Marvin Gaye Biography, Photos and Posters

Marvin Gaye

Biography

Born: April 2, 1939
City and Country of Origin: Washington, D.C.
Music Training: singing in doo wop groups
Awards: Grammy 1982 Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male, "Sexual Healing;" Best R&B Instrumental Performance, "Sexual Healing" (Instrumental Version)
Top Recordings: "Pride & Joy," "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)," "I'll Be Doggone," "Ain't That Peculiar," ("Your Precious Love," "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You," "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," "You're All I Need to Get By," with Tammi Terrell), "I Heard It through the Grapevine," "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby," "That's the Way Love Is," "What's Going On," "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," "Let's Get It On," "Got to Give It Up," "Sexual Healing"
Marvin Gaye Biography: Marvin Pentz Gaye, Jr. was a legendary American soul and R&B singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer and performer who gained international fame as an artist on the Motown label in the 1960s and 1970s.

Marvin Gaye was the first son and second eldest of four children born to the Rev. Marvin Pentz Gay, Sr and Alberta Cooper. His sisters, Jeanne and Zeola, younger brother Frankie and Marvin lived in the segregated section of Washington, D.C.'s Deanwood neighborhood in the northeastern section of the city. As a teenager, he caddied at Columbia Country Club just outside of D.C. in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Gaye's father preached in a Seventh-day Adventist Church sect called the House of God, which went by a strict code of conduct and mixed teachings of Orthodox Judaism and Pentecostalism.

After dropping out of Cardozo High School, Gaye joined the United States Air Force. He was discharged because he refused to follow orders.

Marvin began his career at Motown in 1961, and quickly became Motown's top solo male artist, scoring numerous hits during the 1960s, among them "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", and several hit duets with Tammi Terrell, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "You're All I Need to Get By", before moving on to his own form of musical self-expression. Gaye is notable for fighting the hit-making, but creatively restrictive, Motown record-making process, in which performers and songwriters and record producers were generally kept in separate camps. With his successful 1971 album What's Going On and subsequent releases including Trouble Man and Let's Get It On, Gaye, who was a part-time songwriter for Motown artists during his early years with the label, proved that he could write and produce his own singles without having to rely on the Motown system. This achievement, would pave the way for the successes of laterself sufficient singer songwriter producers in African American music, such as Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, and Babyface.

During the 1970s, Gaye would release several other notable albums, including Let's Get It On and I Want You, and had hits with singles such as "Let's Get It On", "Got to Give It Up", and, in the early 1980s, "Sexual Healing". By the time of his death in 1984 at the hands of his clergyman father, Gaye had become one of the most influential artists of the soul music era.
Died: April 1, 1984

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