Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.,
better known by his stage name
Marvin Gaye, (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984) was
an American
singer-songwriter and instrumentalist with a three-octave vocal range.
Starting as a member of the
doo-wop group
The Moonglows in the late fifties, he
ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960
signing with the Tamla subsidiary of
Motown Records. After starting off as a
session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label's top-selling solo
artist during the sixties.
Due to solo hits including "
How Sweet It Is ",
"
Ain't That Peculiar", "
I Heard It Through the
Grapevine" and his duet singles with singers such as
Mary Wells and
Tammi
Terrell, he was crowned
"The Prince of Motown"
and
"The Prince of Soul".
Notable for fighting the hit-making but restrictive Motown process
in which performers and songwriters and producers were kept
separate, Gaye proved with albums like his 1971
What's Going On and his 1973
Let's Get It On that he was
able to produce music without relying on the system, inspiring
fellow Motown artists such as
Stevie
Wonder and
Michael Jackson to do
the same.
His mid-1970s work including the
Let's Get It On and
I Want You albums helped influence
the
quiet storm,
urban adult contemporary and
slow jam genres. After a self-imposed
European exile in the late seventies, Gaye
returned on the 1982
Grammy-winning
hit, "
Sexual Healing" and the
Midnight Love album before
his death. Gaye was
shot dead by
his father on April 1, 1984.
He was posthumously inducted to the
Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame
in 1987.
In 2008, the American music magazine
Rolling Stone ranked Gaye #6 on its list
of The Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked #18 on 100 Greatest
Artists of All Time.
Early life
Marvin
Pentz Gay, Jr. was born at 12 p.m. on April 2, 1939 at Freedman's Hospital in Washington,
D.C.
. His father, Marvin
Gay, Sr. of Kentucky
, was a
minister at the House of God. It
advocated strict conduct and mixed teachings of
Orthodox Judaism and
Pentecostalism.
His mother, Alberta
Cooper, of North
Carolina
, was a
domestic and schoolteacher.
The eldest son of Gay Sr.'s children, Marvin has a half brother,
Michael Cooper (b. 1935) and an older sister Jeanne (b. 1937),
younger brother
Frankie (1942-2001),
and sister Zeola "Sweetsie" (b. 1945).
Marvin's parents
raised their children at the southeast section of D.C. at the
Simple City projects and, after Marvin turned 14, lived in the
segregated section of Washington,
D.C.'s Deanwood
neighborhood
in the northeastern section of the city. As a teen, he caddied
at Norbeck Country Club in Olney, Maryland
.
As a child in his father's church, Gaye sang and played instruments
in the choir. During his high school years, he listened to
doo-wop and joined the DC Tones as a drummer, which
rejected him for his color, as well as singing in a group called
The Dippers with his best friend Johnny Stewart.
After dropping out of
11th grade at Cardozo High
School
, Gaye joined the United States Air Force in hopes of
becoming an aviator. After faking
mental illness, he was discharged.
His sergeant stated that Gaye refused to follow orders.
The Moonglows and work as sideman drummer in Motown
Returning to D.C., Gaye rejoined his childhood friend Reese Palmer
who had formed The Marquees and
Bo
Diddley signed them to Okeh Records, which was a subsidiary of
Chess Records, where they recorded
"Wyatt Earp", with "Hey Little Schoolgirl" as its B-side. It
received moderate success.
Harvey
Fuqua, of the R&B/
doo-wop group
The Moonglows, recruited them, after
the break up of the original members to be
The New
Moonglows. Gaye and the group sang background on records
by
Chuck Berry and
Etta James and had a modest hit with "The Twelve
Months of the Year". "Mama Loochie" (1959) was Gaye's first lead
single.
After the
Moonglows disbanded in 1960, Fuqua brought Gaye to Detroit
and he was
signed to the local Anna Records label, founded by Gwen
Gordy. After
Motown Records'
Berry Gordy absorbed Anna, Gaye was
moved to Motown's Tamla subsidiary. Upon signing to Tamla, Gaye
found out that Fuqua had sold 50% percent of his stake in the
singer to the label. Gaye worked as a
session drummer for
The Miracles,
The
Contours,
Martha and the
Vandellas,
The Marvelettes and
others, notably on
The Marvelettes'
1961 hit, "
Please Mr. Postman"
and
Little Stevie Wonder's live
version of 1963 hit, "
Fingertips
Pt. 2". Both singles reached
number one of the
pop singles
chart.
After signing with Motown as a solo artist in 1961, Gaye changed
his name from Marvin Gay to
Marvin Gaye, later stating he
added the 'e' because it "sounded more professional". His author
and best friend
David Ritz insisted Gaye
added the 'e' to separate himself from his father, and to imitate
R&B singer
Sam Cooke, who also added
an 'e' to his name. Gaye and Berry clashed over music to record.
Through help from Gaye's girlfriend, Gordy's sister
Anna, Berry allowed him to record a standard
album.
