Marvin Gaye – Collected
Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. (2 April 1939 – 1 April 1984) stands as one of the most celebrated figures in the history of soul and R&B music. Nicknamed the “Prince of Motown” and the “Prince of Soul”, Gaye helped to define the Motown sound throughout the 1960s and went on to redefine the possibilities of Black American music in the 1970s with a series of deeply personal and socially conscious albums.
Born in Washington, D.C., Gaye signed to Motown’s Tamla subsidiary in 1960, initially working as a session drummer before achieving his first hit with “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” in 1962. Over the following decade he scored a succession of landmark singles and duets, including “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” (with Tammi Terrell), and his first US number one, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” (1968).
Gaye’s creative turning point came with What’s Going On (1971), a ground-breaking concept album addressing racism, poverty, the Vietnam War and environmental destruction. Widely regarded as one of the greatest albums ever made, it opened the door for a period of extraordinary creative freedom. Let’s Get It On (1973) followed, bringing unabashed sensuality to soul music, while Here, My Dear (1978) offered a raw, almost confessional account of his divorce from Anna Gordy. After a period of tax-related exile in Ostend, Belgium, Gaye signed to Columbia and delivered Midnight Love (1982), whose lead single “Sexual Healing” became his biggest commercial success, winning two Grammy Awards.
Collected brings together the essential highlights of this remarkable career across two LPs, drawing on the full breadth of Gaye’s catalogue from his early Motown singles through to the Columbia years. It serves as an ideal introduction to the work of an artist whose influence on soul, R&B, quiet storm and neo-soul is impossible to overstate.