Customer Reviews

Moods of Marvin Gaye / In The Groove

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Quite frankly, "Moods of Marvin Gaye" is one of the greatest albums Marvin ever put out. It is simply incredible to hear these Sinatra like songs. The music is excellent, and Marvin's voice sounds golden. My personal favorite tracks are number 7, "Night Life," number 11, "I Worry `Bout You," and number 12, "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)." These are songs that can instantly set the mood in any nightclub. The sound is reminiscent of that of the 1920's. Imagine yourself during the Harlem Renaissance at an exclusive club, sipping on your favorite drink, and listening to the band. As the band plays on, you admire people in their pinstriped suits and sultry dresses. Through the cloud of cigarette smoke, you see a well dressed man walking up to the RCA 44 Ribbon Style Microphone, and as he begins to sing, the crowd is breath taken. That man is Marvin Gaye, and this is a classic album.

What's even better is that you get the album "In The Groove" as a bonus! You can't beat that with a bat! Get this album right away!

Judging from the large sums being asked for this CD, it must have gone out of print. This is a shame, as these two consecutive albums from 1966 and 1968 catch him in the midst of his sixties hit-making period, and during Motown's heyday. To say he was Motown's top male vocalist at the time is high praise indeed considering the competition from Smokey, Levi, David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, but he quite possibly was, and these are superb, confident, exquisitely light performances, with dexterous treatments from the Funk Brothers.

Moods Of Marvin Gaye contains versions of past singles I'll Be Doggone/You've Been A Long Time Coming (1965), Ain't That Peculiar (1965), One More Heartache (1966) and Take This Heart Of Mine (1966). It later produced Little Darling (I Need You)/Hey Diddle Diddle (1966) and Your Unchanging Love (1967). The remaining four tracks were taken from a scrapped album of mainly standards, to be called Vulnerable, and are in a quite different style, Nat King Cole-influenced with lush big band backing. They range from Willie Nelson's Night Life, Billie Holiday's I Wonder 'Bout You and Frank Sinatra's One For My Baby to a new Stevie Wonder song called You're The One For Me.

In The Groove was at one time re-titled I Heard It Through The Grapevine to capitalise on the phenomenal success of the single that was released from it, a number one in the US and the UK. It also included the singles You/Change What You Can, Chained/At Last and the US B-side of Grapevine, You're What's Happening In The World Today (all from 1968). Like Moods, it wasn't envisioned as an album, the remaining tracks being two Drifters covers left in the can following a New York session in 1966 and recordings with different producers in 1967 and 1968, including an early version of Tear It On Down, later to be recorded by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and a smooth cover of the Four Tops' Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever.

Should a revised edition be in the pipeline, it could perhaps include as bonus tracks from the same timeline the non-album single Pretty Little Baby (1965) and the rarely collected B-sides When I Had Your Love (1966), She's Got To Be Real (1965) and I'll Take Care Of You (1967).

