Featured In
ALBUMLet's Get It On (Deluxe Edition)Marvin Gaye
Albums by Marvin Gaye
ALBUMI Want You: The John Morales M+M MixesMarvin Gaye
ALBUMFunky Nation: The Detroit InstrumentalsMarvin Gaye
ALBUMWhat's Going On: The Detroit MixMarvin Gaye
ALBUMVulnerableMarvin Gaye
ALBUMRomantically YoursMarvin Gaye
ALBUMDream of a LifetimeMarvin Gaye
ALBUMMidnight Love & The Sexual Healing SessionsMarvin Gaye
ALBUMIn Our Lifetime? (Expanded Love Man Edition)Marvin Gaye
ALBUMHere, My DearMarvin Gaye
ALBUMI Want YouMarvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye's Popular Music Videos
What's Going On ( 2019)
Marvin Gaye
Sexual Healing
Marvin Gaye
What's Happening (What's Going On) [Live]
Marvin Gaye
I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Live)
Marvin Gaye
Got to Give It Up (Live)
Marvin Gaye
Let's Get It On (The Speek)
Marvin Gaye
Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Lyric Video)
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) [Long Version]
Marvin Gaye
What's Going On (Lyric Video)
Marvin Gaye
Let's Get It On (Live)
Marvin Gaye
Artist Playlists
Marvin Gaye Essentials
Soul music charmer, funk pioneer, slow jam king: The Prince of Motown could do it all.
Marvin Gaye: Love Songs
Passion and pain from The Prince of Motown.
Inspired by Marvin Gaye
His impact can be heard in almost every genre.
Marvin Gaye: The Songwriters
His legacy traveled far beyond the world of funk and soul.
Marvin Gaye: Sampled
Their original tunes have been the source material for some of modern music’s biggest hits.
Marvin Gaye: Deep Cuts
Dive into the vaults of the soul man who redefined American pop.
Marvin Gaye: Influences
He absorbed Sam Cooke's smooth soul and Ray Charles' raw R&B.
Artist Biography
Without Marvin Gaye, both R&B as we know it and American pop in general would have sounded rather different. His gifts as a musician, songwriter, and singer helped put the Motown sound on the map. And his innovative, eclectic vision found him continually pushing beyond the borders of R&B. Born in Washington, DC, in 1939, Gaye had a tough childhood before forming the vocal group The Marquees in 1957. They became a backing group for former Moonglows singer Harvey Fuqua, and by 1961 Gaye had moved to Detroit, where he became a session drummer for Motown, playing on milestones like The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” and Stevie Wonder’s “Fingertips.” He then began penning songs for Motown artists, co-writing hits like The Marvelettes’ “Beechwood 4-5789” and Martha & The Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.” When he started making records under his own name for the label, he was a jazz balladeer; it was only when he turned his fluid tenor to R&B on 1962’s “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” that he found success. The mercurial Gaye spent the next few years recording show tunes and a Nat “King” Cole tribute album amid his more soulful sides. He hit his stride with crossover hits like “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” and “Ain’t That Peculiar” and a series of Tammi Terrell duets epitomized by “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing.” But Gaye began edging toward a more emotionally and musically sophisticated place with 1968’s immortal “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and in 1971 he helped alter the course of soul with the socially conscious, complexly textured What’s Going On. Gaye never stopped innovating—his smoldering, disco-friendly 1977 smash “Got to Give It Up” was a crucial influence on Michael Jackson’s adult career, and the synths and drum machine of 1982’s electro-soul burner “Sexual Healing” once again led R&B someplace new. But his career was cut tragically short when he was shot dead by his father during a fight at the family home on April 1, 1984.
Hometown
United States of America
Genre
R&B/Soul