WJ56: Cathy & Steve sing ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ (Cover)

World Jam 56 (50s/60s Theme) 01/05/2021, cover of ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye from his 1968 album, ‘In The Groove’, recorded remotely using Zoom & Jamulus software. Thanks to the amazing Jamulus WorldJam community at worldjam.vip for making this possible!

GreggJC Bass (charts/transcriptions/tabs & useful links – website under construction) http://www.greggcollingham.uk/

Lead Vocals: Cathy Matthews & Steve Hutchinson
Backing Vocals: Tracy Shankland
Sax: Roger Niesten
Lead Guitar: Nick Cox
Keys/Piano: Martin Waugh
Bass: Gregg Collingham
Drums: Peter West

"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966. The first recording of the song to be released was produced by Whitfield for Gladys Knight & the Pips and released as a single in September 1967. It went to number one on the Billboard R&B Singles chart and number two on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and shortly became the biggest selling Motown single to date.

The Miracles were the first to record the song in 1966, but their version wasn't released until August 1968 when it was included on their album ‘Special Occasion’.

The Marvin Gaye version was the second to be recorded, in the beginning of 1967, but only the third to be released. It was placed on his 1968 album ‘In the Groove’, a year and a half later, where it gained the attention of radio disc jockeys, and Motown founder Berry Gordy finally agreed to its release as a single in October 1968, when it went to the top of the Billboard Pop Singles chart for seven weeks from December 1968 to January 1969 and overtook the Gladys Knight & the Pips' version of being the biggest hit single on the Motown label (Tamla).

Instrumentation was by the Funk Brothers (including James Jamerson on Bass) and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

The Gaye recording has since become an acclaimed soul classic. In 1998 the song was inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame for "historical, artistic and significant" value. In 2004, it was placed 81 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. And on the commemorative fortieth anniversary of the Billboard Hot 100 issue of Billboard magazine in June 2008, Marvin Gaye's "Grapevine" was ranked sixty-fifth.

In addition to being released several times by Motown artists, the song has been recorded by a range of musicians including Creedence Clearwater Revival, Roger Troutman and The Slits.

"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" has been used twice in television commercials – each time using session musicians recreating the style of the Marvin Gaye version, the most well-known being the 1985 Levi's 501 commercial "Launderette”, featuring male model Nick Kamen.

Marvin Gaye's version of the song is used in the opening credits of ‘The Big Chill’ (1983) as each of the main characters gets to hear (through the "grapevine") about the death of their college friend, and then travels to his funeral; the song serves in an extradiegetic fashion to both unite the main characters' friendship and to locate it nostalgically for the viewer.

I do not own rights to this song - Copyright owners: UMG (on behalf of UNI/MOTOWN); UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, ARESA, Sony ATV Publishing, LatinAutor - SonyATV, SOLAR Music Rights Management, LatinAutorPerf, CMRRA, and 10 music rights societies