Marvin Gaye was born Marvin Pentz Gay in 1939 in Washington D.C. His father was a minister in the House of God, a strict, conservative Christian sect. Like many of the successful singers of his generation, he started singing in church at a very early age. He later joined a local vocal group called the Rainbows and came to the attention of first Bo Diddley and then Harvey Fuqua, who recruited Gaye to his backing group the Moonglows. A performance in Detroit impressed Berry Gordy Jr. who, with his eye for talent, was impressed enough to sign Gaye to his emerging Motown label in 1961. He soon met and married Anna Gordy, Berry’s sister.
Gaye started out at Motown as a solo singer and in-house session musician, playing drums and piano on various recordings in Studio A. His first solo recordings in 1961 feature a series of standards and show tunes, issued on the album “The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye”, augmented by two new Motown songs, which were released as a single, all on the Tamla label. “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide”, the A-side, and the B-side, “Never Let You Go”, are both Berry Gordy songs. The first is a slow ballad that Gaye infuses with real feeling, especially in the short falsetto sections. On the B-side Gordy chose to up the tempo and include a Bluesy piano solo. Both these songs point the way ahead for Marvin Gaye and Motown, with five more singles issued up to the end of 1962. The best of them is the Gaye/Stevenson/Gordy composition “Stubborn Kind Of Fellow”, with backing vocals by the Vandellas. It has the typical Motown stompy beat.
Tamla issued just two Marvin Gaye singles, plus two albums, in 1963. The first single, “Pride and Joy”, released in April, was co-written by Gaye, Norman Whitfield, and Mickey Stevenson, who produced the record. Martha & the Vandellas sang backing vocals. The B-side, a Mickey Stevenson song “One Of These Days”, was also promoted as a joint A-side.
The follow-up “Can I Get A Witness”, released in September, is a Holland, Dozier, Holland song, produced by Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland. The B-side “I’m Crazy ‘Bout My Baby” was written and produced by Mickey Stevenson. Both singles sold well. “Pride and Joy” peaked at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and reached number two on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. “Can I Get A Witness” got to number twenty-two on the Hot 100 and number three on the R&B chart.
Both the studio album “That Stubborn Kinda Fellow” and the live album “Marvin Gaye: Recorded Live On Stage” failed to chart. Nevertheless, Gaye was gaining momentum. As an emerging songwriter he co-wrote six songs from his second solo album (“Stubborn Kind of Fellow”). One of the strongest is “Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home)”, which he co-wrote with Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield and first recorded in 1962.
Marvin Gaye was still looking for a really big hit and turned to Holland, Dozier, Holland for inspiration, hoping that they could improve on the chart success of “Can I Get A Witness” from 1963. As on the 1963 hit, the Supremes were called on to provide backing vocals. The songwriters came up with a song that “borrows” the rhythm track from Chuck Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee” (issued in 1963) that they called “You’re a Wonderful One”. Released in February, the single peaked at number fifteen on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number three on the Cash Box R&B Singles chart, so not much different from the 1963 hit, but it was lacking in excitement. Gaye sounds much happier singing the Nat King Cole-style ballad on the B-side.
However, Berry Gordy had a different route mapped out for Gaye. In May, he wrote and produced Gaye’s next single, a slow Blues called “Try It Baby”, in an attempt to find a way for Gaye to appeal to the younger market. It is more up-tempo, but Gaye’s voice is too smooth for the Blues. Once more the song climbed the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and stopped at number fifteen. And once again, Nat King Cole inspired the B-side ballad.
But Berry Gordy was not about to give up. Gaye’s third solo single of the year appeared in September. “Baby Don’t You Do It” is another Holland, Dozier, Holland song, intended for the Supremes but switched to Marvin Gaye. The backing vocals came from the Andantes, a specialist female backing trio, and Mike Terry added his fantastic baritone sax to the session. Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier produced the song. The result was much stronger, with a powerful punchy rhythm, excellent percussion and a real edge to Gaye’s vocals. It is a good, funky tune that deserved to be a hit. Sadly for all concerned at Motown, the sales went down rather than up, resulting in a chart position of number twenty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number fourteen on the Cash Box R&B Singles chart. Disappointing, but this was the way to go!
In November, Gaye released another single masterminded by the Holland, Dozier, Holland team called “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”. It is a straightforward love song and Gaye infuses it with some real joy but also some Soul, adding falsetto sections very effectively. The Andantes give it some bounce, as does the piano, and the Funk Brothers just nail it. The single peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and number three on the Billboard R&B Singles chart, which had just been restarted after an absence of over a year.
Gaye also had three albums released during the year that provided a demonstration of just how persuasive Gaye was, while the Motown team were searching for the right niche for him. The first was “When I’m Alone I Cry”, a Jazz album for which Clarence Paul recorded the backing tracks in New York and Chicago and Gaye added the vocals at the Graystone Ballroom in Detroit. The second was a “Greatest Hits” album and the third was “Hello Broadway”, a collection of show tunes and standards, arranged by Jerry Long and Gene Page and produced by Hal Davis and Marc Gordon. Once again, it was recorded at the Graystone Ballroom. Two out of the three were certainly not the Sound of Young America, but Gaye was a stubborn kind of fellow.
