Marvin Gaye's Top 50 Songs

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April 2, 1939: Marvin Gaye was born. According to the DMDB, he ranks #3 on the list of top 100 R&B acts. He also rates as one of the top 100 singers of all time and one of the top 100 songwriters of the rock era. He got his start singing in his father’s Apostolic church in vocal groups the Rainbows and Marquees. He joined Harvey Fuqua in the re-formed Moonglows. He moved to Detroit in 1960 and got session work as a drummer at Motown. He first recorded under his own name in 1961. That same year he married Anna Gordy, the sister of Motown founder Berry Gordy. They divorced in 1975. On the eve of his 45th birthday – April 1, 1984 – he was tragically shot and killed by his own father after a quarrel.

I Heard It Through the Grapevine

1. I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1968)
2. What’s Going On (1971)
3. Let’s Get It On (1973)
4. Sexual Healing (1982)
5. How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You (1964)

What’s Going On

6. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (with Tammi Terrell, 1967)
7. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology Song) (1971)
8. It Takes Two (with Kim Weston, 1966)
9. Got to Give It Up (1977)
10. Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) (1971)

Let’s Get It On

11. Your Precious Love (with Tammi Terrell, 1967)
12. Too Busy Thinking About My Baby (1969)
13. Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing (with Tammi Terrell, 1968)
14. You’re All I Need to Get By (with Tammi Terrell, 1968)
15. Ain’t That Peculiar (1965)

Sexual Healing

16. I’ll Be Doggone (1965)
17. I Want You (1976)
18. Can I Get a Witness (1963)
19. You’re a Wonderful One (1964)
20. If I Could Build My Whole World Around You (with Tammi Terrell, 1967)

How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You

21. Pride and Joy (1963)
22. That’s the Way Love Is (1969)
23. Hitch Hike (1963)
24. My Mistake Was to Love You (with Diana Ross, 1974)
25. Trouble Man (1972)

26. You’re a Special Part of Me (1973)
27. One More Heartache (1966)
28. Stubborn Kind of Fellow (1962)
29. Once Upon a Time (with Mary Wells, 1964)
30. Come Get to This (1973)

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

31. Try It Baby (1964)
32. Baby Don’t You Do It (1964)
33. What’s the Matter with You (with Mary Wells, 1964)
34. Keep on Lovin’ Me Honey (with Tammi Terrell, 1968)
35. Pretty Little Baby (1965)

Mercy Mercy Me

36. Music (with Erick Sermon, 2001)
37. Distant Lover (1974)
38. You (1968)
39. Chained (1968)
40. Your Unchanging Love (1967)

It Takes Two

41. Little Darling, I Need You (1966)
42. The End of Our Road (1970)
43. Good Lovin’ Ain’t Easy to Come By (with Valerie Simpson, 1969)
44. How Can I Forget (1970)
45. Take This Heart of Mine (1966)

Got to Give It Up

46. You’re the Man (1972)
47. You Sure Love to Ball (1974)
48. What You Gave Me (with Valerie Simpson, 1969)
49. Don’t Knock My Love (with Diana Ross, 1974)
50. Pops, We Love You (A Tribute) (with Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, & Stevie Wonder, 1978)

Inner City Blues

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Awards:

• one of the top 100 acts of all time
• one of my personal favorite top 100 acts of all time
• Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
• Hollywood Walk of Fame stars for people in the recording industry
• R&B Foundation
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee
• one of the top 100 R&B acts
• one of the top 100 singers of all time
• top 100 songwriters of the rock era

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Resources and Related Links:

• Marvin Gaye’s DMDB Music Maker Encyclopedia entry
• DMDB blog entry: Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” hit the charts: November 16, 1968 (11/16/11)
• DMDB blog entry: Marvin Gaye “Let’s Get It On”: Even Jack Black Can’t Deny Its Charms (6/15/11)

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Marvin Gaye charted with “Sexual Healing”

Sexual Healing Marvin Gaye

Writer(s): Marvin Gaye, David Ritz, Odell Brown (see lyrics here) First Charted: October 16, 1982 Peak: 3 US, 5 CB, 7 GR, 6 RR, 34 AC, 110 RB, 4 UK, 12 CN, 4 AU, 4 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.5 US, 0.65 UK, 3.2 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 190.5 video, 307.72 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Marvin Gaye’s life was at a crossroads in 1982. He was coming off a second divorce, owed money to the IRS, was fighting depression, and dealing with a cocaine addiction. He’d also jumped ship from Motown, his label for more than two decades, after they released his In Our Lifetime album without his approval. He’d signed a lucrative recording contract with CBS Records, but was suffering from writer’s block. Gaye’s biographer, David Ritz, visited him while he was in exile in Brussels. After seeing the singer’s pornographic magazine collection and the shape Gaye was in, Ritz suggested Gaye needed sexual healing. SJ The story has been disputed by some. Marvin’s brother, Frankie, says Ritz didn’t actually use that phrase, that Marvin came up with it. In 2012, Gordon Banks, another musician who worked on the song, told The Atlantic that Gaye and Ritz had actually been discussing Gaye’s intrigue with Amsterdam’s red light district. WK Ritz was eventually given a songwriting credit after suing Gaye for $15 million, although the case was dropped in 1983 because of insufficient evidence. WK In any event, the phrase sparked something in Gaye. He’d been listening to a reggae-style beat which Odell Brown, one of his sidemen, had created. They’d recorded an instrumental in October 1981 WK and now Gaye he had a lyrical concept to go with it. Thanks to the“simply structured, gently erotic” RY song, Gaye’s career was “properly revived” RY when both it and parent album Midnight Love reached the top 10 on the Billboard charts. The song “typifies everything about Marvin Gaye’s music – soulful, smooth and sensuous, with a slight hint of sadness.” LW It was Columbia Records’ biggest hit of the decade. LW Sadly, Gaye’s “undeniably grooving ode to getting down” TB would also be Gaye’s last taste of such widespread success and acclaim. On April 1, 1984, Gaye was staying at his parents’ house. He intervened in a fight between his parents and his father, with whom he’d always had a strained relationship, fatally shot him. Gaye died a day shy of his 45th birthday. Resources: LW Alan Lewens (2001). Popular Song – Soundtrack of the Century. Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 153. RS500 Rolling Stone (12/04). “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” RY Thomas Ryan (1996). American Hit Radio: A History of Popular Singles From 1955 to the Present. Prima Publishing: Rocklin, CA. Pages 520-1. SJ Bob Shannon and John Javna (1986). Behind the Hits: Inside Stories of Classic Pop and Rock and Roll. New York, NY; Warner Brothers, Inc. Page 126. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 201. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/4/2021; last updated 11/23/2022.