{"id":58070,"date":"2023-01-30T07:53:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T07:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/30\/motowns-barrett-strong-known-for-money-dies-at-81-national-2\/"},"modified":"2023-01-30T07:53:46","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T07:53:46","slug":"motowns-barrett-strong-known-for-money-dies-at-81-national-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/showbizztoday.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/30\/motowns-barrett-strong-known-for-money-dies-at-81-national-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Motown\u2019s Barrett Strong, known for \u2018Money,\u2019 dies at 81 – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Barrett Strong<\/a>, one of Motown<\/a>\u2018s founding artists and most gifted songwriters who sang lead on the company\u2019s breakthrough single \u201cMoney (That\u2019s What I Want)\u201d and later collaborated with Norman Whitfield on such classics as \u201cI Heard It Through the Grapevine,\u201d \u201cWar\u201d and \u201cPapa Was a Rollin\u2019 Stone,\u201d has died. He was 81.<\/p>\n

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His death was announced Sunday on social media by the Motown Museum, which did not immediately provide further details.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarrett was not only a great singer and piano player, but he, along with his writing partner Norman Whitfield, created an incredible body of work,\u201d Motown founder Berry Gordy said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Strong had yet to turn 20 when he agreed to let his friend Gordy, in the early days of building a recording empire in Detroit, manage him and release his music. Within a year, he was a part of history as the piano player and vocalist for \u201cMoney,\u201d a million-seller released early in 1960 and Motown\u2019s first major hit. Strong never again approached the success of \u201cMoney\u201d on his own, and decades later fought for acknowledgement that he helped write it. But, with Whitfield, he formed a productive and eclectic songwriting team.<\/p>\n

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While Gordy\u2019s \u201cSound of Young America\u201d was criticized for being too slick and repetitive, the Whitfield-Strong team turned out hard-hitting and topical works, along with such timeless ballads as \u201cI Wish It Would Rain\u201d and \u201cJust My Imagination (Running Away with Me).\u201d With \u201cI Heard it Through the Grapevine,\u201d they provided an up-tempo, call-and-response hit for Gladys Knight and the Pips and a dark, hypnotic ballad for Marvin Gaye, his 1968 version one of Motown\u2019s all-time sellers.<\/p>\n

As Motown became more politically conscious late in the decade, Barrett-Whitfield turned out \u201cCloud Nine\u201d and \u201cPsychedelic Shack\u201d for the Temptations and for Edwin Starr the protest anthem \u201cWar\u201d and its widely quoted refrain, \u201cWar! What is it good for? Absolutely \u2026 nothing!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith `War,\u2019 I had a cousin who was a paratrooper that got hurt pretty bad in Vietnam,\u201d Strong told LA Weekly in 1999. \u201cI also knew a guy who used to sing with (Motown songwriter) Lamont Dozier that got hit by shrapnel and was crippled for life. You talk about these things with your families when you\u2019re sitting at home, and it inspires you to say something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n