Moods of Marvin Gaye: A landmark album for Marvin Gaye in the fall of 1966, this album contained no fewer than five hits at the time of release. (An album track, Your Unchanging Love was re-mixed with the piano track up front for an exciting single in early 1967.) The hits spanned over a year from I'll Be Doggone to Take This Heart of Mine. Pretty Little Baby, however, was skipped for some reason. Evidence shows that it was slated to appear on the album because it is mentioned in the original liner notes . Unlike common practice at Hitsville, this album contained only two B-sides, You've Been a Long Time Coming and Hey Diddle Diddle. The latter became a springboard for the 5th Dimension's debut single, I'll Be Loving You Forever. Its use of nursery rhyme lyrics give it a rather glib topic, but the Funk Brothers are in full command, with the brass section working overtime. The exceptional concept of this album rests in its diversity. Three tracks from a standards album he was working on (that would be "Vulnerable") were stuck on at the last minute. Why they didn't use B-sides from the hits is unknown, but the ideas worked. Willie Nelson's Night Life is given a jazz-blues vocal while Ivy Hunter's (?) piano fills in the spaces. A Frank Sinatra standby, One For My Baby, is tackled with a soulful vocal that only MG could give it, while I Worry `Bout You comes from a Billie Holiday angle. Marvin did things with his vocals only others could dream of, but when he took a Smokey Robinson production to task, all the stops were out. Ain't That Peculiar, with its piano riff and chord changes was only the beginning of how complex Smokey's music could be. In One More Heartache, the riff is carried by Robert White's (?) guitar and the end result is nothing short of spectacular. The biggest hit here, though is the opening track, I'll Be Doggone, also guitar driven. Jack Ashford's Latin-like bongos take it on home. Smokey was also at the height of his lyrical prowess in these days. He couldn't miss if he tried. Take This Heart of Mine was aimed at stirring the young people away from drugs with lines like "Take as much as you want to; there is no overdose", making it clear that romance was far more fulfilling than substance abuse. Holland-Dozier-Holland contributed three overlooked gems in Gaye's catalog: The wonderful B-side of "Doggone" , You've Been a Long Time Coming contains one of their best melodies, coming from the same mold as Stay in My Lonely Arms. The other, Little Darling, I Need You moves like heard of runaway buffalo, and the same can be said for Your Unchanging Love. The latter comes from the spiritual, Hold to God's Unchanging Hand, but here Marvin promises to be unmoved and faithful. Last and best of all is Stevie Wonder's beautiful composition, You're the One for Me. Its mournful beginning is complimented by his harmonica played over the top in a dirge that only adds to the longing in the lyric. With Martha & the Vandellas "Watchout!" album, "Moods of Marvin Gaye" was one of Motown's crowning achievements of 1966.
In the Groove: As it was originally titled in the summer of 1968, I Heard it Through the Grapevine was put on as an afterthought. I recall the same held true with Gladys Knight's version as well. For Knight and Gaye, "Grapevine" was buried on both albums months before becoming giant hits. "Groove" also contained Gaye's two previous hits, "You" and "Chained". These records were not half bad themselves! The former had a foreboding melody that could haunt long after the fade-out, while the on latter he agonized over his helplessness to break away from a bad lover. Paranoia looms in both songs at opposite ends, but the shining moment is the B-side, "Change What You Can". You think you're watching one of those detective TV shows! "Change" is pure jazz with all its tension and release in just the right spot. Why they never used this song in a movie is beyond me. This is one unbelievable record. Another one of my favorites is Ashford & Simpson's "Tear it on Down". It's chord structure is strict leaving little room for improvisation, but then it may have been a trial run waiting for Tammi Terrell's vocals to be added later. Since they were not, the song was given a much different treatment by Martha & the Vandellas. They had a mild hit with it a year and a half later. Mama Reeves took it straight to church and it hasn't been the same since. Another beauty is "Every Now and Then", a forceful lyric torn into by the fantastic Marvin Gaye. Only Levi Stubbs could have pulled it off any better, but that's as far as I'll go. The rest is strictly album fare and although not exactly garbage, it does not hold up to the tracks mentioned. Two old Drifters tracks fill in the blanks and not very well. After the huge success of Gaye's version of "Grapevine", the album title was changed to honor the hit single, a common practice at Motown.
"Moods" is an unreserved classic by itself. "Groove", or "Grapevine", is not as adventurous throughout, but at least four tracks stand out as true art, so the album deserves three stars, while "Moods" takes five. If you love Marvin Gaye like I know I do, you will want to at least hear these two albums.

These import two-fers' are terrific. They feature terrific sound quality and great packaging. The albums included are:

MOODS OF MARVIN GAYE (1966) **** (4 out of 5) While it doesn't approach the same level of his later suites, MOODS stands as Marvin's first album to have any real consistency. The singles are terrific, including the big hits "I'll Be Doggone" (#8 Pop, #1 R&B) and "Ain't It Peculiar" (#8 Pop, #1 R&B), as well as the Top 40's "One More Heartache" (#29 Pop, #4 R&B) and "You're Unchanging Love" (#33 Pop, #7 R&B). The singles "Little Darling" (#47 Pop, #10 R&B) and "Take This Heart Of Mine" (#44 Pop, #16 R&B) just missed the Top 40 on the Hot 100, but they're both delightful and you won't find them on most of the many Gaye compilations that have stormed the market in the last 15 years. The album's first half works best with most of the hits and the rocking album track "Hey Diddle, Diddle," which is awesome despite it's silly title. The tempo slows down on the disc's last half (or the second side of the original LP), with some beautiful ballads ("You've Been A Long Time Coming," the Stevie Wonder-penned "You're The One For Me") and a couple of standards. The standards are probably the weakest portion of Moods; Marvin's take on "Night Life" is respectable, but he is far less successful with "One For My Baby." Still, MOODS works well enough to be one of his best from the sixties.

INTO THE GROOVE (1968; later reissued on CD as I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE) ***1/2 (3.5 out of 5) Marvin's rendition Whitfield and Strong's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" is a three-minute masterpiece and spent a whopping seven weeks at #1, becoming Motown's biggest hit of the sixties. The single is justifiably considered by many to be Motown's greatest hit ever. This album was thrown together quickly to cash in on "Grapevine's" success, and as a result is sometimes a little spotty. The previously released singles "You" (#34 Pop, #7 R&B) and "Chained" (#32 Pop, #8 R&B) found a home here as did some material that had been collecting dust in the vaults. The infectious "Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever" and the towering "It's Love You Need" are the standout album tracks. The cover songs ("Some Kind Of Wonderful" and "There Goes My Baby") are acceptable filler. Marvin's composition "Change What You Can" shows his writing skills are improving, however his other contribution "At Last (I Found A Love)" is generic and forgettable. There's enough incredible songs and powerful performances to make INTO THE GROOVE a very good release, despite it's unevenness.