Vulnerable (Marvin Gaye album)
Encyclopedia
Vulnerable is a posthumous album which was recorded by American
singer Marvin Gaye
in the late 1970s and set to be released under the tentative title of The Ballads. Shelved in 1979, the album was released by Motown
in 1997.
and Billy Eckstine
, Marvin tried several times to record jazz albums. His debut, 1961's The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye
featured Marvin doing covers of Broadway standards
and covers of jazz singles by Sinatra and Nat King Cole
, failed to attract listeners. Two similar albums, 1964's When I'm Alone I Cry
and Hello Broadway
also failed to attract much attention. A 1965 tribute album
to Nat King Cole was also released to little praise. Despite Motown's initial disappointment in Marvin's jazz ambitions, the singer still felt confident enough that he could record a convincing jazz record. Collaborating with Bobby Scott
and his orchestra in 1968, Marvin set on recording a ballads album. The sessions, however, weren't successful and halfway through sessions, Marvin decided to put his jazz ambitions on hold as he focused on duet work with the likes of Kim Weston
and Tammi Terrell
and continued his successful career as a soul artist. Marvin started to embellish some jazz in his work after the release of his landmark 1971 album, What's Going On
, and from then on used jazz musicians to help him in his albums. By the late 1970s, he had created his own recording studio, Marvin's Room
, and recorded a string of ambitious projects. After a tumultuous period in his personal life, Marvin decided to revive his collaborations with Scott and release an album he called The Ballads.
, Here, My Dear
, tanked on the charts mainly due to the album's subject matter, decided to shelve the project despite later telling author David Ritz
that he felt the album was "the best stuff I ever did". Marvin set on working on a disco
album he'd title Love Man, though that album was reinvented in 1980 as In Our Lifetime, an album that focused on Gaye's personal struggles with love and his faith in God
. After that album's rush release, Marvin left Motown Records. By the time of the completion of Ballads, Marvin's studio was shut down due to foreclosure
due to the singer's troubling financial state. He'd later file for voluntary bankruptcy and left the United States
at the dawn of the eighties.
, which had signed Marvin to a contract in early 1982 after he left Motown and where he recorded his last hit "Sexual Healing
" and the album Midnight Love
released the third and last Marvin Gaye album featured on the contract Marvin had signed. Columbia's parent label, CBS
worked together with Motown to issue lost recordings from sessions from lost material. Releasing Romantically Yours
, the album featured the 1968 version of "Why Did I Choose You" and two alternate 1977 recorded versions of "I Won't Cry Anymore" and "The Shadow of Your Smile" among others. In April 1997, Motown finally issued the long-awaited 1970s sessions from The Ballads, renaming it Vulnerable, featuring the cover of Gaye in a picture culled from the photo sessions of What's Going On and had the background animated to black with just his face. Three alternate versions of "Why Did I Choose You", "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" and "I Won't Cry Anymore" were featured on the album in which Marvin produced vocal ad-libs especially on "I Wish I Didn't Love You So". Gaye improvised his own lyrics for the alternate version of "I Won't Cry Anymore".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
in the late 1970s and set to be released under the tentative title of The Ballads. Shelved in 1979, the album was released by Motown
Motown Records
Motown is a record label originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, United States, on April 14, 1960. The name, a portmanteau of motor and town, is also a nickname for Detroit...
in 1997.
Background
By 1967, Marvin Gaye was Motown's best-selling male artist. Since starting his solo career and inspired by pop/jazz vocalists such as Frank SinatraFrank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
and Billy Eckstine
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
, Marvin tried several times to record jazz albums. His debut, 1961's The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye
The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye
The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye is Marvin Gaye's 1961 debut album, and the second long-playing album released by Motown. The first was Hi... We're The Miracles . It's most notable as the album that caused the first known struggle of Gaye's turbulent tenure with the label.-History:Between his...
featured Marvin doing covers of Broadway standards
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
and covers of jazz singles by Sinatra and Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, failed to attract listeners. Two similar albums, 1964's When I'm Alone I Cry
When I'm Alone I Cry
When I'm Alone I Cry is the third studio album by Marvin Gaye, released in 1964. It was one of several attempts of the singer to make a name for himself as a jazz vocalist....
