Underappreciated Marvin Gaye LPs
batmon
27,574 Posts
Romatically Yours. Overlooked? I like the crooning on this joint. But are the vocals from the vault and the tracks added later? I konw there's a story behind this album along w/ alot of his "non-classics".
Comments
Some of his 60s albs that never get mention are great
I think I have that one pictured - and also a J5 from the same time, pretty horrible synth tracks on both right?
MAJOR co-sign on the appreciation of this album. It's actually one of my favorite Marvin albums EVAR. Rill grown n sexxy music.
I believe the story on this album is that the 1st side consists of tracks from an unfinished album of covers Marvin started to work on sometime in the late 60's. He would go on to revisit the tracks and add new vocals to the backing music up until the late 70's.
Even though the RY album was released by Columbia, the copyright to the first side of the album is listed as belonging to Motown. I am not sure what sessions the tracks on the second side of RY, all original compositions if I remember correctly, stem from. Those tracks are not credited as belonging to Motown, so my guess is that they were recorded around the same time as the Midnight Love album. They are all uniformly excellent IMO.
More complete versions/later takes of most of the songs on RY's first side were finally unleashed on the "Vulnerable" album Motown released around the same time as the "In Our Lifetime" and "Here my Dear" CD reissues. If RY is a favorite of yours, listening to "Vulnerable" will be a near religious experience!
SG
No synths on the Marvin album pictured above. Pure symphonic goodness.
Okay, maybe the one I'm thinking of was called 'Remembering' or something like that
Guess I've never heard this.........
Is that the one w/a purple sleeve, painting of him on the sleeve? Thats what I had in mind...
nah, it's just a unremarkable head shot of Marvin with a yellow border around the cover, and the song titles on the left hand side (released Jan. '65).
both with major production by Norman Whitfeld:
That's the Way Love Is is worth it if only to hear
Marvin rock "Cloud Nine" - but "How Could I Forget You" is
one of my all-time favorite tracks, I had the 45 before ever
finding the LP. Both these albums are killers!
Like a friend of mine once remarked...that somber black-and-white cover made Marvin look like he was ALREADY dead! You almost expect it to be titled something like We Remember Marvin or The Marvin Gaye Memorial Album or something...
I've got that single..."How Can I Forget" isn't bad, but "Gonna Give Her All The Love I Got," on the flip side, steals its' thunder...it sounds a lot more melancholy than the hit version by Jimmy Ruffin (well, the plotline IS about a guy fresh out of jail looking for his girl). And, Marvin's version has a badass bassline that could ONLY come from James Jamerson.
And that's pretty much why I slept on it for years, I was
shocked when I found out it was an original album - I always
assumed it was a posthumous anthology!
Ha- my copy of the 45 was a double-A-side promo, so ...
still, I do know the track, and yes, it's a smoker.
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***this was an album of Motown stars singing gospel songs in memory of Loucye G. Wakefield, a Motown employee - and I THINK one of the Gordy sisters - who passed on that year[/b]
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I listened to this last night........Very Good. Norman had him raspin'/growlin' like a mo-fucka.
Some funkynass on here as well. Post Tammy - Pre Jan?
I like to submit.........
Ive cheerleaded this before.
What's word on this? I never heard it.
I cant remember the last time I saw this..........
Hey SuperGood,
Is/was Vulnerable on vinyl? I remember seein' it on CD quite frequently back in the deez.
AFAIK, I think this album was only released on CD, as it was technically a new release of previously unissued music back in the 90's/early 00's...
SG
My homie got this a while ago. I cant remember the name. A couple of unrealesed joints were on here later to be released on future comps/deluxe versions. What is the damn name?
Jan - Live was on this.
Found it. I never see it anymore. 4CD box. Decent linear notes.The Master sons it though.
Remembered seeing this album in this thread when I came across a copy in a dollar bin earlier today. Got to give a big cosign to all the praise this album got here. Lots of quality grown mens music here
It's an album of Marvin doing late-night torch songs, that's all. Gaye was a frustrated ballad singer, and every now and then in the sixties he'd release an album of Tony Bennett-ish slow songs, just to get it out of his system (like that Nat "King" Cole tribute record).
I don't think this album was technically early, since he'd already started hitting as a soul singer by then.
