On a visit to the Strong house
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2025 4:50 pm
Mr. Strong was a teenager when he met Gordy, a friend of his sister. , 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 new song,” according to the Motown Museum. “He explained to her the thing he wanted most at that moment was not love but money. Barrett Strong was in the studio that day and heard them working.”
“He slid next to me on the piano bench, playing away and joining telegram database 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 have to think twice about who I could get to sing my song. Barrett was it.”
Mr. Strong explained it a different way, telling the New 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, and then 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, Maybe So” in 1960, weren’t hits.
In 1961, he left Motown for other studios but was lured back a few years later by an opportunity to write 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 songs for the Temptations, including “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.”
There are competing versions of the origin of “Money.”
“Gordy was working with Motown songwriter and office administrator Janie Bradford on a new song,” according to the Motown Museum. “He explained to her the thing he wanted most at that moment was not love but money. Barrett Strong was in the studio that day and heard them working.”
“He slid next to me on the piano bench, playing away and joining telegram database 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 have to think twice about who I could get to sing my song. Barrett was it.”
Mr. Strong explained it a different way, telling the New 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, and then 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, Maybe So” in 1960, weren’t hits.
In 1961, he left Motown for other studios but was lured back a few years later by an opportunity to write 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 songs for the Temptations, including “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone.”