Recording and Production
Gaye and Ware recorded and mixed the album at Gaye's newly-christened "Marvin's Room Studio", located on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and at Motown Recording Studios. The recording sessions took place throughout 1975 and 1976. Much like Gaye's previous studio effort Let's Get It On, I Want You featured Gaye's contribution of background vocals and heavy multi-tracking. Gaye's vocalizing style was in classic doo-wop tradition accompanied by the low tempo of string arrangements and other instrumentation was provided by The Funk Brothers.
Gaye's albums, and especially I Want You, have been influential on modern soul music and contemporary R&B. EMI Artists and Repertoire executive Gary Harris, who later assisted neo soul singer D'Angelo in recording his highly acclaimed debut album Brown Sugar (1995), later commented on Gaye's significant artistry on I Want You and its opening title track. In an interview with writer Michael Eric Dyson, Harris said:
With the opening, with the congas and the strings; it's like the sun is rising. It's a very cinemtatic approach to the whole thing. It shows a thing Quincy Jones called "ear candy." The voicings and the arrangements convey not only mood but time, place and image. He's talking about "dreamed of you this morning." It's crazy. The other thing about Marvin and the song is he always, no matter what he was doing, how many risks he would take, he was a radical traditionalist and always held onto his doo-wop upbringing. Those background harmonies ... no matter how increasingly percussive he got, how funky, the background vocals were always steeped in that tradition. —Garry HarrisAnother significant feature of the recording sessions for I Want You was Gaye's use of the synthesizer in his music. During the time of recording, the instrument had entered its modern period of use and had been included in the music of such popular acts as Stevie Wonder and Led Zeppelin. For the instrumental version of "After the Dance", Gaye implented it for a more spacey sound than his previous recordings had featured. Other recordings from these sessions to feature Gaye's synthesizer were later featured on the deluxe edition re-release of I Want You.
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