The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye
Encyclopedia
The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye is Marvin Gaye
's 1961 debut album, and the second long-playing album (TM-221) released by Motown. The first was Hi... We're The Miracles
(TM-220). It's most notable as the album that caused the first known struggle of Gaye's turbulent tenure with the label.
and doo-wop
, Gaye sought to mix the styles of Nat King Cole
, Billy Eckstine
, Little Willie John
and Jesse Belvin
, first getting involved in groups such as the Marquees, which he joined following his honorable discharge from a tenure in the Air Forces, which soon replaced the original members of Harvey Fuqua
's group The Moonglows
under the moniker, Harvey and the New Moonglows, with Reese Palmer doing most of the leads though Marvin did take some lead vocal parts, including speaking in the intro and ending of the single, "The Twelve Months of the Year", and sung all lead in the song, "Mama Loochie". Both songs were released on the Chess
label in 1959 and during this period the group sung background for notable Chess acts including Chuck Berry
on the song "Almost Grown
", and Etta James
' "Chained to My Rocking Chair". After living in Chicago
for two years and following a tour in Detroit, Fuqua decided to split up the group and take Marvin with him to help get him work in the musically-developing city. Fuqua then signed Marvin to a contract with his Harvey and Tri-Phi Records and also assigned him to work with his then-girlfriend Gwen Gordy
's Anna
label. Gaye would do drumming work for acts on Tri-Phi and Harvey including, most notably, The Spinners, on their debut hit, "That's What Girls Are Made For
". In December of 1960, Marvin introduced himself to Motown CEO Berry Gordy
at Motown's annual Christmas party by playing piano and singing "Mr. Sandman
". Gordy was impressed with Marvin and later began working out a negotiation deal with Fuqua to sign the young singer to Gordy's Motown empire. Fuqua agreed to sell 50% of his interest in Marvin to Gordy, which led to Gordy presenting Gaye with a lucrative deal, which he signed with the following month. Marvin was then assigned to Motown's Tamla imprint, an imprint he'd record with for the 20 years he recorded with the label. In the meantime, Marvin met and fell in love with one of Gordy's sisters, Anna Gordy
and the couple would begin dating during the spring of 1961, marrying within a year
, wanted to record more "adult" music, including jazz
and pop standards. Gaye had noted that Cole and Charles had found bigger success recording more adult music, and after seeing that Charles had had success recording jazz music, rather than just R&B, he felt he could do similar. Marvin, who later admitted that growing up, he was told not to dance, also wanted to, in his words, "sit on a stool and croon" rather than "shake my ass onstage" saying that his voice was what people paid attention to and not his dancing. After much push, Marvin finally was allowed to record an album of jazz standards with a compromise that he'd record a couple of R&B-sounding songs. Singing in a laid-back, soulful tenor, Gaye also played drums and piano on the album while Berry Gordy overlooked much of the album's production. Anna Gordy was another collaborator, co-writing the R&B song, "Never Let You Go (Sha-Lu-Bop)" for her boyfriend. The album was recorded for two weeks and was released on June 8, 1961. Before the release of his first single, the Berry Gordy-composed ballad "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide
", Marvin added an extra 'e' to his last name, to look "more professional".
Attention wasn't given much on the album upon its release and "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" failed to become a major hit, though it was a regional hit in the Midwest and West Coast. The label released two more singles afterwards, which featured Gaye still singing in a smooth tenor. His style soon changed to include gospel
infections, which helped to bring success after he released his first hit, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow
", in 1962. Motown Records, at that particular time of this album's release was still fledgling with success just from The Miracles
and Mary Wells
. Gaye's jazz ambitions continued after the album's release, throughout the 1960s, he recorded three more albums featuring jazz covers, which didn't go well with audiences used to the singer's grittier R&B work during the sixties.
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
's 1961 debut album, and the second long-playing album (TM-221) released by Motown. The first was Hi... We're The Miracles
Hi... We're the Miracles
Hi... We're The Miracles is the first album by Motown's first group, The Miracles, released on Motown's Tamla subsidiary label in the summer of 1961.It also has the distinction of being the first album ever released by the Motown Record Corporation The album features several songs which played an...
(TM-220). It's most notable as the album that caused the first known struggle of Gaye's turbulent tenure with the label.
History
Between his release from the U.S. Air Force in 1957 and signing with Motown Records' Tamla imprint in 1961, Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. was struggling to find his identity in the music business. A long admirer of different forms of music from early rock 'n' roll, blues, jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
, Gaye sought to mix the styles of Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, Billy Eckstine
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
, Little Willie John
Little Willie John
William Edward John was better known by his stage name Little Willie John. Many sources erroneously give his second name as Edgar...
and Jesse Belvin
Jesse Belvin
Jesse Lorenzo Belvin was an American R&B singer, pianist and songwriter popular in the 1950s, whose success was cut short by his death in a car crash aged 27.-Career:...
