Biography by
Jason Ankeny
One of the most gifted, visionary,
and enduring talents ever launched into orbit by the Motown
hit machine, Marvin Gaye blazed the trail for the continued
evolution of popular black music. Moving from lean, powerful
R&B to stylish, sophisticated soul to finally arrive at
an intensely political and personal form of artistic
self-expression, his work not only redefined soul music as a
creative force but also expanded its impact as an agent for
social change.
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (in the
style of his hero Sam Cooke, he added the "e" to his surname
as an adult) was born April 2, 1939, in Washington, D.C. The
second of three children born to the Reverend Marvin Gay,
Sr., an ordained minister in the House of God -- a
conservative Christian sect that fuses elements of orthodox
Judaism and Pentecostalism, imposes strict codes of conduct,
and observes no holidays -- he began singing in church at
the age of three, quickly becoming a soloist in the choir.
Gaye later took up piano and drums, and music became his
escape from the nightmarish realities of his home life --
throughout his childhood, his father beat him on an almost
daily basis.
After graduating from high school,
Gaye enlisted in the U.S. Air Force; upon his discharge, he
returned to Washington and began singing in a number of
street-corner doo wop groups, eventually joining the
Rainbows, a top local attraction. With the help of mentor Bo
Diddley, the Rainbows cut "Wyatt Earp," a single for the
OKeh label that brought them to the attention of singer
Harvey Fuqua, who in 1958 recruited the group to become the
latest edition of his backing ensemble, the Moonglows. After
relocating to Chicago, the Moonglows recorded a series of
singles for Chess, including 1959's "Mama Loocie." While
touring the Midwest, the group performed in Detroit, where
Gaye's graceful tenor and three-octave vocal range won the
interest of fledgling impresario Berry Gordy, Jr., who
signed him to the Motown label in 1961.
While
first working at Motown as a session drummer and playing on
early hits by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, he met
Gordy's sister Anna, and married her in late 1961. Upon
mounting a solo career, Gaye struggled to find his voice,
and early singles failed. Finally, his fourth effort,
"Stubborn Kind of Fellow," became a minor hit in 1962, and
his next two singles -- the 1963 dance efforts "Hitch Hike"
and "Can I Get a Witness" -- both reached the Top 30. With
1963's "Pride and Joy," Gaye scored his first Top Ten smash,
but often found his role as a hitmaker stifling -- his
desire to become a crooner of lush romantic ballads ran in
direct opposition to Motown's all-important emphasis on
chart success, and the ongoing battle between his artistic
ambitions and the label's demands for commercial product
continued throughout Gaye's long tenure with the company.
With 1964's Together, a collection of duets with
Mary Wells, Gaye scored his first charting album; the duo
also notched a number of hit singles together, including
"Once Upon a Time" and "What's the Matter With You, Baby?"
As a solo performer, Gaye continued to enjoy great success,
scoring three superb Top Ten hits -- "Ain't That Peculiar,"
"I'll Be Doggone," and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by
You)" -- in 1965. In total, he scored some 39 Top 40 singles
for Motown, many of which he also wrote and arranged. With
Kim Weston, the second of his crucial vocal partners, he
also established himself as one of the era's dominant duet
singers with the stunning "It Takes Two."
However,
Gaye's greatest duets were with Tammi Terrell, with whom he
scored a series of massive hits penned by the team of
Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, including 1967's
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Your Precious Love,"
followed by 1968's "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and
"You're All I Need to Get By." The team's success was
tragically cut short in 1967 when, during a concert
appearance in Virginia, Terrell collapsed into Gaye's arms
on-stage, the first evidence of a brain tumor that abruptly
ended her performing career and finally killed her on March
16, 1970. Her illness and eventual loss left Gaye deeply
shaken, marring the chart-topping 1968 success of "I Heard
It Through the Grapevine," his biggest hit and arguably the
pinnacle of the Motown sound.
At the same time,
Gaye was forced to cope with a number of other personal
problems, not the least of which was his crumbling marriage.
He also found the material he recorded for Motown to be
increasingly irrelevant in the face of the tremendous social
changes sweeping the nation, and after scoring a pair of
1969 Top Ten hits with "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" and
"That's the Way Love Is," he spent the majority of 1970 in
seclusion, resurfacing early the next year with the
self-produced What's Going On, a landmark effort heralding a
dramatic shift in both content and style that forever
altered the face of black music. A highly percussive album
that incorporated jazz and classical elements to forge a
remarkably sophisticated and fluid soul sound, What's Going
On was a conceptual masterpiece that brought Gaye's deeply
held spiritual beliefs to the fore to explore issues ranging
from poverty and discrimination to the environment, drug
abuse, and political corruption; chief among the record's
concerns was the conflict in Vietnam, as Gaye structured the
songs around the point of view of his brother Frankie,
himself a soldier recently returned from combat.
