Marvin Gaye was born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr on April 2, 1939 at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C.. His father, Marvin Gay, Sr., was a minister at the House of God (the House of God headquarters is located in Lexington, Kentucky), which advocated strict conduct and taught and believed in both the Old and New Testament. His mother, Alberta Gay (née Cooper), was a domestic and schoolteacher. Gaye was the second eldest of four children.
Developing a love for music at an early age, Gaye began playing instruments, including piano and drums. Upon arriving to Cardozo High School, he discovered doo-wop and harder-edged rhythm and blues and began running away from home to attend R&B concerts and dance halls, defying his father's rules. Gaye joined several groups in the D.C. area, including the Dippers with his best friend, Johnny Stewart, brother of R&B singer Billy Stewart. He then joined the D.C. Tones, whose members included another close friend, Reese Palmer, and Sondra Lattisaw, mother of R&B singer Stacy Lattisaw. Gaye's relationship with his father led him to run away from home and join the United States Air Force in the hope of becoming an aviator. However, discovering his growing hatred for authority, he began defying orders and skipped practices. His sergeant stated that Gaye refused to follow orders. Upon returning to his hometown, Gaye worked as a dishwasher to make ends meet. He still dreamed of a show-business career, and rejoining Reese Palmer, the duo formed a four-member group called The Moonglows.
A 1959 The Moonglows hit "Mama Loochie", which was the first time Gaye sang lead on a record. The record was issued in late 1959 and became a hit in Detroit. Following a concert performance there, Gaye and other band members were arrested for small possession of marijuana. Afterwards, Fuqua decided to disband the group, keeping Gaye with him, as he favored him over the other members. In 1960, Harvey Fuqua had met Gwen Gordy and the couple embarked on both a personal and professional relationship. That year, the couple formed two record labels, the self-named Harvey Records, and Tri-Phi Records. Gaye was signed to the former label, whose other members included a young David Ruffin and Junior Walker. He provided drums for The Spinners' first hit, "That's What Girls Are Made For", which was released on Tri-Phi. Stories on how Gaye eventually met Berry Gordy and how he signed to Motown Records vary. One early story stated that Gordy discovered Gaye singing at a local bar in Detroit and that Gordy offered to sign Gaye on the spot. Gaye's recollection, and a story Gordy later reiterated, was that Gaye invited himself to Motown's annual Christmas party inside the label's Hitsville USA studios and played on the piano, singing "Mr. Sandman". Gordy saw Gaye from afar and, noting that Gaye was connected with Fuqua, began to make arrangements to absorb Fuqua's labels and bring all of the label's acts to Motown. Gordy said he immediately wanted to bring Gaye to Motown after seeing him perform, impressed by his vocals and piano playing. While working out negotiations, Fuqua would sell a 50 percent interest in Gaye to Gordy, as Gaye would find out later. After Gordy absorbed Anna and Harvey labels in March 1961, Gaye was assigned to Motown's Tamla division.
Developing a love for music at an early age, Gaye began playing instruments, including piano and drums. Upon arriving to Cardozo High School, he discovered doo-wop and harder-edged rhythm and blues and began running away from home to attend R&B concerts and dance halls, defying his father's rules. Gaye joined several groups in the D.C. area, including the Dippers with his best friend, Johnny Stewart, brother of R&B singer Billy Stewart. He then joined the D.C. Tones, whose members included another close friend, Reese Palmer, and Sondra Lattisaw, mother of R&B singer Stacy Lattisaw. Gaye's relationship with his father led him to run away from home and join the United States Air Force in the hope of becoming an aviator. However, discovering his growing hatred for authority, he began defying orders and skipped practices. His sergeant stated that Gaye refused to follow orders. Upon returning to his hometown, Gaye worked as a dishwasher to make ends meet. He still dreamed of a show-business career, and rejoining Reese Palmer, the duo formed a four-member group called The Moonglows.