Music career
Early success: 1962–66
Motown started Artist Development to look after artists. Gaye
rebelled against receiving the same tuition as his Motown peers,
though he'd later regretted that decision. Eventually he stopped
"grooming school" though he took its director Maxine Powell's
advice to not perform with his eyes closed as if "to appear that he
wasn't asleep".
In June 1961, Gaye issued his first solo recording,
The Soulful Moods of Marvin
Gaye, the second album by Motown.
The record featured
Broadway
standards
and jazz-rendered show tunes, and also yielded the R&B ballad
single, "Let Your
Conscience Be Your Guide". The record failed. Gaye
released two more failed singles, a cover of
The Chordettes' "
Sandman" and "
Soldier's Plea" in 1962. Gaye would find his
first success as a co-songwriter on the Marvelettes' 1962 hit,
"
Beechwood 4-5789".
Gaye scored his first hit single "
Stubborn Kind of Fellow" in
September. The song, co-written by Gaye, was an autobiographical
pun on his nonchalant, moody behavior. Produced by
William "Mickey" Stevenson, the recording became a
hit on the
Hot R&B
Songs chart.
The single would be followed by his first
Top 40 singles "
Hitch Hike", "
Pride and Joy" and
"
Can I Get a Witness", which
charted for Gaye in 1963. The success continued with the 1964
singles "
You Are a Wonderful
One", "
Try It Baby", "
Baby Don't You Do It" and "
How Sweet It Is ",
which became his first
signature
song.
Gaye contributed to writing and playing drums on the 1964 hit by
Martha and the Vandellas,
"
Dancing in the Street". His
work with
Smokey Robinson on the
1966 album,
Moods of Marvin
Gaye, spawned consecutive top ten singles in "
I'll Be Doggone" and "
Ain't That Peculiar". Due to this
success and the singer's well-crafted image, Gaye became a favorite
on the teen shows
American
Bandstand,
Shindig!,
Hullaballoo and
The T.A.M.I. Show. In August 1966, he became just
the second Motown act to successfully perform at the
Copacabana, though due to label
friction, a live album cut from the performances set to be released
in 1967 was shelved for nearly 40 years.
Tammi Terrell and I Heard It Through the Grapevine:
1967–1970
A number of Gaye's hits for Motown were with female artists such as
Kim Weston and
Mary
Wells; the first Gaye/Wells album, 1964's
Together, was Gaye's first
charting album. However, it was Gaye's work with
Tammi Terrell that became the most memorable.
Terrell and Gaye were a good standing duet at the time and their
first album, 1967's
United,
birthed the hits "
Ain't No
Mountain High Enough" and "
Your
Precious Love".
Real-life couple
Nickolas Ashford
and Valerie Simpson provided the writing and production for the
Gaye/Terrell records. While Gaye and Terrell were not lovers —
though rumors persist — they portrayed lovers on record. Gaye
claimed that for the songs he was in love with her.
On October 14, 1967,
while in concert at the homecoming for Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia,
outside the college town of Farmville
, Tammi Terrell collapsed in Gaye's arms. She
was rushed to Southside Community Hospital, where she was later
diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Contrary to popular belief,
the concert was not at Hampton University. The chairperson of the
event recounted the events on WFLO FM radio in Farmville in April
2007 for the anniversary of Marvin's passing.
Motown decided to carry on with Gaye/Terrell recordings, issuing
the
You're All I Need
album in 1968, which featured "
Ain't Nothing Like the Real
Thing" and "
You're All I
Need to Get By". By the final album,
Easy in 1969,
Terrell's vocals were mostly by
Valerie
Simpson. Two tracks on
Easy were archived Terrell solo
songs with Gaye's vocals overdubbed.
Terrell's illness put Gaye in a
depression; he refused to acknowledge the
success of his song "
I
Heard It Through the Grapevine" ( ), released in 1967 by
Gladys Knight & The
Pips (his was recorded before, but released after theirs), his
first #1 hit and the biggest selling single in Motown history to
that point, with four million copies sold. His work with producer
Norman Whitfield, who produced
"Grapevine", resulted in similar success with the singles "
Too Busy Thinking About My
Baby" and "
That's the Way
Love Is". Meanwhile, Gaye's marriage was crumbling and he was
bored with his music. Wanting creative control, he sought to
produce singles for Motown session band
The Originals, whose Gaye-produced hits,
"
Baby I'm For Real" and "
The Bells", brought
success.
