Norman Whitfield RIP Part 2 Posted by Junior

Norman Whitfield (1943 – September 16, 2008) Marvin Gaye: That's The Way Love Is and Cloud Nine From: That's the Way Love Is [Motown, 1967] As a follow up to yesterday's post on Whitfield. The news is now sadly confirmed and I wanted to add a couple of tracks from his work with Marvin Gaye throughout the sixties. In my mind at least Whitfield was a major factor in Gaye's transition from being a smooth pop soul singer to the earthier , more experimental singer who became a legend. The obvious choice to prove this would be I Heard It Through The Grapevine (produced and written by Whitfield) but I doubt there's few people who can't hear that song in their heads as soon as the title is mentioned so instead above are a couple of the tracks the two crafted together from Gaye's 1970 album That's The Way Love Is. The title track is a great example of Whitfield taking a song he'd written for one group (in this case the Isleys) and turning it into something entirely different. Gaye's version is swimming with psychedelic soul as Whitfield slows the tempo way down from the original and lets Gaye deliver a great vocal over the top. Gaye's version of Cloud Nine offers an interesting comparison to the Temptations version yesterday and works extremely well in it's own right as Whitfield once again shows his skill at taking his won song and crafting something new out of it. I'll leave it up to you to decide which version you prefer. RIP