A 1959 The Moonglows hit "Mama Loochie", which was the first time Gaye sang lead on a record. The record was issued in late 1959 and became a hit in Detroit. Following a concert performance there, Gaye and other band members were arrested for small possession of marijuana. Afterwards, Fuqua decided to disband the group, keeping Gaye with him, as he favored him over the other members. In 1960, Harvey Fuqua had met Gwen Gordy and the couple embarked on both a personal and professional relationship. That year, the couple formed two record labels, the self-named Harvey Records, and Tri-Phi Records. Gaye was signed to the former label, whose other members included a young David Ruffin and Junior Walker. He provided drums for The Spinners' first hit, "That's What Girls Are Made For", which was released on Tri-Phi. Stories on how Gaye eventually met Berry Gordy and how he signed to Motown Records vary. One early story stated that Gordy discovered Gaye singing at a local bar in Detroit and that Gordy offered to sign Gaye on the spot. Gaye's recollection, and a story Gordy later reiterated, was that Gaye invited himself to Motown's annual Christmas party inside the label's Hitsville USA studios and played on the piano, singing "Mr. Sandman". Gordy saw Gaye from afar and, noting that Gaye was connected with Fuqua, began to make arrangements to absorb Fuqua's labels and bring all of the label's acts to Motown. Gordy said he immediately wanted to bring Gaye to Motown after seeing him perform, impressed by his vocals and piano playing. While working out negotiations, Fuqua would sell a 50 percent interest in Gaye to Gordy, as Gaye would find out later. After Gordy absorbed Anna and Harvey labels in March 1961, Gaye was assigned to Motown's Tamla division.
Gaye and Motown immediately clashed over material. While Motown was yet a musical force, Gaye set on singing standards and jazz rather than the usual rhythm and blues that fellow label mates were recording. Struggling to come to terms with what to do with his career, Gaye worked mainly behind the scenes, becoming a janitor, and also settled for session work playing drums on several recordings, which continued for several years. One of Gaye's first professional gigs for Motown was as a road drummer for The Miracles. Gaye developed a close friendship with the label's lead singer Smokey Robinson and they'd later work together.
In May 1961, Tamla released Gaye's first single, "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide". The single flopped. A third regional hit, "Soldier's Plea", an answer to The Supremes' "Your Heart Belongs to Me", was the next release in the spring of 1962. Gaye had more success behind the scenes than in front. Gaye applied drumming on several Motown records for artists such as the Miracles, Mary Wells, The Contours and The Marvelettes. Gaye was also a drummer for early recordings by The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas and Little Stevie Wonder. Gaye drummed on the Marvelettes hits, "Please Mr. Postman", "Playboy" and "Beechwood 4-5789" (a song he co-wrote). Later on, Gaye would be noted as the drummer in both the studio and live recordings of Wonder's "Fingertips" and as one of two drummers behind Martha and the Vandellas' landmark hit, "Dancing in the Street", another composition by Gaye, originally intended for Kim Weston. Gaye said he continued to play drums for Motown acts even after gaining fame on his own merit. For Gaye's fourth single, the singer was inspired to write lyrics to a song after an argument with his wife, Anna Gordy Gaye (née Anna Gordy). While working out the song, Gaye mentioned he had his first "major" power struggle with Motown head Berry Gordy over its composition. Gordy insisted on a chord change though Gaye was comfortable with how he wrote it, eventually Gaye changed the chord and the song was issued as "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" in September 1962. The song became a hit on the Hot Rhythm and Blues Sides chart reaching number 8 and eventually peaked at number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1963.
Gaye's hits continued throughout 1964. Several top 20 pop hits from this period included "You Are a Wonderful One", "Try It Baby" and "Baby Don't You Do It" kept Gaye's momentum building. Gaye made his first public TV performance on American Bandstand in 1964. Gaye reached the top 10 in early 1965 with "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", which sold close to a million copies. Gaye eventually scored his first immediate million-sellers in 1965 with the Smokey Robinson compositions, "Ain't That Peculiar" and "I'll Be Doggone". These songs and other singles released during the 1965–66 period would be the result of Gaye's next release, Moods of Marvin Gaye.
Terrell and Gaye's first major hit was the Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson composition, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". The duo quickly followed up with the top five hit ballad, "Your Precious Love". Despite rumors of a romantic relationship – Gaye was married to Anna Gordy and Terrell was dating Temptations lead vocalist David Ruffin – both singers denied such a relationship with Gaye saying later that they had a brother-and-sister relationship, a statement reiterated by Ashford & Simpson. Other hit singles the duo scored within an eighteen-month period included "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By". Other hits such as "You Ain't Livin' till You're Lovin'" and "The Onion Song" found success in Europe. The duo's recording of "If This World Were Mine", the b-side of "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You”.
