Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye: I Want You

Review by Cliff White, NME, May 1976

A COUPLE of weeks ago our very own Mr. Murray suffered a bitter anti-climax after waiting nigh on two years to hear the latest ...

Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz

Review by Chris Salewicz, Time Out, July 1985

The anguished life of Marvin Gaye ended on April 1, 1984, at the home in Los Angeles he had bought for his parents, when a ...

A Study of Marvin Gaye's Liberation

Interview by Phil Symes, Disc and Music Echo, June 1971

MARVIN GAYE is a mystery man. Most people know him as the singer who made the biggest-selling Motown record ever – 'I Heard It Through ...

Marvin Gaye: Trouble Man (Motown); Diana Ross (And Others): Lady Sings the Blues (Motown)

Review by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1973

SOCIOLOGISTS LIKE TO talk about black people mimicking whites, and I suppose that it is inherent in the presumptions most of us make about black ...

Marvin Gaye: Let's Get It On (Tamla)

Review by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, September 1973

UNLESS A veritable monster soul single rears its head during the final quarter of this year, Marvin Gaye will have the pleasure of having the ...

Marvin Gaye: I Want You (Tamla Motown) ****

Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, May 1976

MARVIN GAYE is in the fortunate or unfortunate position of being regarded as a prophet-cum-saviour. ...

Soul Albums Reviewed

Review by Simon Frith, Street Life, May 1976

Temptations: Wings of LoveMarvin Gaye: I Want YouLee Garrett: Heat For The Feets EVEN SOUL musicians grow old and, though black music has never ...

Marvin Gaye: I Want You (Motown)

Review by Bud Scoppa, Circus, August 1976

MARVIN GAYE, one of the most durable pop presences — his three-record compilation is easily the solidest of Motown's Anthology series — has in recent ...

Marvin Gaye: Royal Albert Hall, London

Live Review by Cliff White, Bob Woffinden, NME, October 1976

WELL, IT finally happened. After much speculation, confusion and gnashing of teeth, the rehirsuted one arrived in Britain for the first time in 12 years, ...

Marvin Gaye: Cool Soul Genius Wows Albert

Live Review by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, October 1976

Marvin Gaye: Royal Albert Hall, LondonTHERE HAS to be a reason for hiring the Albert Hall. It's true that information sometimes gets lost over the ...

The Marvin Gaye Interview: Earthly Fights and Mystic Flights

Interview by Cliff White, NME, October 1976

"HOW ARE you? I must say you have the patience of Job." ...

Marvin Gaye: Soul Searching

Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, October 1976

MARVIN GAYE's chosen an interesting stage of his career to re-visit these shores after a 12-year absence. ...

Marvin Gaye: Live at the London Palladium

Review by Joe McEwen, Rolling Stone, June 1977

ALONG WITH Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye must be considered one of the most reticent pop performers. This is his second live album in three years, ...

Marvin Gaye: Here My Dear

Review by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, January 1979

I SUPPOSE I should be grateful to the new Marvin Gaye album for something – I did a very surreal drawing in pencil while wading ...

Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear (Tamla Motown)

Review by Ian Penman, NME, January 1979

IF THE LANGUAGE is clearly familiar, the filling clear, the concept perhaps a little cloying then at least, at length, the soul is back to ...

Marvin Gaye: The Meek Shall Inherit... The Bankruptcy Court

Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, Melody Maker, January 1979

RING out the trumpets! Roll out the carpets! Marvin Gaye’s released his first studio album for two years! I’m tempted to add, Bring On The ...

Stand Up For Your Rights, My Brothers: Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear

Report and Interview by Cliff White, NME, January 1979

Till double albums us do part ... MARVIN GAYE battles the dark forces of feminism, unionism, bankruptcy and posterity. ...

Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear

Review by Davitt Sigerson, Melody Maker, January 1979

EDITOR'S NOTE: A couple of weeks ago, Vivien Goldman trashed Marvin Gaye's new album in these columns. A dissenting voice pleads to be heard ...

Marvin Gaye: In Our Lifetime (Motown)

Review by Barney Hoskyns, NME, February 1981

SOMEHOW ONE forgives the sermonising in Marvin Gaye that irritates in other soul stars. Visually he fits the bill – he might almost be the ...

Marvin Gaye: For Once In A Lifetime

Interview by Paolo Hewitt, Melody Maker, February 1981

AFTER NEARLY two hours in that bedroom, Lydia finally gave up. By any standards she'd waited long enough for her Marvin Gaye interview – a ...

