Motown's prince reinvented soul then died at his father's hand
Marvin Gaye (2 April 1939 – 1 April 1984) shaped 1960s–70s Motown and earned Prince of Soul praise. After European tax exile and a 1982 Columbia reboot with Sexual Healing, he was shot by his father in Los Angeles on the eve of his forty-fifth birthday; Gay Sr. took a plea to voluntary manslaughter.
Washington, D. C.–raised, he entered Harvey and the Moonglows before Tamla hits like How Sweet It Is. 1970s albums fed quiet storm and neo-soul; Rolling Stone best-of lists still crown songs and LPs. Midnight Love became his biggest album commercially after Motown.
Influence outlived the violence: later R&B keeps sampling his phrasing and social-conscience ballads.
From polished duets to What's Going On gravity, Gaye stretched what a Motown man was allowed to say.
Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. was born in Washington on 2 April 1939, second of four children of a church minister and a domestic worker. He was singing in church by age four, his father at the piano, yet home meant brutal beatings, and he later likened his father to a cruel, all-powerful king. At Cardozo High School he sang with doo-wop groups such as the Dippers and the D.C. Tones, and after leaving the Air Force he formed the Marquees with his friend Reese Palmer. Harvey Fuqua renamed them Harvey and the New Moonglows and took them to Chicago, where they recorded for Chess in 1959. Tamla released his first single, a jazz-leaning take on The Masquerade Is Over, in May 1961 under the spelling Gay. In 1962 he co-wrote and drummed on the Marvelettes' Beechwood 4-5789, and his first solo hit, Stubborn Kind of Fellow, reached No. 8 on the R&B chart that September. From 1967 his duets with Tammi Terrell included Ain't No Mountain High Enough.
Source: Marvin Gaye
