I Want You (Marvin Gaye Album) - Background

Background

By 1975, Marvin Gaye had come off of the commercial and critical success of his landmark studio album Let's Get It On (1973), its successful supporting tour following the album's release, and Diana & Marvin (1973), a duet project with Diana Ross. However, similar to the conception and recording of Let's Get It On, Gaye had struggled to come up with an album as an appropriate follow-up. And much like Let's Get It On Gaye reached for outside help, this time seeking the assistance of Leon Ware, a singer and songwriter who had found previous success writing hits for fellow Motown alum, including pop singer Michael Jackson and the rhythm and blues group The Miracles. Ware had been working on songs for his own album which he would later issue under the title Musical Massage, a collection of erotic singles Ware had composed with a variety of writers, including Jacqueline Hillard and Arthur "T-Boy" Ross, brother of Diana Ross. When Motown CEO Berry Gordy paid a visit to Ware, the songwriter was more than happy to play Gordy his selection of tracks. After hearing a preliminary mix of the songs however, Gordy figured that Ware should let Gaye handle his material.

While the majority of the album's songs were conceived by Ware, I Want You was transformed into a biographical centerpiece for Gaye, who was then in a volatile marriage with Anna Gordy, sister to Berry Gordy, and also in a long-standing affair with Janis Hunter, who would later become the mother of his two youngest children. Gaye and Hunter were introduced to each other by producer Ed Townsend in 1973 at Hitsville West, while Townsend and Gaye were recording Let's Get It On. In his book Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves, and Demons of Marvin Gaye, the author and music writer Michael Eric Dyson elaborated on the relationship between I Want You and Gaye's affair with Hunter: "I Want You is unmistakably a work of romantic and erotic tribute to the woman he deeply loved and would marry shortly, Janis Hunter. Gaye's obsession with the woman in her late teens is nearly palpable in the sensual textures that are the album's aural and lyrical signature. Their relationship was relentlessly passionate and emotionally rough-hewn; they played up each other's strengths, and played off each other's weaknesses."

Though it was often hinted that Let's Get It On was the album Gaye had dedicated to her, Marvin has stated that this album was dedicated to Hunter, who is believed to have been in the studio when he recorded it. According to music critics, her presence may have increased the emotion in Ware's and Gaye's conception of I Want You, .