The New Age Metaphysics Of Marvin Gaye

Interview by Chris Salewicz, NME, February 1981

Music, Love, Divinity, & The Shape Of Things To Come...The Motown Marvel feels The Force. ...

Smokey Robinson: Being With You (Tamla)/Marvin Gaye: In Our Lifetime (Tamla)

Review by Mitchell Cohen, Creem, June 1981

THESE ALBUMS are blueprints for romantic strategies. Hearing them together is like eavesdropping on both halves of a double date, comparing style of seduction. ...

Marvin Gaye: Mr Midnight In The City Of Angels

Interview by Gavin Martin, NME, December 1982

DON'T WALK along Sunset Boulevard, otherwise you'll end up as part of the freakshow on the sidewalk rather than a spectator at The Last Great ...

Marvin Gaye: Midnight Love (CBS)

Review by Carol Cooper, Musician, February 1983

UPON RELOCATING to England in 1981, Marvin Gaye complained to London's New Musical Express that his last Tamla release, In Our Lifetime, was flawed because ...

Marvin Gaye: Heart and Soul

Obituary by Mick Brown, Guardian, The, April 1984

MARVIN GAYE, who was so shockingly killed in Los Angeles on Sunday, one day before his 45th birthday, was not only a consummate soul music ...

Marvin Gaye: Death Of A Midnight Lover – A Tribute To A Trouble Man

Obituary by Paolo Hewitt, NME, April 1984

The romantic spirit of rising young black America in the '60s, Marvin Gaye evolved into a radical voice testifying pleasure and protest. A brilliant artist, ...

Marvin Gaye 1939-1984

Obituary by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, April 1984

With the death of MARVIN GAYE, black music lost one of its most eloquent voices. Colin Irwin documents a brilliant but tempestuous career. ...

Marvin Gaye: No-One Quite Like Him

Obituary by Dave Marsh, Record Magazine, July 1984

Blessed with a cool born of control rather than emotional distance or reserve, Marvin Gaye was the artist who best expressed Motown's mix of disparate ...

Marvin Gaye: Dream Of A Lifetime

Review by Roy Trakin, Creem, October 1985

PRETTY STRANGE DUDE this Marvin Gaye. What's Goin' On, indeed. Lived his last days inna free base daze, died in a hard-to-believe Oedipal nightmare. ...

Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear (Motown)

Review by Jim Arundel, Melody Maker, December 1993

ALMOST SILENTLY, Motown have finally issued this all-but-forgotten masterpiece on CD. ...

Marvin Gaye: The Master 1961-1984 (Motown)

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1995

BIOGRAPHER DAVID RITZ HAS WRITTEN thousands and thousands of words on the ineffable talent of Marvin Gaye. This is possible. So all-encompassing are the pleasures ...

Marvin Gaye: Ed Townsend Remembers Marvin Gaye

Profile and Interview by Bill Carpenter, Goldmine, October 1998

MOTOWN'S MARVIN GAYE more so than any other male soul singer, represented the essence of the seventies. ...

Marvin Gaye: What's Going On

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 2001

SOME YEARS ago I interviewed Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile for MOJO. A musician known for his restless lifestyle, I asked him if there ...

Marvin Gaye: Trouble Soul Man

Review by Kit Aiken, Uncut, July 2001

13 of the 30-odd albums released in the his lifetime: five twofers from the Sixties, an expanded 30th anniversary edition of his 1971 classic and ...

Marvellous Marvin Reconsidered

Book Excerpt by Ian MacDonald, 'The People's Music' (Pimlico), July 2003

RARELY DID AN artistic persona run more counter to the truth than in the case of Marvin Gaye. Onstage, he was the quintessence of urbanity: ...

The TAMI Show Remembered

Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, Los Angeles Times, October 2004

THE ROLLING Stones were there, along with James Brown, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye and more, filmed live before their screaming ...

Marvin Gaye: Seaside Healing

Essay by David Stubbs, Guardian, The, November 2005

IN SPRING 1981, in an act akin to James Brown relocating to Hull, a 42-year-old cash-strapped Marvin Gaye took the Southampton ferry to the Belgian ...

Divided Soul: The Life Of Marvin Gaye

Book Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2005

DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY of the Trouble Man ...

Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear: Deal Me Out

Retrospective by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, February 2008

At the age of 39, Marvin Gaye's marriage hit the rocks, and he was forced into the studio to pay the divorce fees. Reissued 30 ...