The Official Marvin Gaye Thread

[troubleman84]

MARVIN GAYE
(April 2, 1939 - April 1, 1984)

As one of the most gifted and most talented artists to emerge out of Detroit's Motown Records in the sixties, Marvin Gaye went on to become one of the most influential and innovative musical visionaries of the seventies and eighties. His 23-year career spanned over 40 hit singles and over 25 albums and influenced two generations of pop, R&B and soul artists ranging from Stevie Wonder to D'Angelo. By the time of his 1984 death at the hands of his clergyman father, he had been held as a musical icon. His death at 44 still leaves people to wonder what would've been as Marvin had staged a successful comeback a year before.

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. was born on April 2, 1939 in Washington, D.C. Born to a strict minister father Marvin Sr., he grew up as a shy, lonely child struggling with trying to please his father while at the same time distrusting him because of his strict discipline. Marvin Sr. raised Marvin, sisters Jeanne and Zeola, and brother Frances (later known as Frankie) under a religious Christian sect called the House of God, which mixed teachings of black Pentecostal and Hebrew Judaism. Marvin said his father would give him and his children beatings due to them missing a scripture from a chapter in the Bible. Marvin said he got the brunt of his father's whippings, which usually occurred after Marvin showed up three minutes late to school or when he used his father's hairbrush. Marvin's dad carried an open secret though that some said affected Marvin's psyche: according to Marvin's own mother, Marvin Sr. was a cross-dresser and though there was no evidence of him being homosexual, Alberta Gay said her husband's relatives were as effeminate as he was. Marvin began being teased in school for his father's behavior and due to their last name, was also being taunted for it.

However, Marvin began shining in his father's church singing gospel hymns starting at the age of three. By seven he had began playing the drums and piano by ear. At fourteen, he entered Cardozo High School in D.C. and joined a doo-wop group, the D.C. Tones as the drummer. Members of the group didn't know he could sing until few of them caught Marvin singing Johnnie Ray's signature hit, "Cry". As a teen, Marvin was influenced by doo-wop music, mainly by the sounds of groups like the Flamingos, the Moonglows and the Capris. He was also taken by jazz music having a like for singers like Nat "King" Cole, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. By seventeen, his relationship with his father was too intimidating and he decided to leave for a stint in the U.S. Air Forces where he'd hoped to be an air pilot. However, he found his hopes dashed and he wanted out, not being able to deal with the orders from his Sergeant. In 1957, he was given an honorable discharge with this cryptic message:

"Marvin Gay seems to have a problem with regimentation and authority."

Returning to D.C., he found his old group and they renamed themselves the Marquees performing in local D.C. clubs. Almost as soon as he returned, rock pioneer Bo Diddley spotted the quartet performing at Howard Theater and offered the group a contract with Okeh Records where they recorded their first single, "Wyatt Earp" b/w "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" in 1958. The record flopped but Diddley was soon to find another musician to help the group grow: Moonglows leader Harvey Fuqua. When Fuqua spotted the group, he decided to leave the original lineup of his group and hired them as "Harvey & the Moonglows" (or "the new Moonglows") signing them to the Chess Records label. With this lineup, Fuqua produced the group's hit "The 12 Commandments of Love". In 1959, Fuqua recorded Marvin on lead for the first time with the rock song, "Mama Loocie". The group toured until 1960 when certain group members decided to disband the group. Undeterred, Harvey took the still-ambitious Marvin to Detroit where he got him in contact with the prominent Gordy family. Meeting Harvey's girlfriend, Gwen Gordy, they signed him to a deal as a session musician in their Anna Records label. In late-1960 Marvin was introduced to Motown head Berry Gordy, the head of the fledgling Motown Records label. Instead of formally introducing himself to Gordy, Marvin began playing instruments around Berry's house and sang to the delight of those who were there to witness. Afterwards, Gordy wanted to sign Marvin and soon did so after Anna Records was absorbed by Berry in 1961.

Marvin signed with Motown's Tamla subsidiary and began to perform in the background to groups such as the Miracles, the Marvelettes and Stevie Wonder. That same year, he signed a solo contract as a singer to the label and changed his last name from GAY to GAYE inspired by Sam Cook's name change to Sam COOKE. This also, according to Marvin's biographer, liberated him from his father though Marvin would continue to struggle for his father's affection for the rest of his life. During this time, Marvin was already dating one of Berry's sisters, Anna, who would later be his first wife. Despite their 17-year age difference (Anna was 38; Marvin was 21), Marvin said he and Anna were smitten for each other. After his first album, The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, an album of Broadway standards, jazz covers and doo-wopish R&B tunes, bombed, Marvin co-wrote the Marvelettes' 1962 hit "Beechwood 45789" and later that year scored his first hit with "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", which featured an early incarnation of Martha and the Vandellas, a girl group who would rise to fame a year later with songs like "Heat Wave" and the Marvin co-write, "Dancing in the Street".

