Uriel Jones replaced the ailing Benny Benjamin on drums. Bob Babbitt replaced James Jamerson on bass, while Dennis Coffey and Wah-Wah Watson came in on guitar. Jones tells Nelson George that “Cloud Nine” “began as a beat on the cymbal ... He’d have you sit and play that two or three minutes by itself, and he’d tell you to add a certain beat on the foot. Actually, what he’s doing is just listening to see what he wants to add to it ... A lot of times we’d just sit and play and just rap on the tune until somebody just opens up and does something. We’d have as many as twelve or thirteen guys in there just grooving on the rhythm.”
“Cloud Nine” experiments with structure, rough social commentary and vocal trade-offs in the context of a lyric that accepts, or at least sympathizes with drug use. Many were stunned. The adrenaline rush, the funk, the freaky instrumentation and the social realism that Whitfield and the Temptations strung out on “Cloud Nine,” “Psychedelic Shack,” “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today),” and especially “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” directly influenced Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Gamble and Huff, Barry White, among many others, and eventually led to the extended grooves and shameless hedonism of disco.
Gradually Whitfield’s experimentation with the Tempt’s yielded diminishing returns and he turned his attention elsewhere. In 1970 he produced the uncompromising “War” for the leather-lunged Edwin Starr, and in 1971 he worked more paranoid magic with the Undisputed Truth’s “Smiling Faces Sometimes.”
In 1976, he left Motown and formed his own label, Whitfield, and scored the gold soundtrack for the movie Car Wash, performed by his new group, Rose Royce. Royce, with lead singer Gwen Dickey, also hit with “I Wanna Get Next To You,”, and “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” which Madonna took to No. 1 almost twenty years later.
Norman Whitfield (along with Barrett Strong) has been honored with the National Academy of Songwriters’ Lifetime Achievement Award, but he still awaits induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor that is long overdue.
Like his tax bill.
Article comments
1 - Temple A. Stark
Well it only took a week, but I put this one up on Advance.net
It's something to do during my lunch break.
Don't forget to let your contacts know about the promotion there. Hundreds of thousands read it there.
Thanks.
Ps - that's what I'm telling people today. I liked how you ended it ;-)
2 - Eric Olsen
thanks! (hee hee)
3 - Eric Olsen
I am always astonished to hear about smart successful people who think the IRS is somehow not going to notice if they don't pay taxes for, I don't know, five years or so. Don't their accountants notice?
4 - Aaman
Like Al Capone?
5 - Eric Olsen
sure, but I thinking a bit more recently like Willie Nelson
6 - Temple Stark
Or um, Richard Hatch, Survivor dude.
Well, if you don't count the smart and successful part ;)
Guess he was hiding SOME of his assets.
7 - Aaron Smith
My name is Aaron Smith (Duck). I was very fortunate to work with and for Norman Whitfield. I met him at the 20 Grand in Detroit when I was touring with Chuck Jackson. Norman hired me to play drums with The Undisputed Truth and also hired me for studio work. My first session for him was a Temptations session. We did Smiling Faces which later became a big hit for The Undisputed Truth. I toured with The Undisputed Truth and continued to do studio work at "Hitsville" when I was home. I had the great fortune to play drums on Papa Was A Rolling Stone.
I would like to know where Norman Whitfield is living now, or how I can get in contact with him. Any help with this is appreciated. He is an important figure in my life.
Thanks
8 - tax
Wow, $2m. Actually I feel bad for Norman Whitfield. In a busy life it can be possible to put paperwork and admin to the bottom of the pile.
Then difficult to go back over complex earnings etc.
I'm sure it won't happen again after this.