I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Tax Problems for Norman Whitfield

Norman, what were you thinking?

One of Motown's greatest wongwriters and producers pleaded guilty Tuesday to failing to report more than $2 million in royalty income. He admitted to failing to file tax returns on about $600,000 a year between 1995 and 1999. Whitfield, 64, is scheduled to be sentenced April 18.

"Um, I forgot?"

Norman Whitfield stands as the most adventuresome and funky of the giant Motown songwriter/producers (Holland/Dozier/Holland, Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy himself), and his greatest work: “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “War” and his seven-years of hits with the Temptations, ranks among the finest pop music of the last fifty years.

Norman Whitfield was born in Harlem in 1943 where he developed twin interests in music and billiards. Whitfield’s family fortuitously ended up in Detroit when his father’s car broke down on the way back to New York from an aunt’s funeral in California.

By 18 Whitfield had already written and produced local hits for the Distants and the Synetics. The persistent, observant youth could be found loitering about the Motown office, “always staring at something,” Berry Gordy told Nelson George in Where Did Our Love Go? Tall, thin and quiet, Whitfield somewhat creepily watched for a year before he was hired in 1962 by Gordy at $15 per week to listen to demos and rate them for future release as part of Motown’s mysterious Quality Control department. Following two long years of rating and waiting, Whitfield finally wrote and produced his first songs for Motown, the Velvelettes’ “Needle In a Haystack” and the Marvelettes’ “Too Many Fish In the Sea.”

The mild success of these songs led a call up to the majors, The Temptations. The group with “five lead singers” (David Ruffin - replaced by Dennis Edwards in 1968, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin), the temptin’ Temptations became the male vocal group of the ‘60s and the early-’70s. Mellifluous harmonies, dynamic dance steps, and killer material provided primarily by Smokey Robinson and Norman Whitfield (with cowriters Eddie Holland and Barrett Strong), yielded 43 Top Ten hits over 25 years.

After recording a series of unsuccessful singles with Motown beginning in 1962, The Tempt’s hooked up with Smokey Robinson for their first smash “The Way You Do the Things You Do” in 1964. Whitfield’s first attempt was “Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)” which climbed to No. 26 on the pop chart, disappointing by Motown standards. Whitfield had to again step aside for the next year-and-a-half as Smokey Robinson cranked out hit after hit for the group including their signature tune, “My Girl.” After Smokey’s “Get Ready” stalled at No. 29 in 1966, Whitfield was brought back in to take another swing.

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