SONG OF THE DAY
“Trouble Man” by Marvin Gaye (Trouble Man, Tamla, 1972). Recorded at Hitsville U.S.A. Studios, Detroit, MI. The entire album was composed, written and produced by Marvin Gaye.
AS HEARD ON
Well, weirdly enough this song hit me twice in one day.
First, I watched October 27th’s Criminal Minds episode “Devil’s Night,” which was about the famed Detroit tradition. Obviously, Marvin Gaye’s song paired beautifully with a troubled plot line based in Detroit.
Then, I was going through my CD collection trying to find something to relax to while I calmed down for bed, and I came across my copy of the 2005 Starbucks/ Hear Music produced compilation album Artist’s Choice: Joni Mitchell. As the name implies, Mitchell herself curated a selection of 18 songs, including Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” The New Radical’s “You Get What You Give,” and, of course, Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man”. She also chose some of her own songs, which I think is a little tacky, though they fit into the mix well (she selected several of her later, jazz-influenced tracks from the 80’s, which were not commercially successful, I think in an attempt to show what she was doing with those works by putting them up against their influences, like Gaye’s “Trouble Man”).
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– The song was the title track and theme of a blaxploitation film of the same name. Relating the song to the travails of the movie’s leading character, titled “Mister T”, and also relating to issues in his private life, Marvin called it one of the honest recordings he ever made.
– Gaye played drums and piano on the record as well as performing all the vocals himself, in which he sings most of the song in falsetto while reaching a gospel-styled growl during the bridges of the song.
– The performances of the song during Marvin’s later concerts became one of his highlights during his 1970s and early 1980s tours.
– The song was also used as two instrumental “theme songs” on the accompanying album, in which Marvin played synthesizers to accompany saxophone solos from his musicians.
– Marvin also recorded a slightly different version of the song primarily for the movie’s opening in which he sings two vocals, one in tenor and the other in falsetto while also reciting a rap.
– The album version of the song was the only one released as a single in November 1972 where it became a top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100 reaching #7 on that chart in January 1973.
– The song became one of Marvin’s signature songs for the remainder of his life and would later be the basis of a biography and would be a sort of nickname/alias for Gaye.
– The Trouble Man soundtrack was a more contemporary move for Gaye, following his landmark politically-charged album What’s Going On.
– The singer moved to Los Angeles in 1972 after he accepted the offer to do a soundtrack album. Like Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield, Gaye took to recording a soundtrack for a blaxploitation film. Trouble Man, a thriller based in the ghetto, was made solely for the soundtrack Gaye composed and produced himself.
Unlike Super Fly and Shaft, the soundtrack to Trouble Man does not feature love songs; except for a few vocal jabs by Gaye, it is made up entirely of instrumental pieces.
– According to Gaye, the song was autobiographical to his nature.
– The song was later covered by long-time Gaye admirer and Motown artist, Chico DeBarge.
– Critics deemed Trouble Man on par with Hayes and Mayfield’s albums. Gaye was soon followed by other contemporaries including James Brown (Black Caesar), Willie Hutch (The Mack; Foxy Brown) and Barry White (The Together Brothers).
– Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and instrumentalist with a four-octave vocal range.
– Starting as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late fifties, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960 signing with the Tamla subsidiary of Motown Records.
– After starting off as a session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label’s top-selling solo artist during the sixties.
– Because of solo hits such as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”, “Ain’t That Peculiar”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, he was crowned “The Prince of Motown” and “The Prince of Soul”.
– His mid-1970s work including the What’s Going On, Let’s Get It On and I Want You albums helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary and slow jam genres.
– After a self-imposed European exile in the early eighties, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-winning hit, “Sexual Healing” and the Midnight Love album before his death.
– Gaye was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984.
– He was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
– In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Gaye #6 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked #18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
– His father, Marvin Gay, Sr. was a minister at the House of God, which advocated strict conduct and mixed teachings of Orthodox Judaism and Pentecostalism. By the time his eldest son was five, Marvin Sr. was bringing Gaye with him to church revivals to sing for church congregations. Gaye’s father was assured all four of his children would follow him into the ministry and would later use his strict domineering to get his children to avoid secular activities including sports and secular music.