I think you could make the argument - it's only his 4th album,
and of the three previous, one was a lounge album and another live,
with Stubborn Kind of Fellow being the LP that built on the
success he was having with soul singles like "Hitch Hike" and the
title track. When I'm Alone ... actually pre-dates Hello
Broadway and the tribute to Nat King Cole. People say that Berry
Gordy hated the lounge stuff, but I find it hard to believe the
notorious control freak Gordy would allow 3 of the 4 albums Gaye
released over 2 years - at the height of Motown popularity, no less -
to be lounge vocal sets, if he didn't think there was commercial
potential. Unless he would do anything for Marvin because he was
married to his Sister, which I suppose is possible.
One track of Gaye's that sort of straddles the lounge and soul
sounds of his early years in a very pleasing way is "Wherever I
Lay My Hat (That's My Home)", which is one of my favorite 45's by him.
Not only that, but most of the big Motown hitmakers of the sixties had their token "lounge" album anyway (the Temptations' In A Mellow Mood, The Supremes Sing Rodgers & Hart). That was the point, right, to get the Motown acts in a better class of clubs (back when that still meant something)?
I think where Marvin went wrong is that where the Supremes and them wound up doing lounge music, he started out doing lounge music - his first album, The Soulful Moods Of Marvin Gaye was straight-up Johnny Mathis. The only way he could sell a project like that was if he'd had a few hit singles first.
Always thought it was funny that this 1963 LP track was released as the flip side of a 1969 hit ("Too Busy Thinking About My Baby"). The two styles are as different as chalk and cheese, and you can tell there's a multi-year difference between the two songs without even looking at the copyright dates on the label.
needless to say, i've listened to it about 10 times all the way through since then.
Hands down ... Here My Dear. It would easily be on a short list of desert island discs for me and one of few albums that I can listen to on repeat and never tire of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here,_My_Dear
Really, this is a seriously under-appreciated album. The ubiquity of "Sexual Healing" seems to count against the rest of the record for some reason; that and the fact it isn't on Motown. I thought "In Our Lifetime" was a great album, so the cliche "a dazzling return to form" doesn't quite apply here, but there's little to indicate that Marvin was going to fall off anytime soon. I'd suggest that any of you who own this and who haven't checked it for a while should do so as soon as possible.
While not touted by music cats and regular folk as a favorite, most people i know purchased this album on the strength of Sexual Healing,when i debuted. So i wouldnt call it an "under the radar" album.
But if u play something besides SexHeal, from the LP at a party most kids will shrug their shoulders.
The radio didnt and hasnt sustained any other single/song from this album. U might hear some other joint on a late night quiet storm set.
I highly recommend that Deluxe version that came out a minute ago. The Acapella of Sexual Healing and the dub is fuckin ridiculous. Turn On Some Music got the phoenix treatment due to the Eric Sermon classic.
DISC 2:
1. Clique Games/Rick James - (previously unreleased, Original Version Of 'Midnight Lady')
2. Sexual Healing - (previously unreleased, Alternate 12-inch instrumental)
3. Sexual Healing - (previously unreleased, Original Vocal Version)
4. Sexual Healing - (previously unreleased, alternate take, Alternate Vocal/Mix)
5. I Bet You Wonder - (previously unreleased, Original Version Of 'Rockin' After Midnight')
6. Rockin' After Midnight - (previously unreleased, instrumental)
7. Baby, Baby, Baby - (previously unreleased, Original Vocal Version Of ''Til Tomorrow')
8. I've Got My Music - (previously unreleased, Original Vocal Version Of 'Turn On Some Music')
9. Turn On Some Music - (previously unreleased, alternate take, Alternate Vocal/Mix)
10. Third World Girl - (previously unreleased, Original Reggae Version)
11. Third World Girl - (previously unreleased, alternate take, Alternate Vocal/Mix)
12. My Love Is Waiting - (previously unreleased, alternate take, Alternate Vocal/Mix)
13. Marvin's Message To The CBS Records Staff - (previously unreleased)
14. Sexual Healing - (previously unreleased, Rehearsal Tape Courtesy Of David Ritz)
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Till Tommorrow is MY SHIT........."Bitch,You aint goin' nowhere,please, stay....."
Believe it or not, I just bought this album two years ago. It amazes me that I can listen to the CD (yes, the CD) all the way through without skipping a track - which is something you'd half expect with a sprawling concept album that was originally a 2-record set. But no, pound for pound there ain't one wasted minute on this LP.
Goin' in and out my clothes
Puttin' powder up my nose
Runnin' around with midnight hoes
That chapter of my life is closed[/b]
Underappreciated? It definitely was when it came out, but not now - the legend has blown up over time.