Marvin was also one of the first performers at the Motortown Revue, a series of shows where Motown-signed recording artists performed a series of venues around the country during the so-called 'chitlin' circuit". Marvin would soon rise to fame in 1963 with at least three top forty singles that year - the dance hit "Hitch Hike", the Brook Benton-inspired top ten pop hit, "Pride & Joy", and the gospel-rock of "Can I Get a Witness", which gave him his first exposure outside America. Marvin's other early hits included "Baby Don't You Do It", "Try It Baby", "You Are a Wonderful One", the Holland-Dozier-Holland composition, "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" and the Smokey Robinson compositions, "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar". Soon enough he was becoming Motown's leading male artist and in 1964, Motown hooked him up with Motown's first lady, Mary Wells. The duo recorded the album, Together, which included the hits "Once Upon a Time" and "What's the Matter with You Baby?"

Ironically, however, Wells left Motown due to complaints over her contract. Motown then recruited singer Kim Weston to become his new duet partner and in 1966, the duo recorded the hit "It Takes Two". When Weston left in 1967, Motown then recruited a singer from Philadelphia named Tammi Terrell, with whom he'd find his biggest duet success with. Thanks to recordings written and produced for them by Ashford & Simpson including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", "Your Precious Love" and "You're All I Need to Get By", the duo became a sensation. However, that feeling of success was short-lived: in late 1967 during a performance in Virginia, 22-year-old Terrell collapsed on stage from what was earlier viewed as exhaustion. However doctors, who examined Terrell, came back with a grim discovery: she had a malignant brain tumor. Terrell would struggle with her bout with brain cancer until dying in 1970 at the age of 24. Gaye, who had a close bond with Terrell, felt emotionally and psychologically damaged by Terrell's illness and death. Friends said Marvin never fully recovered from Tammi's death.

In 1968, Marvin returned to a solo career with the smash Norman Whitfield hit, "I Heard It through the Grapevine", which was already a big hit for Gladys Knight & the Pips, done in an Aretha Franklin-styled number. Marvin's haunting psychedelic blues version of the song became the signature version as it hit number-one in America and England selling over four million copies. By the end of the 1960s, Marvin, now in his thirties, was a multi-millionaire pop star with already over 30 hits in his credit. Despite the success, he felt trapped by Motown's well-crafted machine that he felt was using him as a puppet and meal ticket. After Tammi's death, Marvin escaped from public life and began to live a bohemian existence, refusing to shave, he grew a beard and wore jogging suits and a cap some called a "kufi" around his head. When he reemerged at Motown's Detroit studios in June of 1970, he recorded a song he had worked on with the Four Tops' Obie Benson and Motown staffer Al Cleveland called "What's Going On", a peaceful rant against the Vietnam War and its protests. When he presented the song to Berry Gordy at a party, Gordy thought Marvin, a well-established ladies' man, would ruin his pop image and refused to release it. However, Marvin held his ground refusing to record anymore for Motown unless they did release it. Through help from one of Motown's L.A. A&R men, "What's Going On" was released to radio in January of 1971 and became one of the fastest rising singles of the year. By February, it had already reached number-two on the pop charts and hit number-one on the R&B chart. Suddenly, Berry Gordy wanted more songs from a possible album therefore giving Marvin more freedom at the label.

That May, Motown issued the socially-conscious What's Going On album, which was partially inspired by his brother Frankie's Vietnam War travails. Featuring the environmentally-conscious "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" and the street anthem, "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" and album tracks such as "Save the Children", "Flying High in the Friendly Sky", "God is Love", "What's Happening Brother" and "Wholy Holy" (most of the tracks segued as a song cycle), the album was one of the first full-fledged socially conscious albums ever released by an R&B singer and after Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul, was one of the most successful pop albums released by a black artist selling over two million copies and yielding three top ten pop and number-one R&B singles each. Nearly 40 years later, What's Going On still remains Marvin Gaye's biggest landmark. Afterwards, Marvin was hailed as a musical visionary. In 1972, Marvin recorded more political songs including "You're the Man" and issued the soundtrack to the film, "Trouble Man", which he composed himself, its title track hitting the top ten. That same year, Marvin returned to his hometown of Washington, D.C. where he was given a key to the city.

