As the 40th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s death approaches, the legendary singer-songwriter known to all as the “Prince of Motown” continues to live on in the form of record-breaking placement on the Billboard chart.
During the latter part of January, Billboard reported that Gaye’s “Number 1s” (first released in 2007 and then on vinyl in 2020) earned a number nine spot on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart. The vinyl album, a compilation of Gaye’s most popular singles, is also number 28 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales Chart, with more than 2,600 sales since its release.
This album is Gaye’s third posthumous vinyl release to date.
All of his posthumous vinyl releases, including “What’s Going On” and “You’re the Man,” peaked at no. 2 and no. 4 on the Vinyl Albums chart, respectively. “What’s Going On,” re-released on vinyl in 2021, lasted three consecutive weeks in its top spot.
Such posthumous success, in part, speaks to what Motown founder Berry Gordy described to CBS Mornings in 2021 as Gaye’s resolve. “Marvin Gaye was so tough on me because… he was so brilliant in ways that he didn’t even know [what] he was brilliant in,” Gordy said, alluding to their widely documented differences over “What’s Going On.”
The artist was born Marvin Gay Jr. on April 2, 1939, in Washington, D.C., at what was then known as Freedman’s Hospital in Northwest.
He lived in now-demolished public housing communities in Southwest and Northeast throughout most of his childhood. During his adolescent years, he attended the now-shuttered Spingarn High School and Cardozo High School, both in Northwest, before dropping out and enlisting in the U.S. Air Force.
Upon his general discharge from the U.S. Air Force, Gaye started his music career, eventually adding the “e” at the end of his name before releasing his first single.
After stints in a doo-wop group and as a drummer, Gaye signed with Motown Records in the early 1960s, where he initially found success as a songwriter. Throughout that decade, he recorded duet singles and albums with Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, among others.
Terrell’s death from a brain tumor spurred Gaye’s depression, disillusionment with the industry and, in part, inspired an attempt to play professional football with the Detroit Lions. That vision, however, never manifested.
In the early 1970s, against Gordy’s wishes, Gaye recorded and secured the release of “What’s Going On,” inspired by The Four Tops’ Renaldo “Obie” Benson, who witnessed police brutality at an anti-war protest in Berkeley, California.
His 1971 album, also titled “What’s Going On,” had three top-10 singles, including the title track, “Mercy Me (The Ecology)” and “Inner City Blues.” It also sold more than one million records, a first for Gaye at the time.
Throughout the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s, Gaye conducted tours and spent some time in Europe. After leaving Motown, Gaye recorded “Midnight Love” (1982) while living abroad. That album included the single “Sexual Healing,” which became Gaye’s most popular song to date.
In his final years, Gaye appeared on a Motown 25th anniversary special and conducted a 51-city tour. He also continued along in a drug-induced spiral that would remain a challenge until his death.
In 1984, on the day before his 45th birthday, Gaye was shot and killed by his father, Marvin Gay, Sr., in their Los Angeles home during an altercation between Gay, Sr. and Gaye’s mother, Alberta Gay. In the decades following his death, experts, colleagues, and fans described, and continue to describe, Gaye as a performer who transcended soul, gospel, pop and jazz.
Several artists, including Stevie Wonder and Frankie Beverly, have since followed in Gaye’s stead, citing him as a primary influence. At Gaye’s funeral, Wonder sang, “Lighting Up The Candles,” a song he had reportedly written with Gaye in mind.
One year later, Wonder reflected on the impact of Gaye’s life and death, the latter of which people initially thought of as an April Fool’s joke.
“We are not the controllers of life,” Wonder told NPR in 1985. “And that’s why people need to stop doing that, trying to control life. But I was — it was just painful for me. And as much as we say, ‘Well we’ve got his music. We’ve got their art, we got their this, we got their that’ — I would’ve loved to have some more of him, and them.”
