Born in Washington D.C. in 1939, Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. developed a talent for singing in church at the early age of four years old. Despite his troubled home life, Marvin grew to love music and with encouragement from his mother he began to take his talent for music seriously, involving himself in his junior highschool’s Glee Club as it’s star singer 

 

Unfortunately, his relationship with his father unraveled in highschool, leading Marvin to drop out of highschool and enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1956. However, after quickly becoming disillusioned the Air Force, Gaye was given a General Discharge after faking mental illness.

 

Gaye found his way back to music in the vocal quartet The Marquees, which primarily performed performed in the D.C. area. Gaye performed with the group until 1960 when it officially disbanded and ki started Gaye’s solo career. After moving to Detroit, Gaye signed onto the Motown subsidiary Tamla as a jazz singer after impressing the Motown president Berry Gordy during a holiday performance that same year.

 

His first studio album The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye failed to meet expectations, leading him towards doing session work for other artists at Mowtown. Eventually, Gaye would see his first of many successes including his single “Pride and Joy, which became his first top ten single on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963.

 

After putting out more successful singles like his 1964 hit How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You), Gaye began to get traction on the media, which likely helped his 1965 singles I’ll Be Doggone and Ain’t That Peculiar sell millions. Gaye eventually had his first single to reach the No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968 with I Heard It Through the Grapevine and that next year, his album M.P.G. was his first to reach the top spot on the R&B album charts.

 

His next album, What’s Going On, whas his first to sell over a million copies, to receive two Grammy Award nominations in 1972.

 

Overall, Gaye churned out a total of 17 solo studio albums and six collaborative albums that continues to enrapture listeners. Even after his untimely death in 1984 Gaye’s music still stands the rest of time. Gay was posthumously inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987,  the NAACP Hall of Fame in 1988, the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.

 

In recent years Gaye was ranked 20 on Rolling Stone’s The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time in January 2023.