However, behind the scenes, Marvin Gaye was already going through a downward spiral. First starting with cocaine addiction in the late sixties, Marvin had also had mounting problems with his first wife Anna. Separating in 1973 shortly after Marvin moved to Los Angeles, he began recording a contrasting follow-up to What's Going On. Though first viewed as a self-conscious ballad and later transformed as a funky political rant, the song "Let's Get It On", co-written by Gaye and Ed Townsend, soon became a sexual anthem. Around the same time, Marvin met a beautiful teenager named Janis Hunter, who frequented around the recording studio where Marvin worked at. By August, Marvin released the Let's Get It On album, which helped to give birth to the quiet storm genre, which emerged in the late seventies. The title track became Marvin's second number-one hit and the album itself sold over four million copies. With its success, Motown wanted a tour. Reluctantly, Marvin agreed and began performing a round of tours in the U.S. One of those tours was recorded for the 1974 live LP, Marvin Gaye Live!, which included his now-trademark live version of "Distant Lover". Around that same time, Marvin yielded one final duet project, this time with singer Diana Ross, on the album, Diana and Marvin, which included the hits "My Mistake" and "A Special Part of Me" and, in the UK, their cover of the Stylistics "You Are Everything".

Marvin reemerged with a new album in 1976. Co-produced with Leon Ware, that album, I Want You, showcased a change in Marvin's sound as he reluctantly embraced the disco genre that was starting to get public notice. His only real attempt at a disco record came the following year with 1977's "Got to Give It Up", which hit number-one. Afterwards, Marvin began to rebel against its success and after a divorce settlement from Anna Gordy (he'd married Janis Hunter in October of '77), he recorded the album, Here, My Dear, with which its proceeds would go to Anna to settle their spousal support issue. The album was branded as "weird" by rock music critics and the public also shunned the album. Later on, the album would be hailed as a critical masterpiece in Marvin's later years. By 1979, Marvin was on a downward spiral affecting by drug issues, financial difficulties and marriage problems (he and Janis separated in '79 and divorced two years later). With his career down to its lowest ebb, he escaped, first to Hawaii then to London after he ventured on a European tour. In early 1981, Motown issued what turned out to be Marvin's final LP with the label, In Our Lifetime, in which he talked openly about his troubled life and psyche through funk-dance beats. Marvin felt betrayed by Motown since the album was declared unfinished. Refusing to promote it, he asked for an exit from the label.

In the meantime, Marvin settled in the Belgium coastal city of Ostend after concert promoter Freddy Couseart offered to take him there to alleviate from his problems. Marvin had a brief sobriety period during this time and in early 1982, his Motown contract was sold to CBS Records. Signing with the Columbia subsidiary, Marvin would write and produce the biggest international hit of his recording career with the reggae/electro funk-inspired soul ballad, "Sexual Healing", a song that seemed to mix Marvin's spiritual beliefs with sexual language and a song that, like many of Marvin's self-sung multi-tracked songs, featured a doo-wop context. The song hit the top ten in the U.S. and England among other countries and stayed at number-one on the R&B charts for a period of ten weeks, the most by an R&B artist that year. In 1983, he returned full-fledged to America and embarked on his successful comeback year, starting with the filming of the "Sexual Healing" video, which found rotation on BET and later MTV introducing Marvin, now 43, to a new generation of listeners. That year, Marvin was referenced by Spandau Ballet on their hit "Time". He also issued the parent album of "Sexual Healing" titled Midnight Love, a successful crossover pop-funk record that included references to Bob Marley and Rick James and sold over six million copies worldwide. In February of '83, Marvin performed a soulful rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the NBA All-Star Game and won two Grammy Awards later that month for "Sexual Healing", ironically the first Grammy Awards of his career. Ironically enough, he agreed to appear on Motown's 25th anniversary special and was easily one of the highlights.

In April he embarked on his first U.S. tour in years with "The Sexual Healing Tour". Ending in August, the tour was marred by Marvin's continued problems with drug abuse and increasing paranoia over what he thought was an attempt over his life. Struggling with his health, Marvin retired to his parents' California home and continued to struggle with substance abuse. He also struggled with his father as their relationship reached a downward spiral. That Christmas, Marvin gave both of his parents handguns to make sure they protect him in case someone was trying to kill him. How ironic that at that time that Marvin felt protected is where he'd meet his tragic demise.

