Fond Farewell
Marvin Gaye
April 2, 1939 - - - April 1, 1984
Marvin Gaye was one of the most consistent and enigmatic of the Motown hitmakers. A mellifluous tenor, he was nominated for eight Grammys before winning in 1983. He was the son of a preacher and started singing and playing organ in the church at age three. After a brief stint in the Air Force he returned to his home of Washington DC and started singing with a local doo-wop group the Rainbows. In 1957 he formed his own group called the Marquees. In 1961 while playing in Detroit they were heard by local impresario Berry Gordy Jr., who quickly signed Gaye to his Motown label. His first duties for the label were as a session drummer where he played on Little Stevie Wonder's first single "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old Folks Call It the Blues" and all the early hits of Smoky Robinson. Gaye had his first hit in 1962 with "Stubborn Kind of Fellow". Over the next ten years he would work with almost every producer at Motown and would have over ten hits. Some like "I heard it Through the Grapevine" were solo but most were duets with the likes of Mary Wells and Kim Weston. His most popular duets were with Tammi Terrell, but Terrell died of a brain tumor in 1970. The second, quite distinct phase of Gaye's career began in after Terrell's death. Along with Stevie Wonder, Gaye was one of the first Motown artists to gain complete control of his records. In 1971 Gaye released the self composed and produced record "What's Going On". The Album was a hit fueled by the title song and "Mercy Mercy Me" which were impassioned statements toward the Vietnam War and Pollution. By 1973 he turned his music more toward eroticism with "Let's Get it On" whose title track went to #1. Also in '73 he released an album with Diana Ross which yielded three fairly successful singles. Gaye's rocky marriage of fourteen years to the sister of Berry Gordy Jr. was the subject of 1978's "Here, My Dear". The album had been precipitated by court hearings, when a judge instructed Gaye to make good on alimony payments by make a record and giving his wife the royalties. In 1982 Gaye left Motown for Columbia Records and released "Midnight Love" which included the Grammy winning single "Sexual Healing".
Despite his success, Gaye was depressed and was abusing the narcotic drug cocaine. He moved back to the US to live with his parents where quarrels with his father were often and who he had been at odds with since his teenage years. In early 1984, Gaye reportedly threatened suicide several times before his father shot him following a Sunday morning shouting match. After his death Columbia and Motown collaborated to produce Dream of a Lifetime and Romantically Yours, both based on unfinished recordings from the Sexual Healing sessions.
Marvin Gaye Links
A Tribute to Marvin Gaye www.calvin.edu/~cdykho15/marvin
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