Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (no "e" yet) was born on April 2, 1939, in Washington, D.C. He sang in his father's Apostolic church and later joined the doo-wop group the Rainbows ("Mary Lee," 1955), whose line-up also included Billy Stewart. In 1959, when Harvey Fuqua decided to re-form his old vocal group, the Moonglows ("Sincerely," "Ten Commandments of Love"), he hired Marvin to sing baritone.
Gaye moved to Detroit in 1960. He worked at a car factory and found session work as a drummer at Motown on such recordings as the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman." He married Berry Gordy's sister Anna in 1961 and got his musical wish when Gordy let him record an album of standards, The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye. It was very well-sung but did not sell.
Gaye, however, was sure that he was destined to be a jazz singer, and adamantly refused to record the more commercial stuff. It was his attitude that inspired staff writers Mickey Stevenson and George Gordy (Berry's brother) to write "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," which Berry Gordy somehow convinced Marvin to cut. Released on Tamla in October of 1962, the single reached #46 pop and #8 R&B. The follow-up, "Hitch Hike," became Gaye's first top forty pop hit. His third single, "Pride and Joy," went top ten in the summer of '63. When he went on the road with the Motortown Revue, Gaye was such a show-stopper that the women in the audience screamed before he even opened his mouth.
In 1965, he enjoyed his first two #1 R&B hits, "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar." On the pop charts, however, Gaye had to wait until 1968 to reach the top. But when he did, it was with a vengeance. "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" pushed "Love Child" by his labelmates, the Supremes, off #1 on December 14, 1968, and remained White America's favorite song for the next seven weeks. For good measure, it spent the same amount of time at #1 on the soul charts.
Marvin also became one of R&B's top duet singers. He waxed his first couplings with Mary Wells in 1964. Three years later, Gaye teamed up with Kim Weston for the classic "It Takes Two." Also in 1967, Marvin first recorded with Tammi Terrell, which resulted in a string of classics like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "You're All I Need To Get By," "Your Precious Love," and "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You."
Nineteen-Seventy was an off year for Gaye, mainly because of Tammi Terrell's death. Marvin spent much of of the year in depressed seclusion. His chart performance that year bore this out. He made the R&B top twenty only twice in 1970, while his sole pop hit, "End Of Our Road," barely climbed to #40.
But in 1971, Marvin came back with a vengeance. By then, he had enough clout with Motown that when his contract came up for renewal, Berry Gordy agreed to Gaye's demand of creative autonomy over his music. The result just happened to be one of the greatest soul albums ever made.
What's Going On was an artistic triumph in that it was a concept album with ongoing musical themes throughout, and that it expanded the definition of what a soul album could include. After all, didn't "Right On" have a flute solo? Plus, the album was pure social commentary, a marked departure from Gaye's regular roster of love songs.
What's Going On also was a commercial success. It shot up both the pop and R&B album charts, and produced three smash singles--the title track, "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)." The new Marvin Gaye had arrived, and America loved him. Ironically, Berry Gordy had called the album the worst piece of shit he ever heard, and initially refused to release it. Go figure.
In 1972, Marvin was hired to write, produce and record the score to the blaxploitation film Trouble Man. The title song became another notch on Gaye's belt of top ten singles. In 1973, the King of Motown returned to the subject of romance, and waxed another one of the all-time great soul albums, Let's Get It On, whose title song gave Marvin his second #1 pop single.
In 1976, he took a foray into disco with the I Want You album, one of the genre's more admirable accomplishments. The title song became a #1 R&B single and hit #15 pop. The following year, Gaye explored his funkier side with "Got To Give It Up," which became his third and final #1 pop single.
By 1980, Marvin was a tax exile living in Europe, and wanted to leave Motown. He and Berry Gordy subsequently had an amicable parting of the ways. In February of 1981, Gaye signed with CBS Records. In April of 1982, David Ritz, who was writing Marvin's biography, traveled to Belgium to see the singer. When the talk turned to sex, Ritz suggested that Marvin needed sexual healing. Gaye felt the concept would make a great song.
"Sexual Healing" was included on the Midnight Love album and became a smash. At the end of 1982, it rose to #3 pop and spent a very impressive ten weeks at #1 R&B. The following year, Marvin came back to America to perform in the TV special, Motown's 25th Anniversary.
On April 1, 1984, Marvin got into a violent argument with his father, who pulled out a gun and shot his son to death. The King of Motown was one day short of his 45th birthday. Twelve years later, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award. And in 1999, Motown released Love-Starved Heart, a 20-track CD of previously unreleased Marvin Gaye tracks from the '60s, as part of its Lost & Found series.