On the early morning hours of April 1, 1984, Marvin's parents began arguing again over misplace business documents from a day before. Marvin was awoken to his father's taunts on his mother and began taunting at his father. After a while, father and son engaged in a physical struggle which ended with Marvin Sr. being pummeled to the ground by his eldest son. Angered, Marvin Sr. grabbed a gun from his bed case and walked to Marvin's bedroom shooting the singer twice, in the heart and in the shoulder. The shot to the heart was fatal. As Marvin limped to the floor, Marvin Sr. walked slowly out of the room. Marvin's brother and his wife, who were next door ran where they found Marvin's mother screaming for help. Frankie soon found his dying brother gasping for air. By the time paramedics arrived to take the singer to the hospital, it was already too late.

Marvin Pentz Gaye, Jr. was pronounced dead at 1:15 pm, April 1, 1984. He was dead a day before his 45th birthday. Marvin Sr. originally faced charges of first-degree murder but the charges were reduced to voluntary manslaughter to which he agreed to plead guilty serving six years. He later died of pneumonia in 1998 at a rest home at 84. Alberta Gay divorced from her husband that year and died three years of bone cancer. Marvin's death shocked the music industry. Throughout that year and into 1985, tributes were issued out to Marvin including two hits from Diana Ross ("Missing You") and the Commodores ("Night Shift"). Motown re-issued Marvin's popular albums from the '70s while Columbia issued two albums including Marvin rarities including songs that didn't make the final cut of Marvin's '70s and '80s Motown albums. At his funeral, over 10,000 were there to honor the singer's memory. In 1987, he was posthumously inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Marvin's legacy not only includes his music but also three children (Marvin III, Nona and Frankie Christian) and two grandchildren. His other "children" include R&B artists affected by his legendary music. In 1995, Motown issued its first Marvin tribute album, Inner City Blues: The Music of Marvin Gaye and four years later emerged with Marvin is 60. Despite his tragic death, Marvin is remembered most for making listeners happy and thoughtful with his music. Even nearly 25 years after his death, Marvin Gaye still continues to inspire generations of music lovers. For that, he'll be forever saluted.

[Marni]

I am completely fascinated with Marvin- not only his voice but his whole life. I watched a doco a couple of months ago and what got me was his devastation after Tammi died, his come back with one of the most influential albums ever (that Gordy hated the title track of lol) and his death at the hands of his father.

I am yet to discover this mans back catalog- but of course I know a lot of his songs (who doesn't!) but some of his songs I only have the J5 / MJ versions to

Timmy, what are the essential albums and songs? What do I need? So far I only have "The Very Best of".

[troubleman84]

Essential albums:
What's Going On (of course)
Trouble Man SDTK (I recommend it, has a lot of funky instrumentals in it)
Let's Get It On (definitely)
Diana & Marvin (great record from the prince and princess of Motown)
I Want You
Live at the London Palladium (his finest live album)
Here, My Dear (if you're going through marriage troubles or if you're a fan of funk, jazz, doo-wop and disco, lol)
Midnight Love (features the "Sexual Healing" joint and more)
Anthology (covers most of his Motown material)
The Master (covers more Motown material)

Songs:
Besides "I Heard It through the Grapevine", "Let's Get It On", "Sexual Healing" and "What's Going On":

"How Sweet It Is"
"I'll Be Doggone"
"Ain't That Peculiar"
"Hitch Hike"
"Stubborn Kind of Fellow"
"You Are a Wonderful One"
"Can I Get a Witness"
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough"
"You're All I Need to Get By"
"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing"
"It Takes Two"
"Chained" (YES Marvin did this before the J5, LOL!)
"I Want You"
"Come Get to This"
"Trouble Man"
"You're the Man" (it was about the 1972 election ironically enough)
"Piece of Clay"
"Where Are We Going"
"Soon I'll Be Loving You"

...all the songs I listed can be found on YouTube.

[Marni]

Thank you for that Timmy. the compilation I have is very good and has a lot of the songs you mentioned on it. I am still yet to hear his version of "Peculiar".

BTW, isn't The Onion Song incredible?

[troubleman84]

^^ Yes it is.

I'm gonna post "Peculiar" for you, hold up:



#8 US pop/#1 US R&B in 1965.

[Marni]

Originally Posted by troubleman84

^^ Yes it is.

I'm gonna post "Peculiar" for you, hold up:



#8 US pop/#1 US R&B in 1965.

Aren't the vocals amazing? This dude had so much soul!

[troubleman84]

^ Yes he sure did!

[Marni]

It's hard for me to not get obsessed with great singers. After listening to Marvin a lot this week, I finally realise how many people he influenced. I don't think I'll be able to listen to Robin Thicke the same way anymore.

[troubleman84]

^^ You got that right. Once you heard the original and then listen to his "students" again, you'll realize why Marvin left such an imprint. They even imitate Marvin's vocal mannerisms!

[trueiopian]

I LOVE Marvin