, first getting involved in groups such as the Marquees, which he joined following his honorable discharge from a tenure in the Air Forces, which soon replaced the original members of Harvey Fuqua
Harvey Fuqua
Harvey Fuqua, was an African-American rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, record producer, and record label executive.Fuqua founded the seminal R&B/doo-wop group the Moonglows in the 1950s...
's group The Moonglows
The Moonglows
The Moonglows were an American R&B and doo-wop group based in Cleveland, Ohio.-Early years:Originally formed in their native Louisville, Kentucky as the Crazy Sounds, the group moved to Cleveland, where disc jockey Alan Freed renamed them 'the Moonglows'...
under the moniker, Harvey and the New Moonglows, with Reese Palmer doing most of the leads though Marvin did take some lead vocal parts, including speaking in the intro and ending of the single, "The Twelve Months of the Year", and sung all lead in the song, "Mama Loochie". Both songs were released on the Chess
Chess Records
Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....
label in 1959 and during this period the group sung background for notable Chess acts including Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
on the song "Almost Grown
Almost Grown
Almost Grown is an American television drama series about a couple , whose lives are explored during three different places in their lives...
", and Etta James
Etta James
Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...
' "Chained to My Rocking Chair". After living in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
for two years and following a tour in Detroit, Fuqua decided to split up the group and take Marvin with him to help get him work in the musically-developing city. Fuqua then signed Marvin to a contract with his Harvey and Tri-Phi Records and also assigned him to work with his then-girlfriend Gwen Gordy
Gwen Gordy Fuqua
Gwen Gordy Fuqua was the elder sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy, sister of Motown songwriters Anna Gordy Gaye, Robert Gordy and George Gordy, sister of Motown Museum founder Esther Gordy Edwards, sister of Fuller Gordy and also Loucye Gordy, and the former wife of Harvey Fuqua...
's Anna
Anna Records
Anna Records was a short-lived record label, known as a forerunner of Motown, founded by sisters Anna and Gwen Gordy and Roquel Billy Davis in 1959 and located in Detroit, Michigan. Gwen Gordy and Davis had written hit songs for Jackie Wilson and Etta James prior to founding the label...
label. Gaye would do drumming work for acts on Tri-Phi and Harvey including, most notably, The Spinners, on their debut hit, "That's What Girls Are Made For
That's What Girls Are Made For
"That's What Girls Are Made For" is the debuting single for the American R&B/Soul vocal group The Spinners, released on Harvey Fuqua's Tri-Phi Records label in 1961....
". In December of 1960, Marvin introduced himself to Motown CEO Berry Gordy
Berry Gordy
Berry Gordy, Jr. is an American record producer, and the founder of the Motown record label, as well as its many subsidiaries.-Early years:...
at Motown's annual Christmas party by playing piano and singing "Mr. Sandman
Mr. Sandman
"Mr. Sandman" is a popular song written by Pat Ballard which was published in 1954 and first recorded in that year by The Chordettes. The song's lyrics convey a request to "Mr...
". Gordy was impressed with Marvin and later began working out a negotiation deal with Fuqua to sign the young singer to Gordy's Motown empire. Fuqua agreed to sell 50% of his interest in Marvin to Gordy, which led to Gordy presenting Gaye with a lucrative deal, which he signed with the following month. Marvin was then assigned to Motown's Tamla imprint, an imprint he'd record with for the 20 years he recorded with the label. In the meantime, Marvin met and fell in love with one of Gordy's sisters, Anna Gordy
Anna Gordy Gaye
Anna Gordy Gaye is an American songwriter and composer, known as the elder sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy and the first wife of soul legend Marvin Gaye, who used their troubled marriage as the focal point of his critically acclaimed 1978 effort, Here, My Dear, an album from which Gordy...
and the couple would begin dating during the spring of 1961, marrying within a year
Recording and release
As great as it was to sign Marvin to Motown, the label and the young singer soon clashed with musical direction. While the label was recording R&B music for teenagers, Marvin, who admired Nat King Cole and Ray CharlesRay Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, wanted to record more "adult" music, including jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and pop standards. Gaye had noted that Cole and Charles had found bigger success recording more adult music, and after seeing that Charles had had success recording jazz music, rather than just R&B, he felt he could do similar. Marvin, who later admitted that growing up, he was told not to dance, also wanted to, in his words, "sit on a stool and croon" rather than "shake my ass onstage" saying that his voice was what people paid attention to and not his dancing. After much push, Marvin finally was allowed to record an album of jazz standards with a compromise that he'd record a couple of R&B-sounding songs. Singing in a laid-back, soulful tenor, Gaye also played drums and piano on the album while Berry Gordy overlooked much of the album's production. Anna Gordy was another collaborator, co-writing the R&B song, "Never Let You Go (Sha-Lu-Bop)" for her boyfriend. The album was recorded for two weeks and was released on June 8, 1961. Before the release of his first single, the Berry Gordy-composed ballad "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide
Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide
"Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" is the debuting single for singer Marvin Gaye, released as Tamla 54041, in May 1961. It was also the first release off Gaye's debut album, The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye, in which most of the material was the singer's failed attempt at making an "adult" record...