What's Going On: 1970–72
Tammi Terrell died of a
brain tumor on
March 16, 1970. Gaye was so emotional at her funeral that he talked
to her lying in state as if she were going to respond. He went into
seclusion and did not perform in concert for nearly two years. Gaye
told friends he had thought of quitting music, at one point trying
out for the
American football team
the
Detroit Lions (where he met
acquaintances
Mel Farr and
Lem Barney), but after the success of his
productions with the Originals, Gaye entered the studio on June 1,
1970 and recorded "
What's Going
On", "
God Is Love", and "Sad
Tomorrows" - an early version of "
Flying High ". Gaye wanted
to release "What's Going On", Gordy refused, calling the single
"the worst record I ever heard". Gaye threatened to leave Motown
unless the record was released. Gordy eventually relented and the
song was released with little publicity in January 1971. Despite no
backing from Motown, the single became a hit, peaking at number-one
on the Billboard R&B charts for five weeks. It is also rated
the fourth best song of all time by
Rolling Stone. After the single's
success, Gordy requested an entire album of similar tracks.
Gaye performing live at the Oakland
Coliseum during his 1973-1974 tour
The
What's Going On album
became one of the highlights of Gaye's career and is his best-known
work. Both in terms of its funk and jazz-influenced sound and
personal lyrical content, it was a departure from his earlier
Motown work. Two more of its singles, "
Mercy Mercy Me " and "
Inner City Blues ",
became Top 10 pop hits and #1 R&B hits. The album became one of
the most memorable soul albums and, based upon its themes, the
concept album became the frontier for
soul music. It has been called "the most
important and passionate record to come out of
soul music, delivered by one of its finest
voices".
Let's Get It On and continued success in music:
1972–77
After the release of
What's Going On, Motown renegotiated
a contract with Gaye that allowed him creative control. The deal
was worth $1 million, making Gaye the highest-earning black artist.
He moved
from Detroit to Los
Angeles
in 1972 after being offered a chance to write the
score to a blaxploitation
film. Writing, arranging and producing the movie
Trouble Man, Gaye issued the
soundtrack and
title song in 1972. The
soundtrack and single became hits, the single peaking at the top
ten in early 1973.
Gaye decided to switch from social to sensual with
Let's Get It On in 1973. The album was
a departure for its sensual appeal. Yielded by the
title track ( ) and tracks such as
"
Come Get to This", "
You Sure Love to Ball", and "
Distant Lover",
Let's Get It On
became Gaye's biggest selling album during his lifetime, surpassing
What's Going On. Also, with the title track, Gaye broke
his own record at Motown by surpassing the sales of "
I Heard It Through the
Grapevine". The album would be hailed "a record unparalleled in
its sheer sensuality and carnal energy."
Gaye began working on his final duet album, this time with
Diana Ross for the
Diana & Marvin project, an album
of duets that began recording in 1972, while Ross was pregnant with
her second child,
Tracee Ellis
Ross. Gaye refused to sing if he couldn't smoke in the studio,
so the album was recorded by
overdubbing
Ross and Gaye at separate sessions. Released in fall 1973, the
album yielded the US Top 20 hit singles "
You're a Special Part of Me and
"
My Mistake " as well
as the UK versions of
The
Stylistics's "
You Are
Everything" at #5 and "
Stop, Look, Listen " at
#25, respectively.
In 1976, Gaye released the
I Want
You LP, which yielded
the title track as the
number-one R&B single, and the modest charter, "
After the Dance." Album tracks such as
"Since I Had You" and "Soon I'll Be Loving You Again" geared Gaye
towards more
funky material. The following
year, Gaye released the funk single, "
Got to Give It Up, Pt. 1", which became a simultaneous number-one
US hit. The single was featured on his
Live at the London
Palladium album, which partially helped in the album
selling over two million copies, becoming one of the top-selling
albums of that year.
Here, My Dear and his final days at Motown:
1978–1981
Gaye performs at the London Palladium
in 1977
The following year, shortly after divorcing his wife, Anna, he
agreed to remit a portion of his salary and sales of his upcoming
album as
alimony. The result was 1978's
Here, My Dear, which
addressed the sour points of his marriage and almost led to Anna
filing a lawsuit for
invasion of
privacy. That album went nowhere and Gaye struggled.
By 1979,
besieged by tax problems and drug
addictions, Gaye filed for bankruptcy
and moved to Hawaii
, where he
lived in a bread van and began working on his follow-up to
Here, My Dear, titled In Our
Lifetime?.
In 1980,
he signed with British
promoter Jeffrey Kruger to headline a European tour with stops at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland
and performances in Amsterdam
and England
. While in London
, Gaye was to
headline a Command Performance at the Royal Gala Charity Show for
Princess Margaret but the singer
showed up seven hours late with Princess Margaret leaving halfway
through the concert. While in London, he continued work on
Lifetime with a rough draft completed by the fall of the
year. When Motown issued the album in January 1981, Gaye accused
Motown of editing and
remixing the album
without his consent, releasing an unfinished song ("Far Cry"),
altering the album art he requested and removing the question mark
from the title, muting its irony. Afterwards, Gaye vowed never to
record another project for Motown Records.
Comeback and sudden death: 1982–84
On the
advice of Belgian concert promoter Freddy Cousaert, Gaye moved to
Ostend
, Belgium
, in early 1981 where he enjoyed a brief period of
sobriety from drug abuse. Still upset over Motown's decision
to release
In Our Lifetime, he negotiated a release from
the label and signed with
Columbia
Records in 1982, releasing the
Midnight Love album late that year. The
album included "
Sexual Healing" ( ),
which was Gaye's last hit. He wrote it during his 2 month stay in
the village Moere, near Ostend. Gaye's friend and lawyer Curtis
Shaw calls this Moere-period "the best thing that ever happened to
Marvin". The video clip of "Sexual Healing" is recorded in the
Casino-Kursaal in Ostend.
The single reached number one on Billboard's R&B chart, where
it stayed for ten weeks, later crossing to number three on
Billboard's Hot 100. The single sold two million copies in the U.S.
earning a
platinum certification. The song also
gave Gaye his first two
Grammy Awards
(Best R&B Male Vocal Performance, Best R&B Instrumental) in
February 1983. It was nominated for Best R&B Song but lost to
George Benson's "
Turn Your Love Around".
The following year, he was nominated for
Best Male R&B Vocal Performance again,
this time for the
Midnight Love album.
In February 1983,
Gaye performed "The
Star-Spangled Banner" at the NBA All-Star Game, held at The
Forum
in Inglewood, California
, accompanied by Gordon Banks who played the studio
tape from stands.. In March 1983, he gave his final
performance in front of his old mentor
Berry
Gordy and the
Motown label for
Motown 25, performing "What's
Going On". He then embarked on a U.S. tour to support his album.
The tour, ending in August 1983, was plagued by health problems and
Gaye's bouts with depression, and fear over an attempt on his
life.
When the tour ended, he isolated himself by moving into his
parents' house. He threatened to commit
suicide several times after bitter arguments with
his father. On April 1, 1984, Gaye's father fatally shot him after
an argument that started after his parents squabbled over misplaced
business documents. Gaye attempted to intervene, and was killed by
his father using a gun that Marvin Jr. had given him four months
before. Marvin Gaye would have turned 45 the next day. Marvin Sr.
was sentenced to five years of
probation
after pleading guilty to
voluntary manslaughter. Charges of
first-degree murder were dropped after it was revealed that Marvin
Sr. had been beaten by Marvin Jr. before the killing. Doctors
discovered Marvin Sr. had a brain tumor but was deemed fit for
trial. Spending his final years in a retirement home, he died of
pneumonia in 1998.
In 1987, Gaye was
posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. He was also inducted to Hollywood's Rock Walk in
1989 and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
in 1990.
Personal life
Gaye and second wife Janis
Gaye married twice. His first marriage was to Berry Gordy, Jr.'s
sister,
Anna Gordy, who was 17 years his
senior. Marvin and Anna were married on January 8, 1962 when Gaye
was 22 and Gordy was 39. The marriage imploded after Marvin began
courting
Janis Hunter, the teenage
daughter of
Slim Gaillard, in 1973.
Anna filed for divorce in 1975; the divorce was finalized in March
1977. Gaye's erotic and disco-tinged studio album
I Want You was based on his
relationship with Hunter. In his book
Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art,
Loves, and Demons of Marvin Gaye, author and music writer
Michael Eric Dyson elaborated on
the relationship between
I Want You and the relationship
Gaye had with Hunter, which influenced his music:
In October 1977, he married Janis, who was 17 years old when they
met. However, the marriage dissolved within a year. After attempts
at reconciliation, Janis filed for divorce in 1979. The divorce was
finalized in February 1981.
During this time, Marvin began dating a
model from the Netherlands
named Eugenie Vis. In 1982 Gaye became
involved with
Lady Edith Foxwell,
former wife of the British movie director Ivan Foxwell, and spent
time with her at Sherston, her Wiltshire estate. Foxwell ran the
fashionable Embassy Club and was referred to in the media as "the
queen of London cafe society." The story of their affair was told
by Stan Hey in the April 2004 issue of
GQ. The report quoted writer/composer
Bernard J. Taylor as saying he was told by Foxwell
that she and Gaye had discussed marriage.
Gaye had three children. Marvin Pentz Gaye, III (b. 1965) was
adopted by Marvin and his first wife Anna. The singer disclosed
this in
David Ritz's biography on Gaye,
Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye, saying he was
afraid of being criticized for not producing a child. Later, Gaye
had two children with Janis Hunter,
Nona
Marvisa, nicknamed "Pie" by her dad (born September 4, 1974)
and Frankie "Bubby" Christian Gaye (born November 16, 1975). Gaye
introduced his daughter to a national audience during a show in
1975. Nona would do the same eight years later when her father was
given a tribute by
Soul Train.
Nona has gone on to find success as a singer and actress. Gaye's
eldest son was a music producer. Frankie is said to have taken work
as an
artist. Gaye also has two
grandchildren: Marvin Pentz Gaye IV (b. 1995), born on the
anniversary of his grandfather's death; and Nolan Pentz Gaye (b.