– Gaye’s early home life consisted of violence as his father would often strike him for any shortcoming. Gaye would later call his father a “tyrannical and powerful king” and said he was depressed as a child, convinced that he would eventually “become one of those child statistics that you read in the papers” had he not been encouraged to pursue his dreams by his mother.
– At age fourteen, Gaye’s father quit the ministry after a disappointment over not being promoted as bishop of a House of God church. Gaye said his father “was never the same” after that and his father later developed alcoholism, which furthered tension between father and son.
– His younger brother, Frankie (1941–2001), would be one of the main sources of Gaye’s musical development and later served as a soldier in the Vietnam War and embarked on a singing career upon his return to civilian life to follow in his elder brother’s footsteps.
– His youngest sister, Zeola “Sweetsie” Gaye (b. 1945), would later become the main choreographer of her brother’s live shows.
– Developing a love for music at an early age, Gaye was already playing instruments including piano and drums. Upon arriving to Cardozo High School, Gaye discovered doo-wop and harder-edged rhythm and blues and began running away from home to attend R&B concerts and dance halls defying his father’s rules.
– Gaye’s relationship with his father and problems with neighborhood children led him to run away from home and join the United States Air Force in hopes of becoming an aviator. However, discovering his growing hate for authority, he began defying orders and skipped practices. Faking mental illness, he was discharged. His sergeant stated that Gaye refused to follow orders.
– Stories on how Gaye eventually met Berry Gordy and how he signed to Motown Records vary. One early story stated Gordy discovered Gaye singing at a local bar in Detroit and that he had offered to sign him on the spot. Gaye’s recollection, and also a story Gordy later reiterated, was that Gaye invited himself to Motown’s annual Christmas party inside the label’s Hitsville USA studios and played on the piano singing Mr. Sandman. Gordy saw Gaye from afar and upon noting that Gaye was connected with Fuqua began to make arrangements to absorb Fuqua’s labels to Motown bringing all of the labels’ acts to Motown. Gordy said he immediately wanted to bring Gaye to Motown after seeing him perform, impressed by his vocals and piano playing.
– Gaye and Motown immediately clashed over material. Gaye was set on singing standards and jazz rather than the teenage-oriented rhythm and blues that fellow label mates were recording. While struggling to come to terms with what to do with Gaye’s career, Gaye worked mainly behind the scenes, becoming a janitor, and also settled for session work playing drums on several recordings, which continued for several years.
– Initially, Gaye had more success behind the scenes than in front. Gaye applied drumming on several Motown records for artists such as the Miracles, Mary Wells, The Contours and The Marvelettes. Gaye was also a drummer for early recordings by The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas and Little Stevie Wonder. Gaye drummed on the Marvelettes hits, “Please Mr. Postman” and “Beechwood 4-5789” (a song he co-wrote).
– Later on, Gaye would be noted as the drummer in both the studio and live recordings of Wonder’s “Fingertips” and as one of two drummers behind Martha and the Vandellas’ landmark hit, “Dancing in the Street”, which was another composition by Gaye, originally intended for Kim Weston.
– Gaye said he continued to play drums for Motown acts even after gaining fame on his own merit.
– Many of Gaye’s early hits would later be heavily covered by acts such as The Rolling Stones, Dusty Springfield and The Who, performers who admired Gaye and American R&B music in general. Gaye’s hits also was a big influence on the UK’s mod scene with several mod groups including the future Elton John’s Bluesology and Rod Stewart’s Steampacket covering Gaye’s hits there. Gaye’s early hits were also a big influence on American producers, including Phil Spector, who nearly had a car accident while pulling over upon hearing “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” for the first time.
– Gaye eventually scored his first immediate million-sellers in 1965 with the Smokey Robinson compositions, “Ain’t That Peculiar” and “I’ll Be Doggone”.
