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He may not have been the first to take it into the charts, but there’s no doubt that it’s Marvin Gaye’s majestic version of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” that will forever be remembered.

Marvin Gaye Song facts

Composer
Barrett Strong/Norman Whitfield

Genre
Soul

Album
In The Groove

Year of Release
1968

UK Chart Position
1 Written in 1967 by the Motown hit-making team of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the song had already been recorded by The Miracles, The Isley Brothers and Gaye himself before Gladys Knight And The Pips first scored chart success with it. Spurred on by that success, Whitfield persuaded Motown’s boss, Berry Gordy, to give Gaye a second chance at recording it. And the rest, as they say, is history. The combination of Gaye’s wonderfully tortured delivery with Strong and Whitfield’s unsettling production and simple lyrics lends the song a striking realism it’s easy to believe in Gaye’s pain here. The public obviously agreed, as the single eventually sold more than two-and-a-half million copies, becoming Motown’s most successful hit and taking Gaye’s career to another level.

Marvin Gaye talks about Gladys Knight recording "I Heard It Through The Grapevine".

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye on artists' rights: "I don't know why Gladys is labouring under that misapprehension . . . I love Gladys very much, she's great"
 
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Gladys Knight

  Gladys Knight and The Pips

That opening 'bom-bo-bo-bom-bom' is enough to make the hairs stand up on my neck

Andrez
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