1997).
Musicianship
Marvin Gaye's musical style changed in various ways throughout his
26-year career. Upon his early recordings as member of The Marquees
and
Harvey & the New Moonglows in
the late 1950s, Marvin recorded in a
doo-wop
vocal style. After signing his first solo recording contract with
Motown, Marvin prompted staff members he wanted to record an adult
album of standards and
jazz covers. His
first album,
The
Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, conveyed those genres
including several doo-wop and
blues
songs.
===The Motown Sound and psychedelic
soul===,;oieufoyeawoiyhf]-E]F-I[IUE]pof=WGF[=O[3otfpiE[OURF[U3E'GRKStarting
with his first charted hit, 1962's "Stubborn Kind of Fellow"
through 1967's "Your Unchanging Love", Marvin's music featured a
blend of black
rhythm and blues and
white
pop music that came to be later
identified as the "
Motown Sound".
Marvin's 1962-1964 hits reflected a
dance-pop/
rock 'n'
roll approach while his 1965-1969 recordings reflected a
pop-soul style. Backed by Motown's in-house band
The Funk Brothers, pre-1970 Marvin Gaye
recordings were built around songs with simple, direct lyrics
supported by an R&B rhythm section with orchestral strings and
horns added for pop appeal. Marvin's early hits were conceived by
Berry Gordy,
Smokey Robinson,
Mickey Stevenson and
Holland-Dozier-Holland.
Marvin's sound started to change slightly in 1967 after he began
working with producers
Norman
Whitfield,
Ashford &
Simpson and
Frank Wilson. Whereas
Marvin's early sound reflected a youthful exterior, later songs
during that period including "You", "Chained", "I Heard It Through
the Grapevine", "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" and "That's the
Way Love Is" were all recorded under the
psychedelic soul sound of the late sixties
and early seventies. "Psychedelic soul" mixed guitar-driven
rock with
soul-based grooves. Marvin's vocal style also
changed during that period where he began singing in a
gospel texture that had been only hinted in previous
recordings.
Social commentary and conceptual albums
In 1971, Marvin issued his landmark album,
What's Going
On. The album and its tracks were responsible in the changing
landscape of
rhythm and blues music
as the album presented a full view of social ills in America,
including
war,
police brutality,
racism,
drug addiction,
environmentalism, and
urban decay. Beforehand, recordings of social
unrest had been recorded by the likes of
The Impressions,
The Temptations,
Sam
Cooke,
Sly & the
Family Stone and
James Brown, but
this was the first album fully devoted to those issues. The album
was produced under what is called a
song
cycle and because of its theme of "what's going on" was
considered one of the first
concept
albums to be released in soul music. Marvin's 1972 soundtrack
Trouble Man, based on
the
blaxploitation film of
the same name, mainly featured
instrumentals with a few vocal runs, including
songs with social commentary. Marvin's 1972 recordings outside that
album—including "Where Are We Going", "Piece of Clay", "
You're the Man" and "The World Is Rated X" --
also raised social issues and was personal in nature. The songs
were to be included in the unreleased 1972 album,
You're the
Man, which was canceled after the modest reception of the
title single. Marvin issued his next "concept album" with 1973's
Let's Get It On, based on the spiritual and erotic side of
love and
sex. Marvin
released a similarly themed funk album in 1976,
I Want
You, before switching to personal issues with the albums
Here, My Dear (1978) and
In Our Lifetime (1981).
The former album focused on Marvin's problems in his first
marriage, while the latter focused on his own life struggles.
Marvin's albums between 1971 and 1981 reflected a period where, as
an
Allmusic writer said, his music "not
only redefined soul music as a creative force but also expanded its
impact as an agent for social change".
From funk to disco to contemporary R&B
Starting in the mid-seventies, Marvin's sound began to reflect the
emerging sounds of
funk and the later
disco movement of the late 1970s before settling into
a modern
contemporary R&B
sound as the eighties approached. Marvin's double-sided 1976
single, "I Want You/After the Dance" and his 1977 hit, "Got to Give
It Up" were his only successful attempts at recording disco-styled
dance music whereas the 1978 single "A Funky Space Reincarnation",
1979's "Ego Tripping Out" and the 1981 singles "Praise" and "Heavy
Love Affair" aimed at the funk-based urban audience. By itself,
"
I Want You", mixed
funk with disco, soul and
lite rock
elements.
With the release of 1982's triple-platinum
Midnight Love and the massive platinum selling smash hit,
"Sexual Healing", Marvin mixed the styles of funk and post disco with Caribbean
and European-flavored pop
music creating a mix that influenced the modern R&B
sound. "Sexual Healing" was the biggest R&B hit of the
1980s - #1 for 10 consecutive weeks. Some of Marvin's posthumous
releases have been varied in nature: 1985's
Dream of a
Lifetime was produced mostly in a
electro funk sound mostly in the first half of
the album, while his posthumous "featuring" on rapper
Erick Sermon's 2001 hit, "
Music" brought him
to a younger
hip-hop audience.