– Gaye struggled with his success. While deemed a “smooth song-and-dance ladies’ man”, he still aspired to perform more jazz work in his catalog. Because of his success, Motown allowed him to work on such recordings including When I’m Alone I Cry, Hello Broadway and a Nat King Cole tribute album, A Tribute to the Great Nat “King” Cole. All three albums flopped. Gaye tried performing the songs onstage but soon stopped once he discovered that the crowds weren’t too appreciative of the material. One proposed standards project, which took over two years to record, was shelved due to session problems.
– In early 1967, Gaye scored his first international hit with the duet, “It Takes Two”, with Kim Weston, who ironically had already left the label when it became a hit. One televised performance of the song showed Gaye singing the song to a puppet.
– That year, Motown hooked Gaye up with veteran Philadelphia-based singer Tammi Terrell, who had an early stint with James Brown. Gaye would later say of Terrell that she was his “perfect partner” musically. Terrell and Gaye’s first major hit was the Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson composition, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.
– On October 14, 1967, while performing at Virginia’s Hampden-Sydney College, Terrell collapsed in Marvin’s arms. Terrell had been complaining of headaches in the weeks leading up to the concert, but had insisted she was okay. However, after being rushed to Southside Community Hospital, doctors later found that Terrell had a malignant brain tumor.
– Terrell’s illness ended her performing tenure though she still occasionally recorded, often with guidance and assistance. Motown struggled with recording of a planned third Gaye and Terrell album. Gaye initially had refused to go along with it saying that he felt Motown was taking unnecessary advantage of Terrell’s illness. Gaye only reluctantly agreed because Motown assured him recordings would go to insure Terrell’s health as she continued to have operations to remove the tumor, all of which were unsuccessful.
– In September 1969, the “third” Gaye and Terrell duet album, Easy, was released, with many of the songs subbed by Valerie Simpson, while solo songs recorded years earlier by Terrell, had overdubbed vocals by Gaye.
– Terrell’s illness put Gaye in a depression; at one point he attempted suicide but was stopped by Berry Gordy’s father. He refused to acknowledge the success of his song “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, released in 1967 by Gladys Knight & The Pips (his was recorded before, but released after theirs), his first #1 hit and the biggest selling single in Motown history to that point, with four million copies sold.
– Tammi Terrell died of a brain tumor on March 16, 1970. Gaye was so emotional at her funeral that he talked to her lying in state as if she was going to respond. Gaye insisted, following Terrell’s death, that he would no longer record duets with any other female performer nor was he ever going to perform on stage again since Terrell’s collapse and subsequent death had spooked him.
– He already had apprehensions of performing, suffering bouts of stage fright throughout his performing career. Prior to Terrell’s death, he had withdrawn from a scheduled performance citing an illness and was later sued for failure to appear. After Terrell’s death he stopped doing any more live gigs and never really recovered completely from her passing.
– He had an inspiration, going back to 1968, to try out for the Detroit Lions football team. After a tryout in early 1970, he wasn’t allowed to join the team though he gained friendships with two of its teammates, Mel Farr and Lem Barney.
– After helping to collaborate what became “What’s Going On”, he returned to Hitsville on June 1, 1970 to record the song, which was inspired by Gaye’s brother’s accounts of his experience at the Vietnam War and co-writer Renaldo “Obie” Benson of the Four Tops’ disgust of police brutality after seeing anti-war protesters attacked in San Francisco.
– Despite releases of several anti-war songs by The Temptations and Edwin Starr, Motown CEO Berry Gordy prevented Gaye from releasing the song, fearing a backlash against the singer’s image as a sex symbol and openly telling him and others that the song “was the worst record I ever heard”. Gaye, however, refused to record anything that was Motown’s or Gordy’s version of him. He later said that recording the song and its parent album “led to semi-violent disagreements between Berry and myself, politically speaking.” Eventually the song was released with little promotion on January 17, 1971. The song soon shot up the charts topping the R&B chart for five weeks.
– Eventually selling more than two million copies, an album was requested, and Gaye again defied Gordy by producing an album featuring lengthy singles that talked of other issues such as poverty, taxes, drug abuse and pollution.
