WHEN the pressure grew too much, Motown producer Norman Whitfield disappeared off the face of the earth. Quitting the studio overnight without explanation, he drove from Los Angeles through the desert to Las Vegas. “We’d set off in his Jensen [convertible sports car] at 3am,” remembers The Undisputed Truth’s lead singer Joe “Pep” Harris, one of the musicians who’d accompany Whitfield on such trips. “We’d wake up in daylight, we’re in the damn car, people walking up and down the damn street! He’d tell the studio, ‘I’m in Vegas.’ ‘Say what?’ Then he’d tell them: ‘Keep working. The record ain’t close to being finished.’”
“Norman had a credit line at Caesars Palace of $5 million,” says Duane Moody, Whitfield’s former manager and PR. “He’d drive to Vegas to feed his energy and competitive spirit. Norman didn’t smoke, drink or get high, but he loved gambling. Norman loved shooting dice and playing craps for two to three days straight, putting $20– 30,000 on a number. He used the energy he got from that to write another Temptations song.”