The ambitions and complexity of What's Going On
baffled Berry Gordy, who initially refused to release the
LP; he finally relented, although he maintained that he
never understood the record's full scope. Gaye was
vindicated when the majestic title track reached the number
two spot in 1971, and both of the follow-ups, "Mercy Mercy
Me (The Ecology)" and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna
Holler)," also reached the Top Ten. The album's success
guaranteed Gaye continued artistic control over his work and
helped loosen the reins for other Motown artists, most
notably Stevie Wonder, to also take command of their own
destinies. Consequently, in 1972, Gaye changed directions
again, agreeing to score the blaxploitation thriller Trouble
Man; the resulting soundtrack was a primarily instrumental
effort showcasing his increasing interest in jazz, although
a vocal turn on the moody, minimalist title track scored
another Top Ten smash.
The long-simmering
eroticism implicit in much of Gaye's work reached its
boiling point with 1973's Let's Get It On, one of the most
sexually charged albums ever recorded; a work of intense
lust and longing, it became the most commercially successful
effort of his career, and the title cut became his second
number one hit. Let's Get It On also marked another
significant shift in Gaye's lyrical outlook, moving him from
the political arena to a deeply personal, even insular
stance that continued to define his subsequent work. After
teaming with Diana Ross for the 1973 duet collection Marvin
and Diana, he returned to work on his next solo effort, I
Want You; however, the record's completion was delayed by
his 1975 divorce from Anna Gordy. The dissolution of his
marriage threw Gaye into a tailspin, and he spent much of
the mid-'70s in divorce court. To combat Gaye's absence from
the studio, Motown released the 1977 stopgap Live at the
London Palladium, which spawned the single "Got to Give It
Up, Pt. 1," his final number one hit.
As a
result of a 1976 court settlement, Gaye was ordered to make
good on missed alimony payments by recording a new album,
with the intention that all royalties earned from its sales
would then be awarded to his ex-wife. The 1978 record, a
two-LP set sardonically titled Here, My Dear, bitterly
explored the couple's relationship in such intimate detail
that Anna Gordy briefly considered suing Gaye for invasion
of privacy. In the interim, he had remarried and begun work
on another album, Lover Man, but scrapped the project when
the "Ego Tripping Out" lead single -- a telling personal
commentary presented as a duet between the spiritual and
sexual halves of his identity, which biographer David Ritz
later dubbed the singer's "divided soul" -- failed to chart.
As his drug problems increased and his marriage to new wife
Janis also began to fail, he relocated to Hawaii in an
attempt to sort out his personal affairs.
In
1981, longstanding tax difficulties and renewed pressures
from the IRS forced Gaye to flee to Europe, where he began
work on the ambitious In Our Lifetime, a deeply
philosophical record that ultimately severed his
longstanding relationship with Motown after he claimed the
label had remixed and edited the album without his consent.
Additionally, Gaye stated that the finished artwork parodied
his original intent, and that even the title had been
changed to drop an all-important question mark. Upon signing
with Columbia in 1982, he battled stories of erratic
behavior and a consuming addiction to cocaine to emerge
triumphant with Midnight Love, an assured comeback
highlighted by the luminous Top Three hit "Sexual Healing."
The record made Gaye a star yet again, and in 1983 he made
peace with Berry Gordy by appearing on a television special
celebrating Motown's silver anniversary. That same year, he
also sang a soulful and idiosyncratic rendition of "The
Star-Spangled Banner" at the NBA All-Star Game; it instantly
became one of the most controversial and legendary
interpretations of the anthem ever performed. And it was to
be his final public appearance.
Gaye's career
resurgence brought with it an increased reliance on cocaine;
finally, his personal demons forced him back to the U.S.,
where he moved in with his parents in an attempt to regain
control of his life. Tragically, the return home only
exacerbated his spiral into depression; he and his father
quarrelled bitterly, and Gaye threatened suicide on a number
of occasions. Finally, on the afternoon of April 1, 1984 --
one day before his 45th birthday -- Gaye was shot and killed
by Marvin Sr. in the aftermath of a heated argument. In the
wake of his death, Motown and Columbia teamed up to issue
two 1985 collections of outtakes, Dream of a Lifetime -- a
compilation of erotic funk workouts teamed with spiritual
ballads -- and the big band-inspired Romantically Yours.
(Vulnerable, a collection of ballads that took over 12 years
to complete, finally saw release in 1996.) With Gaye's death
also came a critical re-evaluation of his work, which deemed
What's Going On to be one of the landmark albums in pop
history, and his 1987 induction into the Rock & Roll
Hall of Fame permanently enshrined him among the pantheon of
musical greats.
Content provided by All Music Guide.
Copyright 2008 All Media Guide, LLC.
