Norman Whitfield, songwriter and producer who co-wrote a string of Motown classics including "War," "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," has died. He was 67.
A spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Whitfield died there Tuesday. He suffered from complications of diabetes and had recently emerged from a coma, The Detroit Free Press reported.
The New York-born Whitfield was a longtime Motown producer who during the 1960s and '70s injected rock and psychedelic touches into the label's soul music.
Many of his biggest hits were co-written with Barrett Strong, with whom he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004. He and Strong won the Grammy in 1972 for best R&B song for the Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone."
Many of Whitfield's songs from late '60s and early '70s have a strong political tone, including the Temptations' 1970 "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)," and Edwin Starr's 1970 "War."
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