Berry Gordy's decision to can Marvin Gaye's version of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" may have paved the way for the career resurgence of Gladys Knight and The Pips' career, but it also gave credence to the detractors of Motown who claim that it was nothing but an assembly line.
Legend has it that Barrett Strong came up with the idea while walking down a street - "I heard people say it all the time (but) nobody wrote a song about it". Upon his return to the Motown fold, he began working with Norman Whitfield who took the idea in many different directions. The Isley Brothers claim that they were the first to get a crack at it but tapes of that recording remain undocumented and unavailable. It is confirmed that Whit a version of the song with Smokey Robinson and The Miracles but it was shelved after being deemed unworthy by the Quality Control Staff. Rethinking the setting, he took the song to Marvin Gaye who assisted in crafting the ominous arrangement that we know today. Once again, it was shot down by the Quality Control team who declared it too different when compared to the records currently residing in the top five of the charts. Berry Gordy, in particular, was not impressed with the dark turn Whitfield had in mind for the Prince of Motown and the recording was shelved while Holland - Dozier - Holland's eighteen month old production of "Your Unchanging Love" became Marvin's next single, peeking at #7 R&B and #33 pop.
Whitfield took the song to Gladys and Company who worked up a vocal arrangement and began testing it during their live performances before committing it to vinyl. Their version would reach #1 on the R&B chart, #2 pop, and become the company's biggest selling single of 1967. Now that the title had recognition value, Whitfield used Marvin's version to fill out Gaye's latest LP, "In The Groove". DJs began playing "Grapevine" off the album and the response was so strong that it became the number 1 song on Detroit radio and finally Gordy was forced to release it as a single. Two weeks later, it knocked Diana Ross and The Supremes' "Love Child" out of the top pop slot and settled in for a seven week stretch, finally unseated by "Crimson And Clover" in February of 1969. It also topped the R&B charts for the same amount of weeks and became Motown's biggest selling single ever until The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" took that honor nearly two years later.
Marvin's vocal on "Grapevine" managed to convey not only the pain of being of left for another - check out the clipped whimper on "because you mean that much to me", but the embarrassment of having been left out of the loop while the whole world seemed to know what a fool he had been - check out just about anywhere else in the song. Meanwhile, insidious rhythms lead him down dark halls filled with venomous whispers and horror movie strings in a mono mix that puts the listener in a closet with nothing to do but peer through the keyhole.
Prior to "Grapevine", his 30th single to grace the pop chart in a six year span, Marvin had only reached the top ten eight times, four of which were duets with Tammi Terrell, and it was more than a long deserved number one. It marked the point where the man with Nat "King" Cole aspirations ceased to be the dangerously handsome pop star who made white woman wonder while they "hitch-hiked" with their boyfriends, and became the icon of modern soul that he is today.
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