Tammi Terrell was born in Philadelphia in 1945 and came to Motown in 1965, having cut her first singles at Scepter/Wand Records as a teenager and then joining James Brown’s Revue. She decided to sign up for a college course, during which Jerry Butler asked her to join him on a series of shows. It was at one of these shows in Detroit in April 1965 that Berry Gordy heard her and offered her a contract at Motown. She accepted the offer and signed on April 29th, her twentieth birthday!
Tammi Terrell
Photo: Trade Ad in Billboard Magazine (Wikimedia Commons)
Her first Motown single was released in November. “I Can’t Believe You Love Me” was co-written by Harvey Fuqua and Johhny Bristol and produced by Fuqua. The song became her second chart entry, reaching number seventy-two on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number twenty-seven on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. It was a good start.
Tammi Terrell continued to work with Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, who wrote and produced her one single of the year, “Come On And See Me”, which once again made the charts. The single peaked at number eighty on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number twenty-five on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart, very similar results to those of her first Motown single in 1965.
Motown Records released just one solo single byTerrellin 1967,as they were concentrating on the duets with Marvin Gaye. The A-side is “What A Good Man He Is”, co-written and produced by Smokey Robinson and Al Cleveland. It has plenty of energy. The B-side is “There Are Things”, written and produced by Harvey Fuqua. It didn’t make the charts, but another opportunity had already been put in place by Berry Gordy.
Following Kim Weston’s departure from Motown, Marvin Gaye needed a new partner for his duets. Tammi Terrell was the chosen successor, taking over the role in late 1966.
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell recorded one album together in 1967, entitled “United”, from which three songs were selected for single release. The album was produced by Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, with the exception of two tracks. “You Got What It Takes” was written by Berry Gordy, Gwen Gordy and Bill Davis and produced by Berry Gordy. “Oh How I’d Miss You” was written by Frank Wilson, Hal Davis and Vance Wilson and produced by Hal Davis. Fuqua and Bristol had a hand in half of the songs included on the album, with Marvin Gaye providing one. Two of the tracks were written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, who had just been signed to Motown’s songwriting fraternity. The album reached number seven on the Billboard R&B Albums Chart and number sixty-nine on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart, selling close to a million copies.
Two of the tracks (“Hold Me Oh My Darling” and “Two Can Have A Party”) were originally solo recordings by Terrell, to which Gaye’s duet vocals were over-dubbed. This became the preferred method of recording for their early tracks, presumably because it gave the engineers greater control.
The first single from the album to be released by Tamla was “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” in April 1967, which was a big thumbs-up for Ashford and Simpson. They had written the song before arriving at Motown and had played it for Dusty Springfield, who wanted to record it. But the writers turned down the request, in the hope that they would be given the opportunity to record it in Studio A before too long. Their plan obviously worked, as they could tell on hearing the final version, with the two voices blending so well, despite having been recorded separately. The single reached number nineteen on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number three on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. It has sold consistently over the years, earning platinum certification in Denmark and Italy and double-platinum in the UK. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
The follow-up, unsurprisingly, was the second Ashford and Simpson composition from the album, “Your Precious Love”, which did even better on the US charts on its release in August, reaching number five on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number two on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart.
Their third single of the year was “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You”, co-written by producers Fuqua and Bristol with Vernon Bullock. It maintained the pattern of success, peaking at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart and number two on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. It also charted in the UK, reaching number forty-one on the UK Official Pop Singles Chart.
The popularity of the three singles in particular meant that Gaye and Terrell were in demand for live performances and TV appearances. Gaye was notoriously shy about singing publicly, but Terrell was able to bring out the best in her partner. In fact, adding together his solo and duet releases, Gaye was the busiest Motown artist in 1967 with seven releases.
Tammi Terrell’s solo career may have brought only limited success, but her partnership with Marvin Gaye created some of the best love songs ever issued. The future looked very bright indeed.