– Released on May 21, 1971, the What’s Going On album instantly became a million-seller crossing him over to young white rock audiences while also maintaining his strong R&B fan base. Because of its lyrical content and its mixture of funk, jazz, classical and Latin soul arrangements which departed from the then renowned “Motown Sound”, it became one of Motown’s first autonomous works, without help of Motown’s staff producers. Based upon its themes and a segue flow into each of the songs sans the title track, the concept album became the new template for soul music.
– Other hit singles that came out of the album included “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” and “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”, making Gaye the first solo artist to have three top ten singles off one album on the Billboard Hot 100. All three singles sold over a million copies and were all number-one on the R&B chart.
– International recognition of the album was slow to come at first though eventually the album would be revered overseas as a “landmark pop record”.
– It has been called “the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices”.
– Gaye’s success was nationally recognized: Billboard magazine awarded him the Trendsetter of the Year award, while he won several NAACP Image Awards including Favorite Male Singer. Rolling Stone named it Album of the Year, and was nominated for a couple of Grammy Awards though inexplicably wasn’t nominated for Album of the Year.
– In 1972, Gaye reluctantly stepped out of his stage retirement to perform selected concerts, including one at his hometown of Washington, D.C. performing at the famed Kennedy Center, a recording of the performance was issued on a deluxe edition re-release of the What’s Going On album.
– Following its success, Gaye signed a new contract with Motown Records for a then record-setting $1 million, then the most lucrative deal by a black recording artist.
– With creative control, Gaye attempted to produce several albums throughout 1972 and early 1973 including an instrumental album, a jazz album, another conceptually-produced album of social affairs (the canceled You’re the Man project) and an album with Willie Hutch co-producing.
– In late 1972, Gaye produced the score for the Trouble Man film and later produced the soundtrack of the same name. The title track was the only full vocal work of the album.
In late 1972, Gaye left Detroit and moved to Los Angeles, continuing to record music at Los Angeles’ Motown studios (Hitsville West), where he recorded the 1973 smash hit “Let’s Get It On”.
– To keep up with demand and hype, Motown released Gaye’s final duet project, Diana & Marvin, an album with Diana Ross, which helped to increase Gaye’s audience overseas with the duo’s recording of “You Are Everything”.
– In 1975, Gaye shaved his head bald in protest to Rubin Carter’s prison sentence. Gaye initially insisted to keep it bald until Carter’s release though Gaye’s hair and beard returned within a few months.
– In 1976, Gaye faced several lawsuits with former musicians and also faced prison time for falling behind on alimony payments ordered by law following his first wife Anna Gordy filing legal separation after a 15-year marriage. Gaye avoided imprisonment after agreeing to do a tour of Europe, his first tour of such in little over a decade. In March 1977, his long, drawn-out court battle with former wife Anna Gordy ended. As a compromise to settle matters between the ex-couple over issues of alimony payments for their adopted son, Gaye’s attorney until his death, Curtis Shaw, advised Gaye to remit a portion of the revenue that he was to get for his next studio album. Gaye entered the recording studio intending to produce a “lazy” album, but ended up with the sprawling double-album set, Here, My Dear.
– Between 1975 and 1976, Gaye was recognized by major corporations including the United Nations for charitable work dedicated to children and to affairs related to black culture.
– In the spring of 1987, Gaye released “Got to Give It Up, Pt. 1”, which gave him his third #1 US pop hit, the final one Gaye released in his lifetime.
– Gaye found himself in trouble financially, and by fall of 1979, following a performance in Hawaii, Gaye decided to remain in thT state, fearing he might be imprisoned for failing to pay the IRS millions in back taxes; in court, his attorney claimed that several items within the singer’s luggage, including tax returns, were stolen from him while at an airport.
– Meanwhile, Gaye, now heavily in the throes of drug addiction, struggled to record. Reports stated that while in Hawaii, Gaye lived inside a bread truck.
– On the advice of Belgian concert promoter Freddy Cousaert, Gaye moved to Ostend, Belgium, in February 1981 where for a time he cut down on drugs and began to get back in shape both physically and emotionally. While in Belgium, Gaye began to make plans to renew his declining fortunes in his professional career.
