"Your Precious Love" is a popular song that was a 1967 hit for 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...

 singers 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....

 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...

. Written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson

Ashford & Simpson

Nickolas Ashford , and Valerie Simpson , were a husband and wife songwriting/production team and recording artists....

 and produced by Harvey Fuqua

Harvey Fuqua

Harvey Fuqua, was an African-American rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, record producer, and record label executive.Fuqua founded the seminal R&B/doo-wop group the Moonglows in the 1950s...

 and Johnny Bristol

Johnny Bristol

Johnny Bristol , was an American musician, most famous as a songwriter and record producer for the Motown label in the late 1960s and early 1970s...

, the doo-wop

Doo-wop

The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...

 styled recording features background vocals by Fuqua, Gaye, Terrell and Bristol, and instrumentals by The Funk Brothers

The Funk Brothers

The Funk Brothers was the nickname of Detroit, Michigan, session musicians who performed the backing to most Motown Records recordings from 1959 until the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972...

. The song peaked at #5 on Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Pop Singles chart, #2 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, and the top 40 on Billboard's Easy Listening survey. The song was later sampled by Gerald Levert

Gerald Levert

Gerald Levert was an American R&B singer. Gerald Levert sang with his brother, Sean Levert, and friend Marc Gordon in the R&B trio LeVert. He was also a part of LSG, an R&B supergroup comprising Keith Sweat, Johnny Gill, and Levert...

 on the song, "Your Smile", on his 2002 album, The G Spot.

Cover versions

A cover version

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 by D'Angelo

D'Angelo

Michael Eugene Archer , better known by his stage name D'Angelo, is an American R&B and neo soul singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is known for his production and songwriting talents as much as for his vocal abilities, and often draws comparisons to his influences,...

 and Erykah Badu

Erykah Badu

Erica Abi Wright , better known by her stage name Erykah Badu , is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, cerebral musical...

 was released on the High School High soundtrack album (1996), as well as featured on his "The Best So Far"...compilation album. There was also an a cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

 cover of the song by Cedric the Entertainer

Cedric the Entertainer

Cedric Antonio Kyles , known professionally by his stage name Cedric the Entertainer, is an American actor, comedian and director...

 and Avant

Avant

Myron Avant , better known as Avant is an American R&B singer-songwriter. He is best known for hits such as "Separated" , "My First Love," which one version features KeKe Wyatt, and "Read Your Mind"...

 figures in a gag

Gag

A gag is usually a device designed to prevent speech, often as a restraint device to stop the subject from calling for help. This is usually done by blocking the mouth, partially or completely, or attempting to prevent the tongue, lips, or jaw from moving in the normal patterns of speech. They are...

 sequence in the 2004 MGM film Barbershop 2: Back in Business

Barbershop 2: Back in Business

Barbershop 2: Black in Business is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan, produced by State Street Pictures and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on February 6, 2004...

. Sarah Connor recorded the song as an overdubbed "duet" with Marvin Gaye on her 2007 album Soulicious

Soulicious

Soulicious is the fifth studio album by German singer–songwriter Sarah Connor, released in German-speaking Europe on 30 March 2007 by Epic. Entirely produced by Kay Denar and Rob Tyger, the album consists of a collection of cover versions of Motown music from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, apart from...

. Another cover of the song was recorded by Peter Cox

Peter Cox (musician)

Peter John Cox is an English singer-songwriter, currently the lead singer in Manfred Mann's Earth Band, but is best known as one half of the 1980s blue-eyed soul duo Go West.-Early career and Go West:...

 of Go West

Go West (band)

Go West is an English pop duo, formed in 1982 by lead vocalist and drummer Peter Cox ; and guitarist and vocalist Richard Drummie...

 and Easther Bennett of Eternal

Eternal (band)

Eternal were an English R&B girl group formed in 1992. The group featured two sisters Easther and Vernie Bennett, alongside Kelle Bryan and Louise Nurding...

 and appears on Cox's 2006 album Motor City Music (Curb Records).

An earlier cover version by Al Jarreau

Al Jarreau

Alwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...

 and Randy Crawford

Randy Crawford

Randy Crawford is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist...

 from the album Casino Lights - Recorded Live At Montreux, Switzerland was released in 1982. Also featured on the track are Grammy award winning artists: Larry Carton (guitar), David Sanborn (saxophone), Marcus Miller (Bass) and the Seawind Horns (Jerry Hey, Kim Hutchcroft, Larry Williams and Bill Reichenbach). In 1984, father Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka is an American pop/rock singer, pianist, and composer. His career has spanned nearly 55 years, during which time he has sold millions of records as an artist and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard...

 and daughter Dara Sedaka reached the Billboard Top 15 of the Adult Contemporary chart with their duet cover version of the song. Fantasia sampled this song on her song "Collard Greens and Cornbread" on her 2010 album Back To Me

Back to Me (Fantasia album)

Back to Me is the third studio album by American singer Fantasia Barrino. It was released by J Records on August 24, 2010. The album is her first studio album in four years since 2006's Fantasia. The album's title was suggested to her by comedian Steve Harvey, when Barrino visited his morning radio...

.