Conception
By 1968, Marvin Gaye had released only a few solo singles in three years. Between his Kim Weston duet, "It Takes Two" and his Tammi Terrell duets, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Your Precious Love" among others, Gaye released only one single, "Your Unchanging Love", which peaked at number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Motown brought Gaye back to the studio to record a solo album. Recording difficulties aside, Gaye's vocals went through a transition through this period. Perhaps done on purpose, Gaye's earlier collaborator Norman Whitfield and his pupil, Frank Wilson, began to write songs they felt fit the singer's chaotic personal life: Gaye's marriage to Anna Gordy was turbulent as was life on the road in which Gaye grew a constant dislike to live performances and his personal disagreements with Motown CEO Berry Gordy had started to create strain in his relationship with the Motown label.
On top of that, during an October 1967 engagement at Hampden-Sydney College with Terrell, the younger Terrell collapsed from exhaustion into Gaye's waiting arms. Terrell was later diagnosed at the end of the year with having a brain tumor, which depressed Gaye. Some speculate Terrell's illness and subsequent death two and a half years later affected Gaye's performances in which he went from being a soul stylist in the same way his idol Sam Cooke had been into a more gospel-influenced soul vocalist who sounded more in par with Otis Redding, James Brown, and Temptations lead singer David Ruffin. However, during the recording of what would become Gaye's biggest-selling and signature single of his career, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", Whitfield decided to force Gaye to raise his vocal register higher than what he was used to, which Whitfield already tried successfully on Ruffin during the recording of the Temptations hit, "Ain't Too Proud to Beg". Though Gaye and Whitfield reportedly argued over the sessions of "Grapevine", Whitfield was able to get what he wanted from Gaye, and the duo started a collaboration that lasted into the beginning of 1970.
When Whitfield presented "Grapevine" to Berry Gordy, the producer was stunned when Gordy turned it down sensing the song "wasn't a hit" and that "it sucked". Nevertheless, Whitfield released a version of the song by Gladys Knight & the Pips in an attempt to "out-funk Aretha Franklin's "Respect".
Read more about this topic: I Heard It Through The Grapevine (album)
Famous quotes containing the word conception:
“It is possible—indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic—to give in advance a description of all ‘true’ logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“The world ‘s a bubble, and the life of man
Less then a span:
In his conception wretched, from the womb
So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years
With cares and fears.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)