The duo was also a success together onstage, Terrell's easy-going nature with the audience contrasting from Gaye's laid-back approach. However, that success was short-lived. On October 14, 1967, while performing at Virginia's Hampden-Sydney College, Terrell collapsed in Marvin's arms. She had been complaining of headaches in the weeks leading up to the concert, but had insisted she was all right. However, after she was rushed to Southside Community Hospital, doctors found that Terrell had a malignant brain tumor.
Terrell's illness put Gaye in a depression. He refused to acknowledge the success of his song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", released in 1967 by Gladys Knight & The Pips (his version was recorded before, but released after theirs), his first number-one hit and the biggest selling single in Motown history to that point. His work with producer Norman Whitfield, who produced "Grapevine", resulted in similar success with the singles "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" and "That's the Way Love Is". Meanwhile, Gaye's marriage was crumbling and he was bored with his music. Wanting creative control, he sought to produce singles for Motown session band The Originals, whose Gaye-produced hits, "Baby, I'm for Real" and "The Bells", brought success.
Despite releases of several anti-war songs by The Temptations and Edwin Starr, Motown CEO Berry Gordy prevented Gaye from releasing the song “What’s Going On”, fearing a backlash against the singer's image as a sex symbol and openly telling him and others that the song "was the worst record I ever heard". Gaye, however, refused to record anything that was Motown's or Gordy's version of him. He later said that recording the song and its parent album "led to semi-violent disagreements between Berry and myself, politically speaking." Eventually the song was released with little promotion on January 17, 1971. The song soon shot up the charts topping the R&B chart for five weeks. The album "What's Going On" released on May 21, 1971, instantly became a million-seller crossing him over to young white rock audiences while also maintaining his strong R&B fan base. Because of its lyrical content and its mixture of funk, jazz, classical and Latin soul arrangements which departed from the then renowned "Motown Sound", it became one of Motown's first autonomous works, without help of Motown's staff producers. Based upon its themes and a segue flow into each of the songs sans the title track, the concept album became the new template for soul music.
Other hit singles that came out of the album included "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)", making Gaye the first male solo artist to have three top ten singles off one album on the Billboard Hot 100. All three singles sold over a million copies and were all number-one on the R&B chart.
Gaye's success was nationally recognized: Billboard magazine awarded him the Trendsetter of the Year award, while he won several NAACP Image Awards including Favorite Male Singer. Rolling Stone named it Album of the Year, and was nominated for a couple of Grammy Awards though inexplicably wasn't nominated for Album of the Year. Following its success, Gaye signed a new contract with Motown Records for a then record-setting $1 million, then the most lucrative deal by a black recording artist. In late 1972, Gaye produced the score for the Trouble Man film and later produced the soundtrack of the same name. The title track was the only full vocal work of the album and was released as a single in the fall of 1972 eventually reaching number seven on the pop chart in the spring of 1973.
"Let's Get It On" was written by Gaye and producer Ed Townsend, originally as a gospel song, and later as a protest song before eventually turning into a funk-oriented love anthem. It became Gaye's second number-one hit in 1973. March 18, 1973, recorded "Let's Get It On", reputedly inspired by Gaye's new-found independence, after separating from Anna Gordy the previous year. The single was released as a single in June of the year and became Gaye's second number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. It also was a modest success internationally reaching number 31 in the United Kingdom. With the success of its recording, Gaye decided to switch completely from the social topics that were on What's Going On to songs with sensual appeal.
With the success of What's Going On and Let's Get It On, Motown demanded a tour. Gaye only reluctantly agreed when demand from fans reached a fever pitch. After a delay, Gaye made his official return to touring on January 4, 1974 at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California. The recording of the performance, held by several music executives as "an event", was later issued as the live album, Marvin Gaye Live!. Due to Gaye's growing popularity with his increasing crossover audience and the reaction of the performance of "Distant Lover", which Motown later released as a single in late 1974, the album sold over a million copies. Gaye's subsequent 10-city tour, which took off that August, was sold out and demand for more dates continued into 1975 while Gaye had struggled with subsequent recordings. A renewed contract with Motown in 1975 gave Gaye his own custom-made recording studio.
