temptations and became the soul group’s leading songwriter in 1966.
Whitfield often teamed up with fellow songwriter Barrett Strong to pen ballads like I Could Never Love Another and Just My Imagination.
He left Motown in 1973 to form his own label and enjoyed success with disco soul band Rose Royce, but he returned to the famous soul music record label in the early 1980s to produce the Temptations’ Sail Away album.
He spent much of the last 20 years battling health and legal problems - he was convicted in 2005 of failing to report his royalty income from the late 1990s to the U.S. tax authorities. He avoided jail because of his ill health.
(KL/WN&WNWC/IG) WENN - BREAKING MUSIC NEWS - 17 September 2008 ————————————————————————–
Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com)
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