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Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (no "e" yet) was born on April 2, 1939, in Washington, D.C. He sang in his father's Apostolic church and later joined the doo-wop group the Rainbows ("Mary Lee," 1955), whose line-up also included Billy Stewart. In 1959, when Harvey Fuqua decided to re-form his old vocal group, the Moonglows ("Sincerely," "Ten Commandments of Love"), he hired Marvin to sing baritone.
Gaye moved to Detroit in 1960. He worked at a car factory and found session work as a drummer at Motown on such recordings as the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman." He married Berry Gordy's sister Anna in 1961 and got his musical wish when Gordy let him record an album of standards, "The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye." It was very well-sung but did not sell.
Gaye, however, was sure that he was destined to be a jazz singer, and adamantly refused to record the more commercial stuff. It was his attitude that inspired staff writers Mickey Stevenson and George Gordy (Berry's brother) to write "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," which Berry Gordy somehow convinced Marvin to cut. Released on Tamla in October of 1962, the single reached #46 pop and #8 R&B. The follow-up, "Hitch Hike," became Gaye's first top forty pop hit. His third single, "Pride and Joy," went top ten in the summer of '63. When he went on the road with the Motortown Revue, Gaye was such a show-stopper that the women in the audience screamed before he even opened his mouth.
In 1965, he enjoyed his first two #1 R&B hits, "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar." On the pop charts, however, Gaye had to wait until 1968 to reach the top. But when he did, it was with a vengeance. "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" pushed "Love Child" by his labelmates, the Supremes, off #1 on December 14, 1968, and remained White America's favorite song for the next seven weeks. For good measure, it spent the same amount of time at #1 on the soul charts.
Marvin also became one of R&B's top duet singers. He waxed his first couplings with Mary Wells in 1964. Three years later, Gaye teamed up with Kim Weston for the classic "It Takes Two." Also in 1967, Marvin first recorded with Tammi Terrell, which resulted in a string of classics like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "You're All I Need To Get By," "Your Precious Love," and "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You."
Nineteen-Seventy was an off year for Gaye, mainly because of Tammi Terrell's death. Marvin spent much of of the year in depressed seclusion. His chart performance that year bore this out. He made the R&B top twenty only twice in 1970, while his sole pop hit, "End Of Our Road," barely climbed to #40.
But in 1971, Marvin came back with a vengeance. By then, he had enough clout with Motown that when his contract came up for renewal, Berry Gordy agreed to Gaye's demand of creative autonomy over his music. The result just happened to be one of the greatest soul albums ever made.
"What's Going On" was an artistic triumph in that it was a concept album with ongoing musical themes throughout, and that it expanded the definition of what a soul album could include. After all, didn't "Right On" have a flute solo? Plus, the album was pure social commentary, a marked departure from Gaye's regular roster of love songs.
"What's Going On" also was a commercial success. It shot up both the pop and R&B album charts, and produced three smash singles--the title track, "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)." The new Marvin Gaye had arrived, and America loved him. Ironically, Berry Gordy had called the album the worst piece of shit he ever heard, and initially refused to release it!
In 1972, Marvin was hired to write, produce and record the score to the blaxploitation film, "Trouble Man." The title song became another notch on Gaye's belt of top ten singles. In 1973, the King of Motown returned to the subject of romance, and waxed another one of the all-time great soul albums, "Let's Get It On," whose title song gave Marvin his second #1 pop single.
In 1976, he took a foray into disco with the "I Want You" album, one of that genre's more admirable accomplishments. The title song became a #1 R&B single and hit #15 pop. The following year, Gaye explored his funkier side with "Got To Give It Up," which became his third and final #1 pop hit.
By 1980, Marvin was a tax exile living in Europe, and wanted to leave Motown. He and Berry Gordy subsequently had an amicable parting of the ways. In February of 1981, Gaye signed with CBS Records. In April of 1982, David Ritz, who was writing Marvin's biography, traveled to Belgium to see the singer. When the talk turned to sex, Ritz suggested that Marvin needed sexual healing. Gaye felt the concept would make a great song.
"Sexual Healing" was included on the "Midnight Love" album and became a smash. At the end of 1982, it rose to #3 pop and spent a very impressive ten weeks at #1 R&B. The following year, Marvin came back to America to perform in the TV special, "Motown's 25th Anniversary."
On April 1, 1984, Marvin got into a violent argument with his father, who pulled out a gun and shot his son to death. The King of Motown was one day short of his 45th birthday. In 1987, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Nine years later, Marvin was posthumously awarded the Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award. And in 1999, Motown released "Love-Starved Heart," a 20-track CD of previously unreleased Marvin Gaye tracks from the '60s, as part of its "Lost & Found" series.
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