SOURCES: Berry Gordy, To Be Loved: An Autobiography;
Adam White & Fred Bronson, The Billboard Book of #1 R&B
Hits
RECOMMENDED CDs: What's Going On (Motown),
Anthology (Motown)
Dobie Gray is remembered for the two big hits he had, which came eight years apart and made him a one-hit wonder twice.
Gray was born Leonard Ainsworth in Brookshire, Texas, on July 26, 1942, and moved to L.A. in 1960. He worked as an actor on Broadway and appeared in the L.A. production of Hair.
Gray had his first chart hit in 1965 with "The 'In' Crowd," which reached #13 pop and #11 R&B. He sang lead with the group Pollution in 1971, and two years later had his all-time biggest hit, "Drift Away" (#5 pop, #42 R&B). Gray also sang on the soundtracks of the movies Uptown Saturday Night, The Commitment (not the film about the Irish soul group!), and Casey's Shadow. He moved to Nashville in 1978 and made the pop top forty one last time with "You Can Do It" early the following year.
SOURCE: Joel Whitburn, Billboard's Top R&B Singles, 1942-1995
Al Green was the King of '70s Soul, and not only because there was no competition left.
He was born Albert Greene on April 13, 1946, in Forest City, Arkansas. When Al was thirteen, the Greenes moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. He first recorded in 1960 for the Fargo label. From 1964-67, Greene had his own group, the Creations. With his brother Robert and Lee Vigrins, Greene fronted a trio called the Soul Mates, whose "Back Up Train" on the Hot Line label reached #41 pop and #5 R&B in early 1968.
Later that year, Willie Mitchell--a record producer and R&B instrumentalist on the Memphis-based Hi label--was on tour to promote his latest single, "Soul Serenade." While playing in Midland, Texas, Mitchell heard Greene, who was his opening act. Mitchell liked the young man's voice and invited him to Memphis to record. Rather than accept the offer outright, Greene opted for a ride in Mitchell's car to get him closer to his Michigan home.
While on the road, Greene and Mitchell got to talking, which made the former reconsider the offer. Mitchell lent Greene some money to pay off his creditors and gave the singer his address. Some time later, Mitchell's doorbell rang and there stood Albert Greene.
His first single on Hi, in 1969, was a soaring version of the Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand." While it didn't chart nationally, Hi retained its faith in Green (now sans the "e"). In early 1970, he made the R&B top thirty with "You Say It" and with "Right Now, Right Now" a few months later. In the meantime, Green's first Hi album, Green Is Blues, came out. His second album produced a radical reworking of the Temptations' "I Can't Get Next To You" that climbed to #60 pop and #11 R&B during the 1970 holiday season.
The following summer, Al Green crossed over big time with the self-penned "Tired Of Being Alone," which reached #11 pop and #7 R&B. After that, the hits kept on coming. Early in 1972, "Let's Stay Together" reached #1 on both charts. In fact, its nine-week run at the top of the R&B survey made "Let's Stay Together" the top soul single not only of 1972 but of the entire decade.
By 1976, Al Green had produced an additional six top ten pop and five #1 R&B hits, and his record sales had reached 30 million units! Bit it couldn't and didn't last. By 1977, the antiseptic soullessness of disco was so thoroughly entrenched in the American psyche that Green's sublime "Love and Happiness" never made the Billboard Hot 100 and even stiffed at #92 R&B.
Plus, by that time Al Green was undergoing a spiritual crisis. He had begun to rethink his priorities, especially following a 1978 incident in which a jilted woman friend poured hot grits on the singer and then committed suicide. In 1980, Al Green became the minister of the Church of the First Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis. He also recorded a series of best-selling gospel albums, but apparently found no more peace in religion than he had in rhythm and blues.
By 1988, Green was dabbling in secular music again. That year, he duetted with the British new wave singer Annie Lennox on a remake of Jackie DeShannon's "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" for the Bill Murray film Scrooged. It became Green's first top ten pop hit in fourteen years.
In 1994-95, Al Green enjoyed a second revival when Quentin Tarantino included "Let's Stay Together" in Pulp Fiction. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
Today, the King of '70s Soul is a married man with a young son, Al Green, Jr. He divides his time between the sacred and the secular while continuing to run his church in Memphis. For a truly breathtaking sermon, forge your way to a video store and rent The Gospel According To Al Green.
SOURCES: Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music; CD
liner notes, Hi Records: The R&B Years
RECOMMENDED CD:
The Hi Singles, As and Bs (Hi)