Marvin gaye album cover
It has officially been 50 years since the free of Marvin Gaye's iconic "What's Going On" album.
The legendary singer-songwriter was born in 1939, in Washington, D.C. He started out singing in church and later became a member of popular doo-wop community The Moonglows.
After the genre began fizzling out in the 50s, the group's founding member Harvey Fuqua took then 20-year-old Gaye to Detroit where he met Berry Gordy Jr., the founder of Motown records. At the label, he earned the title of Prince of Motown for his soulful sound and duetted with the likes of Diana Ross.
Gaye was shot dead in 1984, the day before his 45th birthday, by his father Marvin Gaye Sr. after an altercation.
It was Gaye's eleventh studio album, "What's Going On", that went on to define him for decades after his death.
The album was released on May 21 1971, exactly 50 years ago today. It is still deemed as relevant as ever by many because of its strong social conscience. The record focused heavily on themes including racism, drug abuse, poverty and police brutality. It also showcased the perspective of a veteran returning to the U.S after the Vietnam war.
The record marked a departure for the Prince of M
Marvin Gaye – Let’s Earn It On album art
Let’s Get It On is the thirteenth studio album by Marvin Gaye, released on August 28, 1973. The cover features Bobo Bold in red letters. Gaye’s liner notes on the gatefold and the credits on the endorse are set in ITC Avant Garde Gothic. The photography is by Jim Britt.
From Wikipedia:
Serving as Gaye’s first venture into the funk genre, Let’s Become It On also incorporates smooth soul and doo-wop styles alongside sexually suggestive lyrics, leading to one writer’s description of it as “one of the most sexually charged albums ever recorded”. Gaye infused ideas of spiritual healing in songs about sex and romance, in part as a way of coping with childhood abuses from his father Marvin Gay Sr., which had stunted his sexuality.
Following the breakthrough success of his socially conscious album What’s Going On (1971), Let’s Get It On helped establish Gaye as a sex icon and broadened his mainstream appeal. It produced three singles—the title track, “Come Get to This”, and “You Sure Love to Ball” – that achieved Billboard chart success. Let&r
‘I Want You’: Marvin Gaye’s Carnal Classic
After pretty much releasing an album a year since 1961, Marvin Gaye slowed down in the mid-70s. Following his stylistic rebirth at the start of the decade, the once prolific Gaye increasingly began to agonize over new material. What’s Going On arguably saw him take himself and his music seriously for the first time; 1973’sLet’s Get It On introduced the loverman persona he would largely run with for the remainder of his life. After a three-year gap, Gaye emerged in 1976 with his 14th solo album, releasing it at a hour when the clubs were either rumbling to the sounds of punk or shaking under the weight of bodies on the disco dancefloor.
Listen to the deluxe edition of I Want You now.
Not that Gaye cared. Sure, he’d once looked to the outside world, but I Want You was unapologetically myopic – and intensely carnal. As its cover art, a 1971 painting by Ernie Barnes, entitled Sugar Shack, made abundantly clear, there was no room for maneuver between Gaye’s erotic fantasies and the barely suppressed demands of his urges. This was hot, sweaty, get-down music.
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Gaye had struggled to register
'Sugar Shack,' iconic painting featured on Marvin Gaye album cover, sells for $15.3 million
A painting that served as the cover for one of legendary heart singer Marvin Gaye's albums has sold at auction for almost $15.3 million.
Ernie Barnes' joyous depiction of a frenetic scene in a dance hall, titled "The Sugar Shack," sold to Bill Perkins, a hedge fund manager and entrepreneur, after 10 minutes of bidding by more than 22 bidders, confirmed Christie's auction house.
According to Christie's, the final sale price for "The Sugar Shack" was 27 times higher than the most expensive Barnes work to sell before it. It also blew past its estimated sale price of $150,000 to $200,000.
Barnes, who died in 2009, was born in North Carolina in 1938 and often drew upon his possess experiences growing up in the American South during the Jim Crow era in his depictions of social moments and images of quotidian Black life.
In a 2002 interview, in which the Oakland Tribune described Barnes as the "Picasso of the Inky art world," the musician said he got the idea for "The Sugar Shack" from reflecting on his childhood and "not being able
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