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Trouble Man | ||||
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Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | December 8, 1972 | |||
Recorded | 1972 | |||
Studio | Hitsville West (Los Angeles) | |||
Genre | Jazz-funk, [1] soul [2] | |||
Length | 38:25 | |||
Label | Tamla | |||
Producer | Marvin Gaye | |||
Marvin Gaye chronology | ||||
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Singles from Trouble Man | ||||
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Trouble Man is a soundtrack and the twelfth studio album by American soul singer Marvin Gaye, released on December 8, 1972, on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. As the soundtrack to the 1972 Blaxploitation film of the same name, the Trouble Man soundtrack was a more contemporary move for Gaye, following his politically charged album What's Going On . This was the first album to be written and produced solely by Gaye. The only other album recorded under his full creative control was In Our Lifetime , released in 1981.
Following the success of What's Going On , Marvin Gaye had not only won creative control, but a renewed $1 million contract with Motown Records subsidiary Tamla had made the musician the most profitable R&B artist of all time.
Signing the contract in early 1972, Gaye sought to take advantage of his opportunities. Bolstered by the successes of film soundtracks such as Shaft and Superfly , Motown offered the musician a chance to compose his own film soundtrack after winning rights to produce the crime thriller, Trouble Man .
Unlike Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield, who mixed social commentary with sexual songs in their respective soundtracks, Gaye chose to focus primarily on the film's character, "Mister T", producing and composing the film's score while entirely producing the film's soundtrack, which was recorded at Motown Studios (or "Hitsville West") in Hollywood.
Following the closing of Detroit's Hitsville USA studios in 1972, Motown had primarily moved its location to Los Angeles, where Gaye also relocated while he recorded the Trouble Man album. Gaye invited several musicians, including some from the Funk Brothers and musicians from Hamilton Bohannon's band.
Gaye would compose five different versions of the title track, including an alternate vocal version, which was used primarily for the film's intro. The alternate version featured Gaye double-tracking two lead vocal parts into one, overlaying his falsetto vocals with his tenor. The single version, which was also featured on the soundtrack, would feature a single lead vocal take. The other three versions were put on the album as instrumentals with Gaye providing synthesizer keyboards while saxophone solos (and occasionally guitar) accompany him.
The only other songs in which Gaye vocalized harmonies or performed lead vocals included "Poor Abbey Walsh", "Cleo's Apartment", "Life is a Gamble", "Don't Mess with Mister T" and "There Goes Mister T".
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Christgau's Record Guide | C [4] |
Rolling Stone | (mixed) [5] |
Tom Hull | B [2] |
Bolstered by the hit success of the title track, which returned Gaye to a blues format reaching number 4 on the Soul Chart and number 7 on the Pop Charts, respectively, the album followed in December where it reached the top 20 of the Billboard 200, peaking at number 12. On Cashbox and Record World Magazines Charts the album even reached the Top 5, hitting almost as high as its monumental predecessor What‘s Going On, eighteen months earlier.Eventually being rewarded with a gold disc at Motown Records.
It would become Gaye's only soundtrack and film score. Critics gave the album favorable reviews while sometimes comparing Gaye's soundtrack efforts to that of Hayes' and Mayfield's. Following this, other R&B musicians would produce soundtracks of their own, including James Brown, Barry White and fellow Motown acts, Willie Hutch and Edwin Starr.
The title track plays in the 1995 film Se7en while Morgan Freeman's character, Detective Somerset, is having dinner with Brad Pitt's character, Detective Mills, and his wife Tracy Mills, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. [6]
The title track features during the opening credits of the 2005 film Four Brothers .
In the 2014 film Captain America: The Winter Soldier , Sam Wilson recommends the album as essential listening to Steve Rogers, who had until recently been frozen in ice since the Second World War: Wilson says it's "everything you missed jammed into one album". Towards the end of the film the titular track is playing on an iPhone. [7]
In the episode "Power Broker" of the 2021 Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , Wilson notices that Bucky Barnes has the same pocket notebook and mentions that he had recommended the album to Rogers. When Barnes does not seem to share the same level of enthusiasm for the album, Baron Helmut Zemo enthuses flamboyantly about the album, telling Barnes that it is "...a masterpiece. Complete. Comprehensive. It captures the African-American experience", much to Wilson's amazement. [8] The episode aired on Marvin Gaye's birthday.
All songs written by Marvin Gaye.
Side One
Side Two
Disc one (bonus tracks)
Disc two (Original Film Score)
Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. was an American soul and R&B singer and songwriter. He helped shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of successes, which earned him the nicknames "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul".
What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. It was released on May 21, 1971, by the Motown Records subsidiary label Tamla. Recorded between 1970 and 1971 in sessions at Hitsville U.S.A., Golden World, United Sound Studios in Detroit, and at The Sound Factory in West Hollywood, California, it was Gaye's first album to credit him as producer and to credit Motown's in-house session musicians, known as the Funk Brothers.
Let's Get It On is the thirteenth studio album by the American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released on August 28, 1973, by the Motown subsidiary label Tamla Records on LP.
"What's Going On" is a song by American singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye, released in 1971 on the Motown subsidiary Tamla. It is the opening track of Gaye's studio album of the same name. Originally inspired by a police brutality incident witnessed by Renaldo "Obie" Benson, the song was composed by Benson, Al Cleveland, and Gaye and produced by Gaye himself. The song marked Gaye's departure from the Motown Sound towards more personal material. Later topping the Hot Soul Singles chart for five weeks and crossing over to number two on the Billboard Hot 100, it would sell over two million copies, becoming Gaye's second-most successful Motown song to date. It was ranked at number 4 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of all Time in 2004 and 2010.
