His son Chelson Strong confirmed the death but didn’t provide a selected cause.
Opening with an ebullient piano riff and the indelible lyrics “One of the best things in life are free/But you possibly can give them to the birds and bees,” the 1960 release of “Money” was a breakthrough moment for Berry Gordy Jr.’s nascent recording company, which was headquartered in a Detroit house emblazoned with the sign “Hitsville U.S.A.”
Later covered by the Beatles, the Doors and the Rolling Stones, amongst other bands and performers, “Money” quickly shot to No. 2 on the R&B chart and No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. That spring, David A. Carson, in “Grit, Noise, & Revolution,” wrote: “It gave the impression of everyone was turning up the radio to listen to the pounding piano riffs that kicked off” the song.
Mr. Strong was a teen when he met Gordy, a friend of his sister. On a visit to the Strong house, Gordy heard Mr. Strong playing Ray Charles songs on the piano and invited him to the studio to record.
There are competing versions of the origin of “Money.”
“Gordy was working with Motown songwriter and office administrator Janie Bradford on a recent song,” in response to the Motown Museum. “He explained to her the thing he wanted most at that moment was not love but money. Barrett Strong was within the studio that day and heard them working.”
“He slid next to me on the piano bench, playing away and joining me singing the chorus,” Berry wrote in “To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown.” His voice was soulful and passionate. I didn’t should think twice about who I could get to sing my song. Barrett was it.”
Mr. Strong explained it a special way, telling the Recent York Times in 2013, in an account backed up a recording engineer, that the song emerged from him riffing on a Charles song. Gordy heard the instrumentals, Mr. Strong said, after which he, Gordy and Bradford wrote the lyrics.
The matter was never quite settled. Gordy and Mr. Strong squabbled over royalties and credit for “Money,” with Mr. Strong accusing Motown of removing him from copyright documents. Either way, whatever fame Mr. Strong earned on radios across America didn’t quite last. His follow-up songs, including “Yes, No, Possibly So” in 1960, weren’t hits.
In 1961, he left Motown for other studios but was lured back a number of years later by a chance to write down songs. With producer Norman Whitfield, he co-wrote “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” performed by Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight & the Pips; “War” for Edwin Starr; and several other songs for the Temptations, including “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.”
Within the case of “War,” Mr. Strong was inspired by current events.
“I had a cousin who was a paratrooper that got hurt pretty bad in Vietnam,” Mr. Strong told L.A. Weekly. “I also knew a man who used to sing with Lamont Dozier that got hit by shrapnel and was crippled for all times. You discuss these items along with your families if you’re sitting at home, and it inspires you to say something about it.”
Absolutely nothing, hearken to me, oh
Barrett Strong Jr. was born Feb. 5, 1941, in West Point, Miss., the one son of six children. He was 4 when the family moved to Detroit, and his father, a minister, soon bought him a piano. He began singing in middle school, which he attended with Aretha Franklin and Dozier, in response to the Detroit Free Press.
“I believed I used to be really a star then,” he told the paper.
Before connecting with Gordy, he performed at local music joints around Detroit.
Mr. Strong drifted out and in of music, working at Chrysler on the production line and at an automat restaurant, amongst other blue-collar jobs that supported his family. When Gordy moved Motown to Los Angeles within the early Seventies, Mr. Strong didn’t immediately need to move his family. He stayed in Detroit and signed with Epic Records, releasing two albums — “Stronghold” (1975) and “Live & Love” (1976), and only later moved to California.
His wife of 35 years, the previous Sandy White, died in 2002. Survivors include seven children and 10 grandchildren.
Mr. Strong never achieved the celebrity that Gordy did, partly because he was naive concerning the business of music.
“I never liked the business side,” he told the Free Press. “I loved the art. But I didn’t know anything back then.”
Still, he said he was satisfied together with his profession.
“I be ok with it,” Mr. Strong told the paper. “I did something. I did my part, what I used to be placed on this earth to do. I made people smile. I made people have babies. I made people do quite a lot of things. So I contributed something to my being here.”
