The Other Side Of The Grapevine: Schlockmania’s Top Ten Lesser-Known Norman Whitfield Productions

The name “Norman Whitfield” car­ries a lot of weight with fans of old-school funk and disco.  Your Humble Reviewer first dis­cov­ered this when he devel­oped a schol­arly inter­est in both gen­res dur­ing his col­lege days.  For those who might not know the name, Whitfield was a bril­liant writer and pro­ducer who cut a long string of clas­sic records from the early 1960’s through the early 1980’s, includ­ing “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” (both the Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight ver­sions) and “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” by the Temptations.  The pres­ence of the Whitfield name on a record label is akin to a trade­mark of qual­ity for genre devo­tees: whether it’s a hit or rar­ity, some­thing cre­ative and funky is bound to be going on within that record’s grooves.

Whitfield passed away in 2008 but his influ­ence lives on via sam­pling and the count­less R&B acts that have imi­tated his sig­na­ture cinematic-funk approach.  To cel­e­brate his birth­day, Schlockmania offers this trib­ute to his sto­ried career.  You’ll be spared a bio­graph­i­cal essay because there are plenty of resources that can han­dle the task bet­ter.  Excellent start­ing points include the fol­low­ing:  The Temptations by group founder Otis Williams, Berry Gordy’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy To Be Loved and the liner notes of count­less Motown reis­sue CD’s (the best place to start is The Norman Whitfield Sessions, a killer comp of Whitfield’s best cuts with Marvin Gaye that fea­tures a fan­tas­tic interview/biographical piece of the pro­ducer penned by Gaye’s biog­ra­pher David Ritz).  For a “Cliff’s Notes”-style overview of his career, the Wikipedia entry on Whitfield offers a nice, quick info-fix.  Anyone inter­ested in his career will find plenty to get started with in those places.

Instead, Your Humble Reviewer offers this top ten list of favorite lesser-known Whitfield moments.  Obvious choices like the hit ver­sions of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” or “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” have been delib­er­ately avoided so this list can take you deeper into the eso­teric and inter­est­ing areas of the Whitman cat­a­log.  This is a fan’s favorites list and hope­fully it will illus­trate the idio­syn­cratic genius that makes the Norman Whitfield sound so appealing.

“The End Of Our Road,” Marvin Gaye:  Gladys Knight had the hit with this tune but the best ver­sion is Marvin’s omi­nous, darkly-hued take.  As the Motown play­ers churn out a taut, small-combo jazz groove dom­i­nated a by a nag­ging, sitar-style gui­tar hook, Gaye wails with churchy author­ity as he puts and end to a negative-attraction love affair that has grown toxic.  A female back­ing cho­rus pro­vides excel­lent, per­cus­sive coun­ter­point to his vocal as orches­tra­tion creeps into its dark mood.  Why Martin Scorcese didn’t use this as the finale music for one of his gang­ster epics, we’ll never know…

“You Make Your Own Heaven And Hell Right Here On Earth,” The Undisputed Truth: the fol­lowup to the smash hit “Smiling Faces Sometimes” was too lengthy and moody to be a chart-topper but it’s the best thing this group ever cut. It flows into the speak­ers on fune­real organ and a gen­tly puls­ing bass line as the group out­lines how a person’s future is deter­mined by the moral­ity of the choices they make from their ear­li­est days.  Graceful strings and carefully-deployed horn stabs give it that great cin­e­matic grandeur that defined Whitfield’s 1970’s era record­ings.  It’s the great blax­ploita­tion film theme that never was.

“Take Me In Your Arms And Love Me,” Gladys Knight And The Pips:  this gem about roman­tic antic­i­pa­tion received its defin­i­tive wax­ing with Gladys at the helm.  She lays down a vocal that care­fully shifts between a seduc­tive coo and church-choir inten­sity to map out the song’s con­stantly shift­ing and surg­ing emo­tions.  Whitfield gives her fiery deliv­ery the ideal cush­ion by craft­ing a novel pro­duc­tion that uses a harp­si­chord as its hook and insis­tent rhythm-guitar strums to push the sound along.

“Smiling Faces Sometimes,” Rare Earth: as stated before, the Undisputed Truth had the big hit with this song but Your Humble Reviewer’s favorite ver­sion comes from Rare Earth’s Ma album.  It begins with fran­tic, crazed bab­bling in Spanish as the band creeps into focus via an acoustic guitar-led groove paced by lash­ings of jazzy horns.  Pete Hoorelbeke’s world-weary vocal down­grades the stern warn­ing pro­vided in the famil­iar hit ver­sion to an ironic, bit­ter rumi­na­tion.  The over­all mix­ture of ele­ments and styles achieves a haunt­ing sound that makes it a stun­ning rein­ven­tion on the part of Whitfield.

