What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by the 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.
The Funk Brothers were a group of Detroit-based session musicians who performed the backing to most Motown recordings from 1959 until the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972.
Easy is an album recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and released by Motown Records on September 16, 1969 under the Tamla Records label. One song on the album, "Good Lovin' Ain't Easy To Come By", was a hit single and remains popular to this day.
Thomasina Winifred Montgomery, professionally known as Tammi Terrell, was an American singer-songwriter, widely known as a star singer for Motown Records during the 1960s, notably for a series of duets with singer Marvin Gaye.
Ashford & Simpson were an American husband-and-wife songwriting, production and recording duo composed of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson.
"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.
"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.
"Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)", often shortened to "Inner City Blues", is a song by Marvin Gaye, released as the third and final single, and the climactic song from his 1971 landmark album, What's Going On. Written by Gaye and James Nyx Jr., the song depicts the ghettos and bleak economic situations of inner-city America, and the emotional effects these have on inhabitants.
"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.
United is a studio album by the soul musicians Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, released August 29, 1967 on the Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol produced all of the tracks on the album, with the exception of "You Got What It Takes" and "Oh How I'd Miss You". Fuqua and Bristol produced "Hold Me Oh My Darling" and "Two Can Have a Party" as Terrell solo tracks in 1965 and 1966, and had Gaye overdub his vocals to them in order to create duet versions of the songs.
You're All I Need is the second studio album by soul musicians Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, released in August 1968 on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. Highlighted by three hit singles written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, You're All I Need was recorded throughout 1966 and 1967 and features two Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits, "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By". It peaked at #60 on the U.S. Billboard 200 Album Chart. You're All I Need was the two singers' final collaboration effort, as Terrell would become ill following recording, before succumbing to a brain tumor in 1970.
Diana & Marvin is a duets album by American soul musicians Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, released October 26, 1973 on Motown. Recording sessions for the album took place between 1971 and 1973 at Motown Recording Studios in Hollywood, California. Gaye and Ross were widely recognized at the time as two of the top pop music performers.
In the Groove is the eighth studio album by American soul musician Marvin Gaye, released on August 26, 1968, on the Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. It was the first solo studio album Gaye released in two years, in which during that interim, the singer had emerged as a successful duet partner with female R&B singers such as Kim Weston and Tammi Terrell. In the Groove was reissued and retitled as I Heard It Through the Grapevine after the unexpected success of Gaye's recording of the same name, which had been released as a single from the original album.
Marvin Gaye Live! is the second live album issued by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released on June 19, 1974, by Tamla Records.
Dancing in the Street: The Songs of Motown II is the sixth studio album by Australian pop vocal group Human Nature and second Motown covers release. It was released on 14 October 2006.
The Essential Collection is a compilation album for Motown soul singer Tammi Terrell, released by Universal Music Group's Spectrum Music in the United Kingdom in 2001. The compilation includes Terrell's only solo album, Irresistible in its entirety, several B-sides and unreleased tracks, and Terrell's most famous duet recording with singing partner Marvin Gaye, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".
"California Soul" is a funk-soul tune written by Ashford & Simpson, issued originally as the B-side of the Messengers' single "Window Shopping" in 1967 under the Motown group of labels.
Paul Riser is an American trombonist and Motown musical arranger who was responsible for co-writing and arranging dozens of top ten hit records. His legacy as one of the "Funk Brothers" is similar to that of most of the other "Brothers", as his career has been overlooked and overshadowed by the stars of Motown that became household names. Some of the Funk Brothers he worked with include: Earl Van Dyke, Johnny Griffith, Robert White, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina, Dennis Coffey, Wah Wah Watson, James Jamerson, Bob Babbitt, Eddie Watkins, Richard "Pistol" Allen, Uriel Jones, Andrew Smith, Jack Ashford, Valerie Simpson, Eddie "Bongo" Brown, Benny Benjamin, Cornelius Grant, Joe Hunter, Richard "Popcorn" Wylie, Marcus Belgrave, Teddy Buckner and Stevie Wonder.
James Nyx Jr., sometimes credited as James Nyx, was an American songwriter for the Motown label. He co-wrote "Inner City Blues ", which became a #9 hit for Marvin Gaye in 1971.
The Final Concert is a 2000 release of a 1983 show in Indianapolis. It is not the last concert from Marvin Gaye's final tour, but is the last one recorded.
