Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye biography

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye (he added the 'e' as a young man), was an acclaimed American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range, who achieved major success in the 1960s and 1970s as an artist for the Motown Records label. He was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984.

Starting his career as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late 1950s, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960, signing with Motown Records subsidiary, Tamla. He started off as a session drummer, but later ranked as the label's top-selling solo artist during the 1960s. He was crowned "The Prince of Motown" and "The Prince of Soul". 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.

His work in the early- and mid-1970s included the albums, What's Going On, Let's Get It On, and I Want You, which helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early 1980s, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, "Sexual Healing" and the Midnight Love album before his death.

In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Gaye at number 6 on its list of the Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked at number 18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and he ranked number 20 on VH1's list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Gaye was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Biography

Early life (1939-1957)

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. was born on April 2, 1939 at Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C.. His father, Marvin Gay, Sr., was a minister at the House of God (the House of God headquarters is located in Lexington, Kentucky), a Hebrew Pentecostal sect which advocated strict conduct and taught and believed in both the old and new Testament. His mother, Alberta Gay (née Cooper), was a domestic and schoolteacher. As a child, Gaye was raised in the Benning Terrace projects in southeast D.C.

Gaye's father was minister of a local House of God church. By the time his eldest son was four, Marvin Sr. was bringing Gaye with him to sing for church congregations. Gaye's early home life was marked by violence as his father would often strike him for any shortcoming. Gaye and his three siblings were bed-wetters as children. 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. By age fourteen, Gaye's parents moved to the Deanwood neighborhood of northeast D.C. The following year, Gaye's father quit the ministry after a disappointment over not being promoted as the Chief Apostle (head overseer) of the House of God Inc. Gaye's father never kept a job and developed alcoholism, which made Gaye's home life more difficult. Gaye's father prohibited Gaye from participating in sports or listening to any music besides gospel.

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