I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Encyclopedia II - I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Original Motown versions

I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Original Motown versions

I Heard It Through the Grapevine - No. 1: The Miracles and No. 2: The Isley Brothers

Norman Whitfield first recorded "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" in early 1967 with Smokey Robinson & the Miracles as the vocalists. During the 1960s, Motown held Quality Control meetings each Friday morning to determine which new recordings would be released as singles. The Quality Control staff voted as a democracy, with Motown chief Berry Gordy also holding veto power. During one of those meetings, Whitfield presented the Miracles' "Grapevine", which was not chosen for release. Undaunted, Whitfield had The Isley Brothers re-record the song; their version also failed to gain a release.

I Heard It Through the Grapevine - No. 3: Marvin Gaye

Still determined that he and Barrett Strong had written a hit, Whitfield had "Grapevine" recorded a third time. Re-imagining the soul song as a slower, psychedelic-inspired record, Whitfield had Marvin Gaye record the lead vocal, with The Andantes on background vocals and Motown's studioband The Funk Brothers playing a voodoo-like instrumental track.

It took Marvin Gaye two months to complete his recording of the song, which he worked on during April and May of 1967. Whifield had Gaye's lead vocal arranged just above his actual register, a trick he had used with David Ruffin on Temptations songs such as "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" in order to elicit a rawer vocal from the singer as he strained to hit the high notes. The trick worked, and Gaye's pained lead on "Grapevine", contrasted with the softer vocals of the Andantes, made Whitfield sure he had finally recorded a hit. Motown label chief Berry Gordy was not impressed, however, and, after "Grapevine" failed a third time at a Friday morning Quality Control Meeting, ordered Whitfield to "stop bothering [him] about that song".

I Heard It Through the Grapevine - No. 4: Gladys Knight & the Pips

Ignoring Gordy's command, Whitfield recorded a fourth version of the song, an up-tempo gospel-styled record sung by Gladys Knight & the Pips. The Atlanta, Georgia-based act had just joined the label the year before, and had to this point been relegated to the status of second-stringers. After Whitfield presented them with the demo tapes for "Grapevine", Gladys Knight, Bubba Knight, William Guest, and Edward Patten snuck a reel-to-reel tape recorder out of Motown and worked for several weeks on their vocal arrangement. To make the song, originally written from the point-of-view of a male, suitable for Gladys Knight, the first line of the second verse ("I know a man ain't supposed to cry/But these tears I can't hold inside") was altered to make it gender-neutral ("Take a good look at these tears in my eyes/Baby, these tears I can't hold inside").

When Whitfield completed the Pips' version of "Grapevine", he sequestered Berry Gordy and had him listen to it. After some additional convincing from the Pips, Gordy allowed the Pips' version of "Grapevine" to be issued as a single. Motown put little promotional support behind the single, and the Pips had to rely on their connections with various dee jays across the United States to get their record played.

Gladys Knight & the Pips' "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" reached the number-one position on the Billboard Black Singles (R&B) chart on November 25, 1967, and stayed there for six weeks, making it the group's second R&B number one after 1961's "Every Beat of My Heart". It reached number-two on the Billboard Pop Singles singles chart the same month, with The Monkees' "Daydream Believer" holding on to the top spot. It was Motown's best-selling single up to that point.

I Heard It Through the Grapevine - Revisiting the Marvin Gaye version

Whitfield, however, wasn't entirely satisfied, because he had taken a liking to the Marvin Gaye version. He asked Berry Gordy for the permission to release Gaye's "Grapevine" as a single, but Gordy didn't think Gaye's version would be a hit, especially after Knight's version was a hit. In 1968, Whitfield managed to have Gaye's "Grapevine" included as a last-minute addition to Gaye's 1968 album In the Groove. The official single for In the Groove, "You", made it to number thirty-four on the pop charts, while "Grapevine" became the most-played and requested track from the album. The nation's dee jays, who had been playing Gaye's "Grapevine" directly from the album for several weeks, began requesting the song's release as a single, which was finally done in the autumn of 1968.

Gaye's version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" outsold Gladys Knight and the Pips' version, and until the release of The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" twenty months later, it was the biggest hit single ever released on Motown. It stayed at the top of the Billboard Pop Singles chart for seven weeks, from December 7, 1968 to January 18, 1969, when it was knocked out of the top spot by Tommy James & the Shondells' "Crimson And Clover." Gaye's "Grapevine" also held the number-one position on the R&B chart during the same seven weeks, and stayed at number-one in the United Kingdom for three weeks staring on March 26, 1969.

The In the Groove album was re-issued as I Heard It Through the Grapevine after the success of the hit single. Gaye's "Grapevine" was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. In the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, published in 2004, Gaye's version of the song was placed at number eighty.

Because of the success of both versions of the song, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" was both the first and last number-one song on the Billboard R&B chart in 1968: the Pips version was number-one the first week of January, while the Marvin Gaye version was number one the first week of December. Knight was not pleased that Gaye's version of the song usurped the success of her own. She later stated that Gaye's version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" was recorded over an instrumental track Whitfield had prepared for a scrapped Pips song, an allegation Gaye denied in interviews.

Meanwhile, The Miracles' version later appeared as an album track on their 1968 Special Occasion LP. The Isleys' version remains unreleased to this day.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Original Motown versions", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki