Marvin Gaye

“One of the most gifted, visionary, and enduring talents ever launched into orbit by the Motown hit machine, Marvin Gaye blazed the trail for the continued evolution of popular black music. Moving from lean, powerful R&B to stylish, sophisticated soul to finally arrive at an intensely political and personal form of artistic self-expression, his work not only redefined soul music as a creative force - but also expanded its impact as an agent for social change. Gaye's greatest duets were with Tammi Terrell, with whom he scored a series of massive hits penned by the team of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, including 1967's ‘Ain't No Mountain High Enough’ and ‘Your Precious Love,’ followed by 1968's ‘Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing’ and ‘You're All I Need to Get By.’ He also found the material he recorded for Motown to be increasingly irrelevant in the face of the tremendous social changes sweeping the nation, and after scoring a pair of 1969 Top Ten hits with ‘Too Busy Thinking About My Baby’ and ‘That's the Way Love Is’, he spent the majority of 1970 in seclusion - resurfacing early the next year with the self-produced ‘What's Going On’ - a landmark effort heralding a dramatic shift in both content and style that forever altered the face of black music. A highly percussive album that incorporated jazz and classical elements to forge a remarkably sophisticated and fluid soul sound, ‘What's Going On’ was a conceptual masterpiece that brought Gaye's deeply held spiritual beliefs to the fore to explore issues ranging from poverty and discrimination to the environment, drug abuse, and political corruption. On the afternoon of April 1, 1984 – one day before his 45th birthday – Gaye was shot and killed by (his father) in the aftermath of a heated argument. In the wake of his death, Motown and Columbia teamed up to issue two 1985 collections of outtakes, ‘Dream of a Lifetime’ – a compilation of erotic funk workouts teamed with spiritual ballads – and the big band-inspired ‘Romantically Yours’. With Gaye's death also came a critical re-evaluation of his work, which deemed ‘What's Going On’ to be one of the landmark albums in pop history - and his 1987 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame permanently enshrined him among the pantheon of musical greats.” For more info on Marvin Gaye, visit http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/gaye_marvin.