Music
Legend's Shelved Follow-Up to 'What's Going On' Makes 2LP Vinyl & Digital
Debut Celebrating Marvin Gaye's 80th Birthday on April 2
In celebration of Marvin Gaye's 80th birthday on
April 2, Motown/UMe will release his never-issued 1972 Tamla/Motown album,
You're The Man, in 2LP gatefold vinyl and digital editions on March 29. You're
The Man features all of Gaye's solo and non-soundtrack recordings from 1972,
with most of the album's tracks making their vinyl release debuts.
In 1972,
Marvin Gaye was on top: or so it seemed. "What's Going On,"
"Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," and "Inner City Blues (Make Me
Wanna Holler)," the three singles from his universally acclaimed album
What's Going On, had each hit No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Soul Singles chart
(since renamed Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs) and Top 10 Pop the year before. His
new single, "You're The Man" – a percolating, sarcastic riff on
political non-action issued as the U.S. presidential campaign was kicking off –
reached No. 7 on Billboard's Hot Soul Singles chart. He saw Motown schedule a
You're The Man album (catalog number Tamla 316). But when the lead single
didn't cross over Pop, stalling at No. 50, Marvin retreated. Ambivalent about
recording, stubborn about moving to Los Angeles with Berry Gordy and Motown,
Marvin by his actions proclaimed no more new Marvin Gaye music.
Or so it
seemed.
In this
singular and transitional year for the late music legend, Gaye recorded more
than an album's worth of music in Detroit and L.A. He produced himself,
creating a suite of aching ballads; he worked with
songwriters-becoming-producers Willie Hutch, then known mainly for the Jackson
5 smash "I'll Be There," but soon to be lauded for his film scores to
The Mack and Foxy Brown; and with Pam Sawyer and Gloria Jones, whose
"Piece of Clay" for Marvin decades later became a smash in the 1995
film Phenomenon. He cut two sought-after tracks with Freddie Perren and Fonce
Mizell, half of the hit-making machine behind the Jackson 5; he got together
with Hal Davis, who was preparing a Marvin Gaye-Diana Ross album, to cut
another topical gem, "The World Is Rated X." And Marvin funnelled his
anger over the Vietnam War, and his brother's experiences there, into a sequel
of sorts to "What's Going On," the poetic holiday ballad, "I
Want To Come Home For Christmas." He even re-cut "You're The
Man" as an eerie funk jam, perhaps for the LP as a bookend to the single.
None of
these tracks or any other on the LP, except the single, were issued at the
time.
Three tracks
from the album are newly mixed by SaLaAM ReMi, the songwriter and producer long
associated with Nas, the Fugees, and Amy Winehouse: "My Last Chance,"
"Symphony," and "I'd Give My Life For You." Also included
is the rare, long LP version of Gaye's cancelled 1972 Christmas single, plus an
unreleased vault mix of its instrumental B-side. Over the years, songs from
You're The Man have been included on several CD releases but 15 of the album's
17 tracks have not been released on vinyl until now.
You're The
Man's 2LP vinyl edition includes new liner notes by Marvin Gaye biographer
David Ritz. In his essay, Ritz delves into Gaye's deeply personal internal
conflict as a source of creative vigor and emotional burden as he experienced
What's Going On's massive success and all that came with it. "Now I could
do what I wanted," Gaye told Ritz in an interview that first appeared in
Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye. "For most people that would be a
blessing. But for me the thought was heavy. They said I'd reached the top, and
that scared me because Mother used to say, 'First ripe, first rotten.' When
you're at the top there's nowhere to go but down. No, I needed to keep going up
– raising my consciousness – or I'd fall back on my behind. When would the war
stop? That's what I wanted to know – the war inside my soul."
Despite his
inner turmoil, that same year Gaye recorded a duets album with Diana Ross, and
he accepted an offer to write what became his landmark Trouble Man film score.
A year later, he released Let's Get It On, the biggest hit of his career.
In addition
to You're The Man, Motown/UMe will release a new expanded edition of Marvin
Gaye's 1965 album, A Tribute To The Great Nat King Cole, digitally on March 15.
Honoring what would have been Cole's 100th birthday, the album's original mono
mix makes its digital debut with the new edition, which also adds more than a
dozen bonus tracks, including six alternate takes from the studio sessions.
Marvin Gaye:
You're The Man [2LP vinyl]
Side 1
Produced by
Marvin Gaye (1), Hal Davis (2), Gloria Jones and Pamela Sawyer (3), Freddie
Perren and Fonce Mizell (4)
1. You're
The Man 5:45
2. The World
Is Rated X 3:50
3. Piece of
Clay 5:10
4. Where Are
We Going? 3:53
Side 2
Produced by
Willie Hutch
1. I'm Gonna
Give You Respect 2:55
2. Try It,
You'll Like It 3:55
3. You Are
That Special One 3:35
4. We Can
Make It Baby 3:20
Side 3
Produced by
Marvin Gaye except *Freddie Perren and Fonce Mizell
Mixes for
tracks 1-3, by SaLaAM ReMi, and track 5, by Art Stewart, are previously
unreleased.
1. My Last
Chance 3:40
2.
Symphony 2:52
3. I'd Give
My Life For You 3:31
4. Woman of
the World* 3:30
5. Christmas
In the City (instrumental) 3:48
Side 4
Produced by
Marvin Gaye
1. You're
The Man Version 2 4:40
2. I Want to
Come Home For Christmas 4:48
3. I'm Going
Home (Move) 4:38
4. Checking
Out (Double Clutch) 4:50
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