", Marvin added an extra 'e' to his last name, to look "more professional".
Attention wasn't given much on the album upon its release and "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" failed to become a major hit, though it was a regional hit in the Midwest and West Coast. The label released two more singles afterwards, which featured Gaye still singing in a smooth tenor. His style soon changed to include gospel
Gospel
A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
infections, which helped to bring success after he released his first hit, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow
Stubborn Kind of Fellow
"Stubborn Kind of Fellow" is a 1962 single by Marvin Gaye, released on the Motown subsidiary Tamla. The single was historic in many ways for the Washington, D.C.-bred singer and former Moonglows member, for it was the first major hit record for the singer on Motown after three failed singles and an...
", in 1962. Motown Records, at that particular time of this album's release was still fledgling with success just from The Miracles
The Miracles
The Miracles are an American rhythm and blues group from Detroit, Michigan, notable as the first successful group act for Berry Gordy's Motown Record Corporation . Their single "Shop Around" was Motown's first million-selling hit record, and the group went on to become one of Motown's signature...
and Mary Wells
Mary Wells
Mary Esther Wells was an American singer who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s...
. Gaye's jazz ambitions continued after the album's release, throughout the 1960s, he recorded three more albums featuring jazz covers, which didn't go well with audiences used to the singer's grittier R&B work during the sixties.
Track listing
- "(I'm Afraid) The Masquerade Is Over" (Herbert Magidson, Allie WrubelAllie WrubelAllie Wrubel was an American composer and songwriter.-Biography:Born in Middletown, Connecticut, Wrubel attended Wesleyan University and Columbia University before working in dance bands. He began his musical career in Greenwich Village, New York where he roomed with his close friend James Cagney...
) – 5:08 - "My Funny Valentine" (Richard RodgersRichard RodgersRichard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
, Lorenz HartLorenz HartLorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
) – 3:26 - "Witchcraft" (Cy ColemanCy ColemanCy Coleman was an American composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist.-Life and career:He was born Seymour Kaufman on June 14, 1929, in New York City to Eastern European Jewish parents, and was raised in the Bronx. His mother, Ida was an apartment landlady and his father was a brickmason...
, Carolyn LeighCarolyn LeighCarolyn Leigh was an American lyricist for Broadway, movies, and popular songs. She is best known as the writer with partner Cy Coleman of the pop standards "Witchcraft" and "The Best Is Yet to Come."-Biography:...
) – 2:22 - "Easy Living" (Ralph RaingerRalph RaingerRalph Rainger was an American composer of popular music principally for films.-Biography:Born Ralph Reichenthal in New York City, Rainger embarked on a legal career before escaping to Broadway where he became Clifton Webb's accompanist...
, Leo RobinLeo RobinLeo Robin was an American composer, lyricist and songwriter. He is probably best known for collaborating with Ralph Rainger on the 1938 Oscar-winning song "Thanks for the Memory," sung by Bob Hope in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938.-Biography:Robin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and...
) – 3:05 - "How Deep Is The Ocean (How High Is The Sky)" (Irving BerlinIrving BerlinIrving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
) – 3:08 - "Love For Sale" (Cole PorterCole PorterCole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
) – 2:54 - "Always" (Irving Berlin) – 2:58
- "How High the MoonHow High the Moon"How High the Moon" is a jazz standard with lyrics by Nancy Hamilton and music by Morgan Lewis. It was first featured in the 1940 Broadway revue Two for the Show, where it was sung by Alfred Drake and Frances Comstock....
" (Nancy Hamilton, Morgan LewisMorgan LewisMorgan Lewis may refer to:*Morgan Lewis , Governor of New York State, U.S.A.*Morgan Lewis *Morganics, hip hop artist Morgan Lewis-See also:*Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, law firm*Lewis Morgan...
) – 2:28 - "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" (Berry GordyBerry GordyBerry Gordy, Jr. is an American record producer, and the founder of the Motown record label, as well as its many subsidiaries.-Early years:...
) – 3:01 - "Never Let You Go" (Harvey FuquaHarvey FuquaHarvey Fuqua, was an African-American rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, record producer, and record label executive.Fuqua founded the seminal R&B/doo-wop group the Moonglows in the 1950s...
, Anna Gordy GayeAnna Gordy GayeAnna Gordy Gaye is an American songwriter and composer, known as the elder sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy and the first wife of soul legend Marvin Gaye, who used their troubled marriage as the focal point of his critically acclaimed 1978 effort, Here, My Dear, an album from which Gordy...
) – 2:41 - "You Don't Know What Love Is " (Gene DePaul, Don RayeDon RayeDon Raye , born Donald MacRae Wilhoite, Jr., in Washington, D.C., was an American vaudevillian and songwriter, best known for his songs for the Andrews Sisters such as "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar", "The House of Blue Lights", "Just For A Thrill" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."While known for...
) – 3:53