Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye, was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to 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, earning 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, and 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.
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. Terrell had been ill, suffering from complications caused by a brain tumor, since the fall of 1967. Marvin Gaye later claimed that as a result, most of the female vocals on this album were performed by Valerie Simpson, who served as co-songwriter and co-producer for the LP with her boyfriend and future husband Nickolas Ashford.
Let's Get It On is the thirteenth studio album by American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released on August 28, 1973, by the Motown subsidiary label Tamla Records on LP.
Here, My Dear is the fifteenth studio album by music artist Marvin Gaye, released as a double album on December 15, 1978, on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. Recording sessions for the album took place between 1977 and 1978 at Gaye's personal studios, Marvin Gaye Studios, in Los Angeles, California. The album was notable for its subject matter focusing largely on Gaye's acrimonious divorce from his first wife, Anna Gordy Gaye.
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.
David Ritz is an American author. He has written novels, biographies, magazine articles, and over a hundred liner notes for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Nat King Cole. He has coauthored 36 autobiographies, including some celebrities' autobiographies.
Midnight Love is the seventeenth studio album by Marvin Gaye and the final album to be released during his lifetime. He signed with the label Columbia in March 1982 following his exit from Motown.
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.
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.
Hello Broadway is the fourth studio album by soul singer Marvin Gaye, released in 1964. It is an album of standards and Broadway material.
"After the Dance" is a slow jam recorded by singer Marvin Gaye and released as the second single off Gaye's 1976 hit album I Want You. Though it received modest success, the song was widely considered to be one of Gaye's best ballads and served as part of the template for quiet storm and urban contemporary ballads that came afterwards.
Vulnerable is the third posthumous album by Marvin Gaye. Recorded in sessions throughout 1977, the album was a decade in the making, first being worked on in 1968 during sessions in New York with Bobby Scott. Reworked by Gaye a decade later, the album was originally going to be released in 1979 under the title, The Ballads, but was shelved. Two decades later, Motown released it under the title Vulnerable, including seven songs from the sessions and three alternate cuts.
"Far Cry" is the infamous unfinished recording that was included on singer Marvin Gaye's 1981 final Motown album, In Our Lifetime. The song, essentially a funk-styled instrumental, featured a vocally conscious Gaye mouthing words while playing multiple instruments, including the drums and keyboards, on the first part of the song. The brief second half features a jazz instrumental with Gaye playing piano and drums and singing in falsetto, while his fellow instrumentalists, bassist Frank Blair and guitarist Gordon Banks, accompany him. The song's release among the eight original recordings on In Our Lifetime angered Marvin to the point where he severed ties with Motown, his home for twenty years, leaving the label for Columbia. As he told his biographer David Ritz,
"I hadn't completed it....The song was in its most primitive stage. All I had was this jive vocal track, and they put it out as a finished fact. How could they embarrass me like that? I was humiliated. They also added guitar licks and bass lines. How dare they second guess my artistic decisions! Can you imagine saying to an artist, say Picasso, 'Okay, Pablo, you've been fooling with this picture long enough. We'll take your unfinished canvas and add a leg here, an arm there. You might be the artist, but you're behind schedule, so we'll finish up this painting for you. If you don't like the results, Pablo, baby, that's touch!'"
Love Starved Heart: Rare and Unreleased is a compilation album by Marvin Gaye. Released in 1994 on Motown Records, the collection features some rarities from the soul singer's catalog during his formative years in the label between his breakthrough year as an R&B star in 1963 to around the time of his late-1960s hits including "I Heard It through the Grapevine". Covering material he worked on with figures such as Holland-Dozier-Holland, Smokey Robinson and William "Mickey" Stevenson, the disc showcases Gaye's growth as a vocalist. In 1999, an expanded version was released under the title Lost and Found: Love Starved Heart, including bonus tracks and a rare interview.
Marvin Gaye was an American music artist and singer-songwriter who won acclaim for a series of recordings with Motown Records. Gaye's personal life, mainly documented in the biography, Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye, included his faith; child abuse by his father; personal relationships with his two wives, friends, and girlfriends; and bouts of depression and drug abuse.
Anna Ruby Gaye was an American businesswoman, composer and songwriter. An elder sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy, she became a record executive in the mid-to-late 1950s distributing records released on Checker and Gone Records before forming the Anna label with Billy Davis and her sister Gwen Gordy Fuqua. Gordy later became known as a songwriter for several hits including the Originals' "Baby, I'm for Real", and at least two songs on Marvin Gaye's What's Going On album. The first wife of Gaye, their turbulent marriage later served as inspiration for Gaye's 15th studio album, Here, My Dear.
Morris Ervin Broadnax, sometimes credited as Luvel Broadnax, was an American songwriter for Motown in the 1960s, most notably working with Stevie Wonder with whom, along with Clarence Paul, he co-wrote Aretha Franklin's hit "Until You Come Back to Me ".
"Come Live with Me Angel" is a smooth soul song by soul singer Marvin Gaye. The song was co-written by singer-songwriter Leon Ware and lyricist Jacqueline Dalya-Hilliard for the former's album Musical Massage. However, Ware gave it to Gaye as he showed interest in it, as well as the other songs Ware had written with Arthur Ross. The song first appeared on Gaye's album I Want You as the second track.
