Hitmaker Barrett Strong has died
Barrett Strong was tinkering with Ray Charles’s song on the piano when he wrote “Money (That’s What I Want),†which sold a million copies and helped ignite the Motown fortune.
Strong died at 81 on January 29, a week before his 82nd birthday.
Mr. Strong was an artist and songwriter who was present for the birth of Motown and played a key role in classic hits for the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Edwin Starr.
Strong eventually went behind the scenes as a songwriter, teaming with producer Norman Whitfield in the mid-1960s to cowrite smash hits for Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight & the Pips (“I Heard it Through the Grapevineâ€), Edwin Starr (“Warâ€) and the Undisputed Truth (“Smiling Faces Sometimesâ€).
Mr. Strong was from West Point, Mississippi.