In 1976, Gaye released his first solo album in three years with “I Want You”. The title track became a number-one R&B hit, also reaching the top 20 of the national pop chart. The first of his albums to embrace the then popular disco sound of the time, Motown released a double-A 12' of "I Want You" alongside another smooth dancer, "After the Dance". The songs found success as a unit on the Billboard Hot Disco chart, reaching number-ten. By itself "After the Dance",
In the spring of 1977, Gaye released "Got to Give It Up, Pt. 1", which gave him his third number-one US pop hit, the final one Gaye released in his lifetime. The song also topped the R&B and dance singles chart and also found some international success reaching the top ten in England. Released as the only studio track from the Palladium album.
In March 1977, his long, drawn-out court battle with former wife Anna Gordy ended. As a compromise to settle matters between the ex-couple over issues of alimony payments for their adopted son, Gaye's attorney until his death, Curtis Shaw, advised Gaye to remit a portion of the revenue that he was to get for his next studio album. Gaye entered the recording studio intending to produce a "lazy" album, but ended up with the sprawling double-album set, Here, My Dear, which was held up from release for over a year. Finally released after Motown's demand for new product in late 1978, the album was initially a flop, tanking after only a couple months on the charts. Its only single, "A Funky Space Reincarnation", peaked at number 23 on the R&B chart, in early 1979, becoming Gaye's first single since "Soldier's Plea" 17 years earlier to not hit the Billboard Hot 100.
After several offers landed, Gaye accepted a deal for CBS Records, a deal that was finalized in March 1982. "Sexual Healing" was written by Gaye alongside Odell Brown and David Ritz. Ritz said Gaye advised him to write a poem after telling the singer he needed "sexual healing" while living in Europe. The song became an international hit after its release in 1982.
On the advice of Belgian concert promoter Freddy Cousaert, Gaye moved to Ostend, Belgium, in February 1981 where for a time he cut down on drugs and began to get back in shape both physically and emotionally. While in Belgium, Gaye began to make plans to renew his declining fortunes in his professional career, starting with a tour he titled "The Heavy Love Affair Tour" in England.
After signing with CBS' Columbia Records division in 1982, Gaye worked on what became the Midnight Love album. Gaye reconnected with Harvey Fuqua while recording the album and Fuqua served as a production adviser on the album, which was released in October 1982. Gaye wrote "Sexual Healing" while in Ostend. Curtis Shaw later said that Gaye's Ostend period was "the best thing that ever happened to Marvin." The now-famous video of "Sexual Healing" was shot at the Casino-Kursaal in Ostend. "Sexual Healing" won Gaye his first two Grammy Awards including Best Male Vocal Performance, in February 1983, and also won Gaye an American Music Award for Favorite Soul Single. It was called by People magazine "America's hottest musical turn-on since Olivia Newton John demanded we get "Physical".
The following year, he was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance again, this time for the Midnight Love album. In February 1983, Gaye performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the NBA All-Star Game, held at The Forum in Inglewood, California, accompanied by Gordon Banks who played the studio tape from stands. In March 1983, he gave his final performance in front of his old mentor Berry Gordy and the Motown label for Motown 25, performing "What's Going On". He then embarked on a US tour to support his album. The tour, ending in August 1983, was plagued by Gaye's returning drug addictions and bouts with depression.
When the tour ended, he attempted to isolate himself by moving into his parents' house in Los Angeles. Marvin's mental and physical condition spiraled out of control. Groupies and drug dealers hounded Marvin night and day. He threatened to commit suicide several times after bitter arguments with his father. On April 1, 1984, Gaye's father fatally shot him when Gaye intervened in an argument between his parents over misplaced business documents. Ironically, the gun had been given to his father by Marvin Jr. four months previously. Marvin Gaye would have celebrated his 45th birthday the next day. Doctors discovered Marvin Sr. had a brain tumor but he was deemed not fit for trial and was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped when it was revealed that Gaye had beaten Marvin Sr. before the killing. Spending his final years in a retirement home, he died of pneumonia in October 1998.
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