Berry Gordy had also not given up on finding Gaye a female vocalist to partner him. Mary Wells had enjoyed some success in the role but left during the year, so Gordy turned to Kim Weston. The new duo’s first single “What Good Am I Without You” was released in September on the Tamla label. The single charted on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and the Cash Box R&B Singles chart, reaching number sixty-one and number twenty-eight respectively. The song was co-written by Alphonso Higdon and Mickey Stevenson, who also produced the track, and features the Andantes on backing vocals. Gaye and Weston do a good job on the lead vocals, with Weston’s powerful delivery well-suited to the Bluesy arrangement and Gaye singing with feeling and a touch of Soul. The partnership seemed to have a lot of potential.
Marvin Gaye was the only Motown solo artist to release two albums in 1965. Tamla also issued singles by Gaye in February, June and September. That was a significant investment, given that Gaye was still waiting for a number one hit. Up until the end of 1964, Tamla had released thirteen Gaye singles, the last ten of which had entered the charts. However, the highest positions reached were number six on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart achieved by his most recent release, “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”, and number two on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart achieved by “Pride and Joy” in 1963 and “What’s the Matter with You Baby” in 1964. With all the other major acts at Motown now registering number one hits on their discographies, Gaye needed something special.
“I’ll Be Doggone”, his first single of the year, was co-written by Smokey Robinson, Pete Moore and Marv Tarplin, and produced by Robinson. The B-side was a Holland, Dozier, Holland song, “You’ve Been a Long Time Coming”. On paper, it looked good. Just to make sure, Marv Tarplin played guitar along with the Funk Brothers and the Miracles and the Andantes sang backing vocals. The song peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, but did reach number one on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. And it sold a million copies, earning Gaye’s first unofficial gold disc. It is good but lacks drama. The B-side is a slow, romantic ballad that sounds better!
The follow-up in June was “Pretty Little Baby”, co-written by Gaye, Clarence Paul and David Hamilton, with Paul in charge of production. The B-side is a Smokey Robinson ballad, “Now That You’ve Won Me”. Again, the B-side sounds better than the A-side. Gaye seems more comfortable with traditional ballads than with Pop songs. The single charted but only reached number twenty-five on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number sixteen on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart.
“Ain’t That Peculiar”, released in September, was a clone of the year’s first single, written by the Miracles, produced by Robinson and with Tarplin on guitar and the Andantes on backing vocals. Uriel Jones was on drums. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it repeated exactly the chart positions of “I’ll Be Doggone”. Another year went by with consistent chart success but without that Pop number one.
The two albums from 1965 reveal once more the two sides of Marvin Gaye. “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You” is a collection of songs all written by Motown songwriters. Backing vocals on most of the tracks come from other Motown groups, including the Supremes, the Temptations, Martha & the Vandellas, the Spinners or the Andantes. The best song on the album is probably Berry Gordy’s song “Try It Baby”, which Gaye sings with a sense of swing. With all that talent, it is surprising to discover that the album only reached number one hundred and twenty-eight on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart. That was a lot better, though, than the second album, “A Tribute to the Great Nat ‘King’ Cole”, which didn’t chart at all.
Tamla released three solo singles by Gaye in the course of 1966, the first of which was issued in January, having been recorded in Studio A over a number of sessions starting in November 1965. The song was a Miracles composition, “One More Heartache”, the work of Smokey Robinson, Bobby Rogers, Ronald White, Marv Tarplin and Pete Moore. Tarplin also played guitar on the recording, to which the Andantes added backing vocals. It is Bluesy and up-tempo, good enough to reach number twenty-nine on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number four on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart.
Marvin Gaye 1966
Photo: J. Edward Bailey (Wikimedia Commons)
The follow-up did less well. The Tarplin, Moore, Robinson composition “Take This Heart of Mine” is quite repetitive and only reached number forty-four on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number sixteen on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. The B-side, “Need Your Lovin’ (Want You Back)” is stronger, with driving percussion. It is a Marvin Gaye/ Clarence Paul composition, produced by Paul.
The third single has a different feel, more Pop-oriented. “Little Darling (I Need You)” is a Holland, Dozier, Holland song, with a typical bouncy piano leading the rhythm. It only reached number forty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart. The last two singles were minor hits in the UK, but there is not much evidence of Marvin Gaye making real progress. That feeling is backed up by the reception for Gaye’s lone solo album of the year, “Moods of Marvin Gaye”, which reached number eight on the Billboard Soul & R&B Albums chart but only made it to one hundred and eighteen on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart.
Marvin Gaye hadn’t given up on his dream of following in the footsteps of Nat King Cole, but he was moving inexorably but still a little unwillingly towards music that owed much more to his own experiences. Despite the success of “I’ll Be Doggone”, Gaye hadn’t yet found his true voice. Berry Gordy, meanwhile, continued to seek the perfect duet partner for Gaye.