Legacy and influence
According to several historians, Marvin Gaye's career "spanned the
entire history of
rhythm and blues
from fifties
doo-wop to eighties
contemporary soul."
Critics stated that Gaye's music "signified the development of black music from raw rhythm and blues, through sophisticated soul to the political awareness of the 1970s and increased concentration on personal and sexual politics thereafter." Marvin's usage of multi-tracked vocalizing, recording songs of social, political and sexual issues, and producing albums of autobiographical nature have influenced a generation of recording artists of various genres. As an artist who broke away from the controlled atmosphere of Motown Records in the 1970s, he influenced the careers of label mates such as Stevie Wonder, The Isley Brothers and, later in Epic Records, Michael Jackson to gain creative control and produced/co-produced their own albums. The careers of later R&B stars such as Rick James, Prince, R. Kelly, Janet Jackson, Lustevie, George Michael, Justin Timberlake, Usher and J. Holiday also were influenced by the music of Marvin Gaye. Marvin's erotically concept albums such as Let's Get It On and I Want You inspired similar albums released by Smokey Robinson, Barry White and his co-producer on I Want You, Leon Ware. Modern-day artists such as Teena Marie and Mary J. Blige have also referenced Marvin in their own songs. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #18 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Tributes and covers
In 1983,
Spandau Ballet recorded the
single "
True" as a
tribute to Marvin and the
Motown sound
he helped established. That same year, electro-funk group
R. J.'s Latest Arrival mentioned him
with their dance hit, "Shackles on My Feet".
DeBarge's 1983 hit, "
All
This Love" was musically influenced by Marvin's sound and was
rumored that they had wanted Marvin to record the song himself.
However, Marvin had left the label before they could approach
him.
On April 2, 1984, the day after Marvin's death,
Duran Duran dedicated their live performance of
"
Save a Prayer" from their
Arena album to
him. Tribute songs to the singer included
Diana Ross' "
Missing You" and
The Commodores' "
Nightshift" became hits with each song reaching
number-one on the
Billboard
Hot R&B Singles chart. Other artists who have either paid
tribute to Marvin in a song or referenced him have included close
friend and former
Motown label-mate
Edwin Starr, who released "Marvin" the month
after his death,
Teena Marie's "My Dear
Mr. Gaye", the
Violent Femmes' 1988
single "See My Ships",
Maze featuring
Frankie Beverly's 1989 R&B hit,
"Silky Soul" and
George Michael's
"John & Elvis are Dead" where Marvin is mentioned in one the
final lines from the repeated chorus.
Stevie Wonder wrote the song "Lighting Up the
Candles" as a tribute to Gaye following his death and performed the
song originally at Gaye's funeral service. Wonder later recorded
the song for the
Jungle
Fever soundtrack.
In 1992,
Israeli
artist Izhar Ashdot
dedicated his song "Eesh Hashokolad" to Gaye. Two tribute
albums, 1995's
Inner City Blues: The
Music of Marvin Gaye (which featured
Nona's version of "
Inner City Blues") and 1999's
Marvin Is 60 featured
covers of Marvin's most famous material. Since the 1960s, Marvin's
songs have been covered by a variety of artists.
The Rolling Stones recorded "Baby Don't
You Do It" early in their career while
Rod
Stewart during his early tenure with
Steampacket covered "Can I Get a Witness". His
1965 hit, "
How
Sweet It Is " was covered three times by
Junior Walker in 1966, again in 1975 by
James Taylor, and again in 2002 by
gospel singer
Helen
Baylor. In Baylor's version she substituted the word "baby" for
Jesus.
Gaye's 1968 hit "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" has been
frequently covered with versions recorded by
Creedence Clearwater Revival,
Roger Troutman,
Edwin Starr and
The California Raisins.
Donny Hathaway performed a live version of
"What's Going On" for his 1972
Live album while
Cyndi Lauper recorded a top forty version of
"What's Going On" in 1987, the song was re-recorded by a variety of
contemporary pop, R&B and rap artists in 2001(again, including
Nona) for
AIDS benefit
and was later dedicated to the events of the
September 11, 2001 attacks. A few
years after that, rock band
A Perfect
Circle covered the song in their own
hard
rock version. The singer's "
Mercy Mercy Me " was covered by
rock band
The Strokes which featured
Eddie Vedder on lead vocals. R&B
singer
Angela Winbush covered
"
Inner City Blues" in 1994 and was
recorded in a slightly different version by
Gil-Scott Heron in the 1970s.
Aaliyah covered "
Got to
Give It Up" on her album
One in a
Million.