"Let's Get It On" is a song by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released June 15, 1973, on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. The song was recorded at Hitsville West in Los Angeles, California. The song features romantic and sexual lyricism and funk instrumentation by The Funk Brothers. The title track of Gaye's album of the same name, it was written by Marvin Gaye and producer Ed Townsend. "Let's Get It On" became Gaye's most successful single for Motown and one of his most well-known songs. With the help of the song's sexually explicit content, "Let's Get It On" helped give Gaye a reputation as a sex symbol during its initial popularity. "Let's Get It On" is written and composed in the key of E-flat major and is set in time signature of common time with a tempo of 82 beats per minute.
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is a song written by Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson in 1966 for the Tamla label, a division of Motown. The composition was first successful as a 1967 hit single recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and became a hit again in 1970 when recorded by former Supremes frontwoman Diana Ross. The song became Ross's first solo number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
"You're All I Need to Get By" is a song recorded by the American R&B/soul duo Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell and released on Motown Records' Tamla label in 1968. It was the basis for the 1995 single "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By" from Method Man and Mary J. Blige.
"Can I Get a Witness" is a song composed by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland and produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier as a non-album single for American recording vocalist Marvin Gaye, who issued the record on Motown's Tamla imprint in September 1963.
I Want You is the fourteenth studio album by American soul singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye. It was released on March 16, 1976, by the Motown Records-subsidiary label Tamla.
"Distant Lover" is the sixth song issued on singer Marvin Gaye's 1973 album, Let's Get It On and the B-side of the second single from that album, "Come Get to This". A live recording was issued as a single in 1974. The live version of the song was Gaye's most successful single during the three-year gap between Let's Get It On and his following 1976 album, I Want You.
In Our Lifetime? is the sixteenth studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released January 15, 1981, on Motown label Tamla Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at Marvin's Room in Los Angeles, California, Seawest Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, and at Odyssey Studios in London, England, throughout 1979 and 1980. The album cover was designed by Neil Breeden. Gaye's final album for Motown before leaving for Columbia Records, the album was the follow-up to the commercial failure of Here, My Dear, a double album which chronicled the singer's divorce from Anna Gordy. Entirely written, produced, arranged, and mixed by Gaye, In Our Lifetime? was a departure for Gaye from the disco stylings of his previous two studio efforts and was seen as one of the best albums of the singer's late-Motown period.
Live at the London Palladium is a live double album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released March 15, 1977, on Tamla Records. Recording sessions took place live at several concerts at the London Palladium in London, England, in October 1976, with the exception of the hit single "Got to Give It Up", which was recorded at Gaye's Los Angeles studio Marvin's Room on January 31, 1977. Live at the London Palladium features intimate performances by Gaye of many of his career highlights, including early hits for Motown and recent material from his previous three studio albums. As with his previous live album, Marvin Gaye Live!, production of the record was handled entirely by Gaye, except for the studio portion, "Got to Give It Up", which was managed by Art Stewart.
"Baby Don't You Do It" is a 1964 single by American singer Marvin Gaye. Released on the Tamla label, this song discusses a man who is at a standstill with his girlfriend, who he feels is neglecting his love stating "Don't break my heart/...I've tried to do my best".
"Ego Tripping Out" is a 1979 funk-styled dance record released by American soul singer Marvin Gaye, released as a single on the Tamla (Motown) label. The record was originally meant to be the lead single for the singer's aborted Love Man album. However, as the album was scrapped and reworked into In Our Lifetime, the song received further work, before being omitted from the final album tracklist. The single was later included in a 1994 re-release of In Our Lifetime and a 2007 re-release deluxe edition featured two different alternate mixes for the sessions of In Our Lifetime as well as the original Love Man single of it.
"You're the Man" is a song composed by singer Marvin Gaye and songwriter Kenneth Stover and released on the Motown subsidiary, Tamla, in the summer of 1972. Composed primarily on the basis of the 1972 presidential election, the song was supposedly the first release from Gaye's next album, You're the Man, but the song's modest success forced Gaye to shelve the album in protest.
"Trouble Man" is a song composed and written by American recording artist Marvin Gaye released on the Motown subsidiary, Tamla, in November 1972. The song became one of Gaye's signature songs for the remainder of his life and would later be the basis of a biography as a sort of nickname for him. The album version of the song was the only one released as a single in November 1972, where it became a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 reaching number seven on that chart in January 1973.
Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA is the tenth studio album by Boyz II Men. It was released on November 13, 2007 by Decca Records. The album was produced by American Idol's Randy Jackson and Boyz II Men. David Simone and Winston Simone were Executive Producers for the album. The album is a tribute to some of Motown's classic songs, including "Just My Imagination" by The Temptations, "The Tracks of My Tears" by The Miracles and "Reach Out I'll Be There" by The Four Tops. The first single off the album is "The Tracks of My Tears".
"Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" is the debuting single for singer Marvin Gaye, released as Tamla 54041, in May 1961. It was also the first release off Gaye's debut album, The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, in which most of the material was the singer's failed attempt at making an 'adult' record compared to Motown's younger R&B sound.
"I Want to Come Home for Christmas" is a holiday song recorded by Marvin Gaye in 1972. The song was co-written by Gaye and Forest Hairston and was released on a posthumous Marvin compilation titled, The Marvin Gaye Collection 18 years later.
"The World Is Rated X" is a socially conscious song recorded by Marvin Gaye culled from sessions of the shelved You're the Man project from 1972, later issued on the Motown compilation album, Motown Remembers Marvin Gaye: Never Before Released Masters and released as a promotional single in 1986.