“You’ve Got My Soul On Fire,” The Temptations:  this deep-catalog Tempts clas­sic  about a dan­ger­ously addic­tive love affair deserves to be bet­ter known.  Whitfield off­sets the usual wah-wah-ed funk grooves of the early-1970’s era with an upfront acoustic gui­tar riff that gives the song a novel hook.  He also gets a dyna­mite lead vocal from Dennis Edwards, who tes­ti­fies in the utterly con­vinc­ing gospel style he was known for.

“It Should Have Been Me,” Yvonne Fair:  Whitfield gave one of his Gladys Knight clas­sics a mem­o­rable update for the 1970’s with this incen­di­ary ren­di­tion from cult diva Yvonne Fair.  As a metro­nomic drum machine per­co­lates in the back­ground, Fair builds from a soul­ful but gen­tle alto on the verses to bom­bas­tic, growl­ing vocal pyrotech­nics on the cho­rus.  Whitfield uses an effec­tive soft/loud dynamic to match her deliv­ery, using a gen­tle gui­tar lick and light strings on the verses that flower into a soaringly-sad string arrange­ment on the chorus.

“Sunrise,” Rose Royce:  the title track was the big hit from Whitfield’s sound­track for Car Wash but its best, most inven­tive cut was this epic, thor­oughly cin­e­matic instru­men­tal piece.  Starting with a sin­gle jazzy horn line, it builds up into a hyp­notic mass of constantly-shifting instru­men­tal lay­ers that include intri­cate gui­tar lines, insis­tent bass riffs, Latin-styled per­cus­sion, tart horns and ebbing-and-flowing strings.  Despite their disco tag, Rose Royce was a tal­ented band and this gem shows off their chops and skill for ensem­ble play­ing to beau­ti­ful effect.  It also shows that, as a writer and pro­ducer, Whitfield knew how to use this mul­ti­tal­ented group to breath­tak­ing effect.

“You + Me = Love,” The Undisputed Truth: this group, an endur­ing pet project for Whitfield, fol­lowed him to the Warner Brothers label in the late 1970’s.  He began to explore a more disco-tinged sound with the group that was along the lines of what he was con­cur­rently doing with Rose Royce.  This is their gem from this era, a throb­bing epic that lay­ers girl-group style vocals over a polyrhyth­mic back­ing track given fla­vor by ele­gant string and horn arrange­ments.  Be sure to nab the full album-length ver­sion, which shows off Whitfield’s skill at cre­at­ing inven­tively extended grooves for the dance floor.

“Wishing On A Star,” Rose Royce:  this doesn’t get as much play as “Car Wash” or “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore” but it may be the best song this group recorded.  It’s a ballad-with-a-beat told from the view­point of a spurned lover seek­ing rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and Whitfield draws out its pathos with a yearn­ing string arrange­ment and a groove that is dance­able yet med­i­ta­tive.  The final touch is Gwen Dickey’s grace­ful vocal, which rides the twists and turns of the song’s cin­e­matic arrange­ment with ease.

“Sail Away,” The Temptations: this unsung gem from the 1980’s-era Temptations cat­a­log is a Quiet Storm classic-waiting-to-happen. It finds the group unleash­ing their mul­ti­ple lead vocal stylings and knack for soul-satisfying har­monies on a stir­ring song about mis­un­der­stood lovers yearn­ing for free­dom from the neg­a­tive atti­tudes of oth­ers.  Whitfield gives their grand vocals the ideal back­drop by paint­ing an allur­ing sonic back­drop: lush strings and del­i­cate piano lines glide across a spar­tan groove anchored by a drum machine and a finger-popped bass line.  The end result flaw­lessly evokes the roman­tic fan­tasy cre­ated in the lyrics.

If you enjoyed this top ten, please click on over to Temple Of Schlock, where fel­low fan Chris Poggiali has writ­ten a com­pan­ion post on this topic that mixes albums with songs to cre­ate a whop­ping 25-selection list.  Once you’re there, stick around a while because it’s a great place to learn about exploita­tion cin­ema lore and obscu­ri­ties.  It even fea­tures a few pieces writ­ten by Yours Truly…