Gospel-
soul
legends
Mavis Staples and
Aretha Franklin have each covered "Wholy
Holy" from the
What's Going On album while "Let's Get It
On" was famously sampled by
Shaggy
on his breakthrough single, 1994's "Boombastic". Versions of
"
Sexual Healing" have been recorded
by
Soul Asylum,
Ben Harper,
Max-A-Million,
Kate
Bush,
Neil Finn,
Sarah Connor and
Ne-Yo.
Michael
McDonald,
Diana Ross and
Amy Winehouse have all covered or redone their
own versions of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", Marvin's 1967 hit
with Tammi Terrell while
Luther
Vandross and
Cheryl Lynn
reinterpreted the Marvin/Tammi single, "
If This World Were Mine" in 1982.
Mary J. Blige and
Method Man, with
permission, sampled an interpolation of "You're All I Need to Get
By" for their 1995 hit, "You're All I Need/I'll Be There for
You".
On April 2, 2006, on the singer's 67th birthday, a park near the
neighborhood where Marvin grew up at in Washington, D.C. was
renamed after him after a discussion with the
City Council. "
Inner City Blues "
was covered by John Mayer in his Album
As/Is, released in
2004. The cover also featured DJ Logic.
Elton
John's song "
Club at
the End of the Street" also mentions Marvin Gaye. On the 25th
anniversary of Marvin Gaye's death, the singer's hometown of
Washington, D.C. again honored the singer by renaming a street he
grew up on called "Marvin Gaye Way".
Musical achievements and posthumous releases
Gaye scored 41
Top 40 hit singles on
Billboard's
Pop Singles chart between 1963 and 2001,
60
Top 40 R&B singles chart hits from
1962 to 2001, 18 Top Ten pop singles on the pop chart, 38 Top 10
singles on the R&B chart, three number-one pop hits and
thirteen number-one R&B hits and tied with Michael Jackson in
total as well as the fourth biggest artist of all-time to spend the
most weeks at the number-one spot on the R&B singles chart (52
weeks). In all, Gaye produced a total of 67 singles on the
Billboard charts in total, spanning five
decades, including five posthumous releases.
The year a remix of "Let's Get It On" was released to
urban adult contemporary radio,
"Let's Get It On" was certified
gold by the
RIAA for sales in excess of 500,000, making it
the best-selling single on Motown in the United States. Gaye's
"
I Heard It Through the
Grapevine" is the best-selling international Motown single,
explained by a re-release in Europe following a Levi 501 Jeans
commercial in 1986.
On June 19, 2007,
Hip-O Records
reissued Gaye's final Motown album,
In Our Lifetime as an
expanded two-disc edition titled
In Our Lifetime?: The Love Man
Sessions, bringing back the original title with the question
mark and included a different mix of the album, which was recorded
in London and also including the original songs from the
Love
Man album, which were songs later edited lyrically for the
songs that made the
In Our Lifetime album. The same label
released a deluxe edition of Gaye's
Here, My Dear album, which included a
re-sequencing of tracks from the album from producers such as
Salaam Remi and
Bootsy Collins.
His
1983 NBA All-Star performance
of the national anthem was used in a Nike
commercial
featuring the 2008 U.S. Olympic basketball team. Also, on
CBS Sports' final NBA telecast to date
(before the contract moved to
NBC) at the
conclusion of Game 5 of the
1990
Finals, they used Gaye's 1983 All-Star Game performance over
the closing credits.
In 2008, Gaye earned 3.5 million dollars, and took 13th place in
'Top-Earning Dead Celebrities' in
Forbes Magazine.
"
I Heard It Through the
Grapevine" one of his most famous songs, voted #1 and greatest
Motown song and his "
What's Going On" is on the top five.
Documentaries and movies
A
documentary about Gaye - What's Going On: The Marvin Gaye
Story - was a UK
/PBS USA co-production, directed by Jeremy Marre and was first broadcast in 2006;
two years later, the special re-aired with a different production
and newer interviews after it was re-broadcast as an American
Masters special. Gaye is referenced as one of the
supernatural acts to appear in the
short story and later
television version of
Stephen King's
Nightmares and Dreamscapes in "
You Know They Got a Hell of a
Band".
A play by
Caryl Phillips called
A
Long Way from Home, focusing on Gaye's relationship with his
father and his last years in Ostend, was broadcast by
BBC Radio 3 in March 2008. It featured
O. T. Fagbenle as Gaye and
Kerry Shale as Marvin Gay Sr., with
Rhea Bailey, Rachel Atkins, Damian Lynch, Alibe
Parsons, Ben Onwukwe and Major Wiley. It was directed by Ned
Chaillet and produced by Chris Wallis.
So far, three movies are currently being planned on Marvin's life.
