The troubled life of Marvin Gaye

Back in 1985 Levis Jeans put out a TV commercial with the model turned singer Nick Kamen, entering a launderette and striping off to his boxer shorts whilst putting the clothes he had taken off in the washing machine and then sitting down to read a magazine whilst waiting for his clothes to finish washing. Needless to say he became a star after that commercial aired, which used the song “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” – a major hit single for Soul Music Legend Marvin Gaye, who had only just died a year earlier under shocking circumstances. During the sixties and seventies, Marvin was one of the star recording artists on the Tamla Motown label who (as well as having his lady killer looks) was known for having a string of hits as part of a duet with Tammi Terrell or as a solo artist and producing seminal albums such as ”What’s Goin’ On?” and “Let’s Get it On”.

Marvin Pentz Gay Jr was born in 1939 in America’s capital of Washington D.C., to a storefront preacher father with a penchant for crossdressing and loving mother and who was the eldest of four siblings by his parents. Gaye’s father was very abusive to him and would regularly beat him for the most minor things and as Marvin reached his teenage years, the beatings got worse. His mother was a great source of comfort and also encouraged him to sing in the church choir. Marvin spent a short time in the U.S. Air Force after leaving school at seventeen and after another row with his dad was forced to leave home yet again. However he didn’t take orders very well and was eventually discharged.

#MarvinGaye #60s pic.twitter.com/CWxSxaemQB

— Marvin Gaye (@MarvinGayeForum) February 12, 2015

Marvin would later add the letter e to his surname (from Gay to Gaye) because of the butt of jokes about it during his childhood. Once he left the Air Force he started singing with a local Doo Wop group in his hometown, and he had started writing his own compositions and lyrics for songs. A lack of success with the group led to their eventual break up, though.

In 1960, aged 22, he moved to Detroit and signed to Berry Gordy’s then fledgling record company Tamla Motown and would quickly release his first single “Let Your Soul Be Your Guide”, followed by his debut album “The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye” , all whilst working there as a back up musician on the drums. For much of his career during the sixties he was mainly associated with singing in duets with Mary Wells, Tammi Terrell and Kim Weston, with whom he had hit singles especially with Tammi Terrell with songs like “Ain’t No Mountain Low Enough” and “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”.

In 1968 he released the track “I Heard it through the Grapevine” which was an international hit and Marvin’s first number one single in the U.S. and in other countries. He released a couple more albums before releasing what many consider to be his masterpiece.

In 1970, Gaye started working on the album “What’s Goin On” after a period of mourning his former singing partner Tammi Terrell, who had died of a brain tumour that same year, and the break up of his first marriage to Anna Gordy (the sister of Berry Gordy). Released in 1971, the album would mark a transition in his songwriting which became more political, touching on social issues such as racism, poverty and the Vietnam War which his brother (Frankie Gaye) had been away fighting in.

The album received critical acclaim as well as being a major commercial success and produced the hit singles “What’s Goin On”, “Mercy, Mercy, Me” and “Inner City Blues. The follow up to that album would be 1972’s soundtrack to the film “Trouble Man” and the erotically charged album “Let’s Get It On” in 1973, with the single of the same name reaching number one on the U.S. charts and the album being an even bigger success. He would later on embark on a tour between 1974-75, which was earning him up to $10,000 a performance. However, with the glittering success came the drugs which he would struggle with for the rest of his career and which would also contribute to him having financial problems and a decline in records sales during the late seventies, that would eventually lead to his split with Motown Records.

After finally leaving in Motown 1981 after twenty years, Marvin then signed with CBS records and quickly got to work on what was to be his comeback album. The single “Sexual Healing” was released in the autumn of 1982, which was a post-disco R’n’b ballad that became an international hit, reaching the top 10 in both the U.S. and U.K. Charts and topping the Canadian and New Zealand charts. The song won Marvin Gaye two Grammy Awards in early 1983. The album “Midnight Love” which accompanied the single became his best selling album ever, shifting over six million copies and marking a transition into eighties post-disco/soul/funk and with Marvin playing most of the instruments on that album.

#MarvinGaye #DividedSoul pic.twitter.com/qeWxxT2d0h

— Marvin Gaye (@MarvinGayeForum) October 10, 2015

For much of 1983, he would give some of what would be his last performances like on Motown’s 25th Anniversary show (where Michael Jackson’s performance of “Billie Jean” stole the show ) and during his Midnight Love Tour, which had to be cut short because of Gaye’s continued drug problems and which led to him having to recuperate at the home of his parents.

In April 1984, Marvin Gaye was shot and killed (aged 45) by his father Marvin Gay Snr when the Junior was trying to stop his father from physically assaulting his mother (as he had done throughout his marriage to Marvin’s mother). His funeral was attended by all the great Motown artists.

His father ( who would die in an old people’s home fourteen years later) was not charged with murder for his son’s death but on the charge of manslaughter because of his mental health issues. Gaye is survived by three children (which include the singer and actress Nona Gaye) and has three grandchildren. His music and legacy lives on.

A short biography of the legendary soul singer who was known as “The Prince of Motown”.