and Hello Broadway
Hello Broadway
Hello Broadway is the fifth studio by soul singer Marvin Gaye, released in 1964. It's an album of standards and Broadway material recorded....
also failed to attract much attention. A 1965 tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
to Nat King Cole was also released to little praise. Despite Motown's initial disappointment in Marvin's jazz ambitions, the singer still felt confident enough that he could record a convincing jazz record. Collaborating with Bobby Scott
Bobby Scott (musician)
Bobby Scott was an American musician, record producer, and songwriter.-Biography:He was born Robert William Scott in Mount Pleasant, New York, and became a pianist, vibraphonist, and singer, and could also play the accordion, cello, clarinet, and double bass...
and his orchestra in 1968, Marvin set on recording a ballads album. The sessions, however, weren't successful and halfway through sessions, Marvin decided to put his jazz ambitions on hold as he focused on duet work with the likes of Kim Weston
Kim Weston
Kim Weston is an American soul singer, and Motown alumna. In the 1960s, Weston scored hits with the songs "Love Me All the Way" and "Take Me in Your Arms ".-Career:...
and Tammi Terrell
Tammi Terrell
Thomasina Winifred Montgomery, known as Tammi Terrell was an American singer-songwriter most notable for her association with Motown and her duets with Marvin Gaye. As a teenager she recorded for the Scepter–Wand, Try Me and Checker record labels. She signed with Motown in April 1965 and enjoyed...
and continued his successful career as a soul artist. Marvin started to embellish some jazz in his work after the release of his landmark 1971 album, What's Going On
What's Going On
What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released May 21, 1971, on the Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records...
, and from then on used jazz musicians to help him in his albums. By the late 1970s, he had created his own recording studio, Marvin's Room
Marvin's Room (studio)
Marvin's Room is a recording studio founded by American soul musician Marvin Gaye.Created by the singer in 1975 shortly after renegotiating a deal with Motown Records, the singer built the studios in Los Angeles as a spacious apartment-like complex big enough to be a studio, a home and, for a...
, and recorded a string of ambitious projects. After a tumultuous period in his personal life, Marvin decided to revive his collaborations with Scott and release an album he called The Ballads.
Recording
Recording sessions for the album started in 1977 at Marvin's recording studio. Among the songs recorded were "Why Did I Choose You", a song he had sung once live on television a decade previously, "She Needs Me", "Funny Not Much", "This Will Make You Laugh" and "The Shadow of Your Smile". Album sessions were completed in 1979 but Marvin, upset that his concept albumConcept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
, Here, My Dear
Here, My Dear
Here, My Dear is a studio double album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released December 15, 1978 on Tamla Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at Marvin's Room in Hollywood, California from 1976 to 1977. A deeply personal and controversial album, Here, My Dear is notable for...
, tanked on the charts mainly due to the album's subject matter, decided to shelve the project despite later telling author David Ritz
David Ritz
David Ritz is an American author, most of whose books are biographies of soul music and R&B legends such as Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and Janet Jackson. On four occasions, his co-authored autobiographies of musicians have been awarded the Ralph J...
that he felt the album was "the best stuff I ever did". Marvin set on working on a disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
album he'd title Love Man, though that album was reinvented in 1980 as In Our Lifetime, an album that focused on Gaye's personal struggles with love and his faith in God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. After that album's rush release, Marvin left Motown Records. By the time of the completion of Ballads, Marvin's studio was shut down due to foreclosure
Foreclosure
Foreclosure is the legal process by which a mortgage lender , or other lien holder, obtains a termination of a mortgage borrower 's equitable right of redemption, either by court order or by operation of law...
due to the singer's troubling financial state. He'd later file for voluntary bankruptcy and left the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at the dawn of the eighties.
