Born in 1939 in D.C. to a father from Kentucky and a mother from North Carolina, Marvin Gaye blazed the trail for the continued evolution of popular black music. But by the winter of 1981, Marvin Gaye was in a personal and professional doldrums. Weakened by a debilitating drug problem, an increasing debt to the IRS, two failed marriages and losing his homes, cars and recording studio, Marvin had moved away from the continental United States by 1979 first settling in a bread van in Hawaii. In 1980, he settled in London and fortook on a European tour with British promoter Jeffrey Kruger.
Settling in Oostende, Belgium thanks to an offer by boxing promoter Freddy Couseart, the singer began sobering up from years of drug abuse cutting usage of marijuana and cocaine while working out in an ancient gym and jogging daily at the beaches in Ostend. By the summer of 1981, the 42-year-old Gaye decided to launch a tour of Europe again around areas of London - where he was received more favorably than the previous year's embarrassing no-show for Princess Margaret - and areas of Belgium. Afterwards, Marvin was inspired to get back in the studio to record his final album in Belgium
'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' It took Marvin Gaye two months to complete his recording of the song, which he worked on during April and May of 1967. Whitfield had Gaye's lead vocal arranged just above his actual register, a trick he had used with David Ruffin on Temptations songs such as "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" in order to elicit a rawer vocal from the singer as he strained to hit the high notes. The trick worked, and Gaye's pained lead on "Grapevine", contrasted with the softer background vocals of the Andantes.
'Praise' is a 1981 gospel-inspired funk number released by American soul singer Marvin Gaye. The song, written by Gaye, is a tribute to not only his church upbringing but also to the sound of then-label mate Stevie Wonder, who is given a shout out on the song by Gaye.
The song, equipped with horns, a propulsive drum beat, and Gaye's multi-layered vocals, returned Gaye to the top forty of Billboard's Black singles chart where it peaked at number 18 on that chart while reaching #1 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100. It was the actual first release off Gaye's controversial recording, In Our Lifetime.
The song was originally recorded in 1979 under the title "A Lover's Plea" from the singer's canceled Love Man album.
'I Want You' is a 1976 album by Marvin Gaye released on the Tamla (Motown) label. The album was his first recorded studio material released in three years and marked a change in direction for Gaye, leaving his trademark Motown soul for funky, light-disco soul.
Recording 'I Want You'
By 1975, Marvin Gaye had come off of the release of his 1973 album, Let's Get It On, and a duet project with Diana Ross but much like the creation of Let's Get It On before it, had struggled to come up with an album to compete it with. And much like Let's Get It On, outside help came in the form of Leon Ware, a singer-songwriter who had found previous success writing hits for fellow Motown alum including Michael Jackson and The Miracles. Ware had been working on songs for his own album which he later titled Musical Massage, a collection of sexually erotic singles Ware had composed with a variety of writers including Jacqueline Hillard and Arthur "T-Boy" Ross, the latter collaborator, brother of Diana Ross. When Motown CEO Berry Gordy paid a visit to Ware, the songwriter was more than happy to play Gordy his selection of tracks. After hearing the songs, however, Gordy figured that Ware give the songs to Marvin. Leon and Marvin recorded the album in Marvin's newly-christened Marvin Gaye Studios, located in Sunset Boulevard. While the majority of the songs were conceived by Ware, the album transformed into a biographical centerpiece for Marvin, who was then in a long-standing affair with Janis Hunter, the mother of his two youngest children. Though it was often hinted that Let's Get It On was an album dedicated to her, Marvin cited this album as being dedicated to Hunter, with whom is believed to have been in the studio when Marvin recorded the project enhancing the emotion in Ware's seductive lyrics, according to critics.
Related Words:
80's, 1980s, 80s, 1980's, singing, Sexual Healing, Ain't No Mountain Higher, We Are The World, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, black Americans, African-Americans, Funk Brothers, Tammi Terrell, Sam Cooke, R. Kelly, Bob Marley, Lionel Richie, Commodores, Nightshift, Akon, transit Ostend, Belgium