– The single, “Sexual Healing”, was released to receptive audiences globally, reaching #1 in Canada, New Zealand and the US R&B singles chart. “Sexual Healing” won Gaye his first two Grammy Awards including Best Male Vocal Performance, in February 1983, and also won Gaye an American Music Award for Favorite Soul Single.
– In March 1983, he gave his final performance in front of his old mentor Berry Gordy and the Motown label for Motown 25, performing “What’s Going On”. He then embarked on a U.S. tour to support his album. The tour, ending in August 1983, was plagued by health problems and Gaye’s bouts with depression, and fear over an attempt on his life.
– When the tour ended, he isolated himself by moving into his parents’ house. He threatened to commit suicide several times after bitter arguments with his father. On April 1, 1984, Gaye’s father fatally shot him after an argument that started after his parents squabbled over misplaced business documents. Gaye attempted to intervene, and was killed by his father using a gun that Marvin Jr. had given him four months before. Marvin Gaye would have turned 45 the next day. Marvin Sr. was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after it was revealed that Marvin Sr. had been beaten by Gaye before the killing. Doctors discovered Marvin Sr. had a brain tumor but was deemed fit for trial. Spending his final years in a retirement home, he died of pneumonia in 1998.
– In 1987, Marvin Gaye Jr. was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was also inducted to Hollywood’s Rock Walk in 1989 and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990.
– Gaye married twice. His first marriage was to Berry Gordy Jr.’s sister, Anna Gordy, who was 18 years his senior. Marvin and Anna were married on January 8, 1964 when Gaye was 24 and Gordy was 42. The marriage imploded after Marvin began courting Janis Hunter, the daughter of Slim Gaillard, in 1973. Gaye’s erotic and disco-tinged studio album I Want You was based on his relationship with Hunter.
– In October 1976, he married Janis, who was 17 years old when they met. However, the marriage dissolved within a year. After attempts at reconciliation, Janis filed for divorce in 1979. The divorce was finalized in February 1981.
– According to several historians, Marvin Gaye’s career “spanned the entire history of rhythm and blues from fifties doo-wop to eighties contemporary soul.”
– Critics stated that Gaye’s music “signified the development of black music from raw rhythm and blues, through sophisticated soul to the political awareness of the 1970s and increased concentration on personal and sexual politics thereafter.”
– Marvin’s usage of multi-tracked vocalizing, recording songs of social, political and sexual issues, and producing albums of autobiographical nature have influenced a generation of recording artists of various genres.
– As an artist who broke away from the controlled atmosphere of Motown Records in the 1970s, he influenced the careers of label mates such as Stevie Wonder, The Isley Brothers and, later in Epic Records, Michael Jackson to gain creative control and produce/co-produce their own albums.
– The careers of later R&B stars such as Rick James, Prince, R. Kelly, D’Angelo, Janet Jackson, Lustevie, George Michael, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Bobby V and J. Holiday also were influenced by the music of Marvin Gaye.
– In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #18 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
– A documentary about Gaye – What’s Going On: The Marvin Gaye Story – was a UK/PBS USA co-production, directed by Jeremy Marre and was first broadcast in 2006; two years later, the special re-aired with a different production and newer interviews after it was re-broadcast as an American Masters special.
– So far, three movies are currently being planned on Marvin’s life.
– One movie, Sexual Healing, is based on the post-Motown career of Marvin Gaye’s later years with Jesse L. Martin playing Marvin and James Gandolfini playing Marvin’s Belgium-based mentor, concert promoter Freddy Cousaert.
– Another film, simply titled, Marvin, is also in plans for production with F. Gary Gray in helm to direct the film. This film, unlike Sexual Healing, will focus on Marvin’s entire life story because unlike Sexual Healing, the second film was allowed rights to Marvin’s Motown catalog. Musicians Common and Usher and actor Will Smith have either been rumored to or have aspired to play the singer possibly in the second film.
– A third film on Gaye is reportedly being produced by Motown with its direction guided by director Cameron Crowe.