Romantically Yours and the release of Vulnerable
In 1985, ColumbiaColumbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, which had signed Marvin to a contract in early 1982 after he left Motown and where he recorded his last hit "Sexual Healing
Sexual Healing
"Sexual Healing" is a 1982 song recorded by American soul singer Marvin Gaye on the Columbia Records label. It was his first single since his exit from his long-term record label Motown earlier in the year, following the release of the In Our Lifetime album the previous year...
" and the album Midnight Love
Midnight Love
Midnight Love is the final studio album recorded and issued by American soul singer Marvin Gaye and was the singer's first release from Columbia months after leaving his longtime label, Motown. It claimed the number one slot on NME Album of the Year....
released the third and last Marvin Gaye album featured on the contract Marvin had signed. Columbia's parent label, CBS
CBS Records
CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...
worked together with Motown to issue lost recordings from sessions from lost material. Releasing Romantically Yours
Romantically Yours
Romantically Yours was the second posthumous release for American soul music legend Marvin Gaye, also released by Columbia Records in 1985....
, the album featured the 1968 version of "Why Did I Choose You" and two alternate 1977 recorded versions of "I Won't Cry Anymore" and "The Shadow of Your Smile" among others. In April 1997, Motown finally issued the long-awaited 1970s sessions from The Ballads, renaming it Vulnerable, featuring the cover of Gaye in a picture culled from the photo sessions of What's Going On and had the background animated to black with just his face. Three alternate versions of "Why Did I Choose You", "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" and "I Won't Cry Anymore" were featured on the album in which Marvin produced vocal ad-libs especially on "I Wish I Didn't Love You So". Gaye improvised his own lyrics for the alternate version of "I Won't Cry Anymore".
Track listing
- "Why Did I Choose You?" (Michael Leonard, Herbert Martin) - 2:38
- "She Needs Me" (Jody Emerson, Earl Montgomery) - 3:26
- "Funny (Not Much)" (Scott Edward, Larry Holofcener) - 2:44
- "This Will Make You Laugh" (Irene HiggenbothamIrene HiggenbothamIrene Higginbotham was an American songwriter and concert pianist...
) - 2:53 - "The Shadow of Your Smile" (Johnny MandelJohnny MandelJohnny Mandel is an American composer and arranger of popular songs, film music and jazz. Among the musicians he has worked with are Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, Barbra Streisand, and Shirley Horn.-Life:...
, Paul Francis WebsterPaul Francis WebsterPaul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...
) - 3:08 - "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" (Frank LoesserFrank LoesserFrank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...
) - 2:35 - "I Won't Cry Anymore" (Al Frisch, Fred Wise) - 3:00
- "Why Did I Choose You?" (Alternate vocal) (Michael Leonard, Herbert Martin) - 2:37
- "I Wish I Didn't Love You So" (Alternate vocal) (Frank Loesser) - 2:36
- "I Won't Cry Anymore" (Alternate vocal) (Al Frisch, Fred Wise) - 2:53
Credits
- Ramon Aninag - Project Assistant
- Candace Bond - Executive Producer
- Koji Egawa - Assistant Engineer
- Carol Friedman - Art Direction, Photography, Still Pictures
- Marvin Gaye - Vocals, Producer, Vocal Producer
- David Harley - Art Direction
- John Hendrickson - Engineer
- Amy Herot - Producer
- Gavin Lurssen - Mastering
- David Moss - Tape Archivist, Librarian
- David RitzDavid RitzDavid Ritz is an American author, most of whose books are biographies of soul music and R&B legends such as Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, and Janet Jackson. On four occasions, his co-authored autobiographies of musicians have been awarded the Ralph J...
- Liner Notes, Essay - Bob Schaper - Editing, Editing Engineer
- Bill Schnee - Mixing
- Bobby ScottBobby Scott (musician)Bobby Scott was an American musician, record producer, and songwriter.-Biography:He was born Robert William Scott in Mount Pleasant, New York, and became a pianist, vibraphonist, and singer, and could also play the accordion, cello, clarinet, and double bass...
- Arranger, Producer, Orchestral Arrangements, Orchestra Production - Dana Smart - Production Coordination, Project Coordinator
- Art Stewart - Producer
- Georgia Ward - Tape Archivist