Marvin gaye confused
If there ever is an album that candidly portrays a breakdown of a marriage, then Here, My Dear is that album. In the summer of 1976, Marvin Gaye was going through a divorce with his first wife Anna Gordy, sister of the president of Motown Records Berry Gordy. Gaye was sued, and he had to pay not only child support, but half of the royalties of his next LP to Anna.
With this in mind, during the spring of 1977, Gaye entered the recording studio with the plan to make a quick album. But Gaye (ever the professional) had a change of heart: the project became a chronicle of the brutal realities of his marriage with Anna and his strong yet lost feelings towards her. Here, My Dear was born.
And we definitely get an insight into the thought of someone who’s severely heartbroken. I mean, get the title track that opens the album. It’s tremendous: the instrumental is quite clever because it sounds like a remix of ‘Let’s Get it On’ (a song about you-know-what), almost reflecting the flipside of love, creature the tragedy of heartbreak. The vocal arrangements are delightful, and Gaye eases us into how the LP will contain attractive honest lyrics (“you don’t have the rig
As one of the legends of soul, I really wish Marvin Gaye's records lived up to his reputation more. He expanded the limits of Motown formula in two opposite directions: introducing a greater social consciousness to black pop and pushing the envelope regarding blatant expressions of sexuality. He apparently spent the first half of the '60s unsuccessfully trying to cross over to light audiences with albums filled with whitebread covers of showtunes, but hooked up with Tammi Terrell to record several much more flourishing albums of duets ("Ain't No Mountain High Enough"). Gaye ditched the showbiz schmaltz around the same time, scoring a string of gritty (for Motown) R & B hits. Terrell died in 1970, which caused Gaye to reassess his career as a singer of formulaic Motown singles material; the next year, he released the landmark What's Going On over Motown president Berry Gordy's objections, thereby securing greater artistic freedom for black artists in the industry. He continued releasing more albums throughout the '70s, some hits, some duds, without demonstrating much esthetic growth, until 1982's Midnight Love, which set him on the comeback mark. Unfortunat
Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”
Lydia Hutchinson | March 31, 2017
The spring of 1970 was a dark time for Marvin Gaye. His beloved duet match Tammi Terrell had died after a three-year struggle with a brain tumor. His brother Frankie had returned from Vietnam with horror stories that moved Marvin to tears. And at Motown, Marvin was stymied in his quest to address social issues in his music.
While he was pondering his next move, a lyric fell in his lap that would provide a channel for all his sorrow and frustration.
The initial idea for “What’s Going On” came to Four Tops member Obie Benson when he was in San Francisco in 1969.
“They had the Haight-Ashbury then, all the kids up there with the extended hair and everything,” he told MOJO. “The police was beating on the kids, but they wasn’t bothering anybody. I saw this, and started wondering what was going on. ‘What is happening here?’ One question leads to another. ‘Why are they sending kids so far away from their families overseas?’ And so on.”
Benson shaped his tune with fellow Motown writer Al Cleveland, then pitched it to the Four Tops. But they weren’t interested in a demonstration song. Obie pl
The Untold Truth Of Marvin Gaye
When one thinks of soul, the chances of Marvin Gaye's name coming to the tip of the tongue are good. Whether it was his hit duets with Tammi Terrell, the politically-charged album "What's Going On," or the oozing sexuality of his only Grammy-winning lyric "Sexual Healing," Gaye became a domesticated name within the American musical landscape. His legacy has only grown more significant since his murder in 1984. David Ritz in his 1991 revised edition of his Marvin Gaye biography, "Divided Soul," noted the importance of Gaye's music more pointedly: "Marvin's name has been mentioned — in reverential tones — on no less than seven top-ten hit records. As hour goes by, the long list grows longer."
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Like many soul singers of his generation, Gaye came from humble beginnings. He was born in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 1939, to local House of God reverend Marvin Male lover Sr. and Alberta Gay and started singing in church from the age of 3. His father abused and controlled Gaye throughout his life, culminating in his father murdering him the day before his 45th birthday. Yet in those nearly 45 years of life, Gaye went from