One movie,
Sexual Healing, is based on the post-Motown
career of Marvin Gaye's later years with
Jesse L. Martin playing Marvin and
James Gandolfini playing Marvin's
Belgium-based mentor, concert promoter Freddy Cousaert. Another
film, simply titled,
Marvin, is also in plans for
production with
F. Gary Gray in helm to direct the film. This
film, unlike
Sexual Healing, will focus on Marvin's entire
life story because unlike
Sexual Healing, the second film
was allowed rights to Marvin's Motown catalog. Musicians
Common and
Usher and actor
Will Smith have either been rumored to or have
aspired to play the singer possibly in the second film. A third
film on Gaye is reportedly being produced by Motown with its
direction guided by director
Cameron
Crowe.
Discography
Top Ten albums
U.S. and UK Top Ten singles
Filmography
- 1965: The T.A.M.I.
Show (documentary)
- 1969: The Ballad of Andy Crocker (television
movie)
- 1971: Chrome & Hot Leather (television movie)
- 1972: Trouble Man (cameo;
soundtrack)
- 1973: Save the Children (documentary)
Videos and DVDs
Marvin Gaye in popular culture
- In "Smooth Operator" by Big Daddy
Kane, he refers to Marvin Gaye's Let's Get it On on
the third verse saying "...so just play Marvin Gaye and let's get
it on."
- In "Keep Ya Head Up" by 2Pac, the lyrics in the second verse of the
song are "I remember Marvin Gaye used to sing to me, he had me
feelin' like black was the thing to be." He is also mentioned in
"Thugz Mansion" as being in Tupacs
heaven: "Seen a show with Marvin Gaye last night, it had me
shook."
- In Stephen King's novel
The Dark Tower
III: The Waste Lands, Jake's father has a Marvin Gaye
poster hanging in his study.
- In 1997, R&B singer Aaliyah did a
cover to Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" which featured Slick Rick.
- In the song "Hörst Du mich?" by German Hip Hop band Fettes
Brot, the first verse is dedicated to Marvin Gaye.
- Spandau Ballet's 1983
breakthrough single "True" (written by Martin Kemp)
features the line "Listening to Marvin all night long / This is the
sound of my soul".
- In the song "In the Mood" by The
Whispers, some of the lyrics in the first verse goes "how about
some Marvin Gaye? Feel like some "Sexual Healing"..."
- Rapper Eric Sermon's song "Music"
off of the What's the Worst That Could
Happen? soundtrack in 2001 starring
Martin Lawrence and
Danny DeVito samples Marvin's "I've Got
My Music".
- During the 2008 Summer Olympics, Nike ran ads focused on the United States' Men's
Basketball Team featuring Marvin Gaye's 1983 performance of "The
Star-Spangled Banner" during the NBA All-Star Game. The
reasoning being that the team found inspiration in the way Marvin
Gaye performed the song.
- R&B group Day 26's song
entitled "Come With Me" features the line: "Lonely at the crib/had
to get up and search for me a honeydip/listening to Sexual Healing".
- The Prefab Sprout song "When the angels" from their 1985 album
"Steve McQueen" was inspired by the death of Marvin Gaye.
- R&B Trio H-Town's debut single
"Knockin' Boots" features the line of "Listening to some Marvin
Gaye all night long" on their 1993 debut album Fever for Da Flavor.
- Rapper Nas on The Tavis Smiley Show says "So
It's Like Marvin Gaye" was aired on November 15, 2004.
- The song entitled 'Dreamworld' on Robin Thicke's third album
contains a reference to Marvin Gaye, 'I would say Marvin Gaye, your
father didn't want you to die.'
- Indie rock outfit Low mentions Gaye in their
song "In the Drugs": "[A]nd I closed my eyes like Marvin Gaye, but
now I've had enough."
- Eazy E mentions Gaye in the song "8 ball":"Put in the old tape
Marvin Gaye's greatest hits Turn the shit up had the bass cold
whomping Cruising through the east side south of Compton."
Further reading
- Gaye, Frankie with Basten, Fred E. (2003). Marvin Gaye: My
Brother. Backbeat Books, ISBN 0-87930-742-0
- Heron, W. Kim (April 8, 1984). Marvin Gaye: A Life Marked
by Complexity. Detroit Free Press.
- Posner, Gerald (2002). Motown : Music, Money, Sex, and
Power. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-50062-6.
- Ritz, David (1986). Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin
Gaye. Cambridge, Mass: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81191-X
- Gambaccini, Paul (1987). The Top 100 Rock 'n' Roll Albums
of All Time. New York: Harmony Books.
- Dyson, Michael Eric (2004). Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art,
Loves, and Demons of Marvin Gaye. New York/Philadelphia: Basic
Civitas. ISBN 0-465-01769-X.
- Turner, Steve (1998). Trouble Man: The Life and Death of
Marvin Gaye. London: Michael Joseph. ISBN 0-7181-4112-1
- Davis, Sharon (1991). Marvin Gaye: I Heard It Through The
Grapevine. Great Britain: Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey.
ISBN 1-84018-320-9
- White, Adam (1985). The Motown Story. London: Orbis.
ISBN O-85613-626-3
References
keenth june 1889,1962
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