What a wonderful interview, candid.

Kudos to Scott Regan too who is not antzy and intrusive like so many who conduct these interviews. Bravo!

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Comment by Edie Antoinette on December 14, 2009 at 3:35am
--text ripped from the booklet of the CD "The Very Best Of Marvin Gaye". --

Marvin Gaye's extraordinary career matched his extraordinary life, a mixture of blessings and banes, dazzling success and inscrutable pain. His biography and discography are twin reflections of the same dualty: the artistic and personal struggle to heal the split between head and heart, flesh and spirit, ego and God. Meanwhile, the music lives on for the pleasures of its beauty and the marvel that was Marvin's voice.

Marvin's work divides along decades - the sixties when he hit as a commercial if somewhat rebellious artist, a brilliant product of the Motown assembly line; the seventies when he matured as an independent force, a self-produced self-reflective auteur who both rose to the challenge and fell to the temptations of his times; and the early eighties when, for a brief moment, he came roaring back on the scene for the final, tragic act of his spectacular drama.

The seeds of his discontent were sown in childhood. Born April 2, 1939, in Washington, D.C., Marvin Pentz Gaye, Jr. was the oldest son of a charismatic storefront preacher. The church was joyful, the holy roller music intoxicating; but the church was severe, and its no-drinking, no-dancing, no-nonsense regulations strict. The church was also eccentric - a small Christian subculture which celebrated the Jewish High Holy Days.

The church set Marvin, his brother and two sisters apart from ther peers. Marvin's mother worked as a domestic and carried the burden of the family's finances. The Reverend Gay - Marvin added the "e" later - worked as a part-time postal clerk and often not at all. A scholary but violent man, he beat his children for minor infractions and friolous misbehaviour. Marvin rebelled - Marvin would always rebel - and paid the price in corporal punishment.

He quit high school before graduation and joined the Air Force, only to be discharged. "My discharge was honorable", Marvin told me, "although it plainly stated, 'Marvin Gay cannot adjust to regimentation and authourity.'" After working with seminal rocker Bo Diddley, he joined the Moonglows, a quintessential five-part harmony group. It was the end of the fifties, and Marvin's impressions of the dawning Golden Age of Doo-Wop - with its lush romanticism, its otherworldliness, its idealization of women and pure melodic beauty - would prove powerful and permanent.

Harvey Fuqua had founded and led the Moonglows. A superlative writer and musician, he became Marvin's guru father-figure. When the group broke up, it was Fuqua who led Gaye to Detroit and Berry Gordy's just-born Motown Records. Marvin wanted in - into the studio and into the Gordy family. Gaye got what he wanted, marrying Berry's sister Anna, a woman 17 years his senior, and recording an initial series of records which ran contrary to Gordy's notion of selling black dance music to white teenagers.

Marvin dreamed of becoming a crooner in the silky-smooth style of Nat Cole, of besting Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. Shy but ambitious, mellow but fearful, broodingly serious, the singer wanted to sit on a stool, smoke a cigarette, nurse a martini and interpret the ballads of Gershwin and Porter. Gordy indulged Marvin's fantasy, even producing a number of his early efforts. But Marvin and Motown failed to crack the adult market. Gaye's destiny was Top Ten.

Seeing his colleagues - Mary Wells, the Marvelettes, the Miracles - score so resoundingly, Gaye jumped into the game with "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", a self-penned piece of autobiography that established his ability to rock in the rhythms of Young America. The song hit in 1962, as did a long series of others - "Pride and Joy", "Can I Get A Witness?", "I'll Be Doggone", "Ain't that Peculiar". As a writer, Marvin contributed to "Dancing In The Street", the covertly revolutionary anthem by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

Not only did Gaye score as a solo a
Comment by Shelley "SoleMann" King on December 10, 2009 at 10:02am
Marvin is cool as cool can be....LOL. I have to agree with Gloria on WHAT'S GOING ON
Comment by Gloria on December 10, 2009 at 2:43am
He is so relaxed here,this is like listening to two old friends catch up on what's going on. Now Marvin in aviation...pilot, air traffic controller, air craft designer...and singing "Let's Get It On"!!!
Comment by Edie Antoinette on December 9, 2009 at 11:45pm
I think I'm going to do a full Marvin page like The Funk Brothers have one here.
Enjoy the interview! ~E
Comment by Edie Antoinette on December 9, 2009 at 11:44pm
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Introspection

Entr'acte

  1. play Norman Brown — Night Drive
  2. play Norman Brown — Feeling
  3. play Norman Brown — Still
  4. play Miles Davis — miles 1
  5. play miles 2
  6. play miles 3
  7. play miles 4
  8. play miles 5
  9. play Marvin Gaye — I Met A Little Girl
  10. play Santana — 01 Singing Winds, Crying Beasts
  11. play Santana — 02 Black Magic Woman-Gypsy Queen
  12. play Mongo — 02. Afro Blue



The history of the Butlers/Raw Soul is dense, but for all of us music nerds, that's normal. It is not totally clear what year the Butlers actually formed but they released their first single in 1963 on Liberty Records. That single was "She Tried To Kiss Me" and another single followed on Guyden entitled "Lovable Girl." After the Guyden single the Butlers took a break not recording another record until the single "Laugh, Laugh, Laugh" was released on the Phila label in 1966. The group also backed Charles Earland and Jean Wells on one Phila single ("I Know She Loves Me"). 


As you might be noticing, the Butlers were doing a fair amount of recording but not achieving much success. The group's recordings sold regionally but never had the promotion to make an impact on the national scene. After the single with Phila, the Butlers moved to the Fairmount label (part of the Cameo-Parkway family) and released a handful of singles, some being reissued singles of the past. The Butlers were with Fairmount for 1966-67 and then moved to Sassy Records. Sassy released the group's greatest single (in my opinion) "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)" b/w "If That's What You Wanted." A copy of that 45 sold for just under $500 last summer on eBay. Even though that isn't that much in the world of record collecting--it's still a hefty sum. The Butlers released another single on Sassy ("She's Gone" b/w "Love Is Good") that appears to be even 
harder to come by then the "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)" single.

 

The true history become a bit blurred here as the AMG biography states that the Butlers last record was released on C.R.S. in 1974 (". However, between 1971 and that single, Frankie Beverly formed a group called Raw Soul and released a number of singles. Some of the songs recorded by Beverly during this period are "While I'm Alone," "Open Up Your Heart," (both on the Gregor label) and "Color Blind." "Color Blind" was released by the Eldorado label and rerecorded by Maze. Beverly's big break came when Marvin Gaye asked Raw Soul to back him on a tour. Gaye helped Beverly/Raw Soul get a contract at Capitol. Beverly decided to take the group in a different direction, a name change occurred, and Maze was created. 

The above isn't the most complete history of Beverly but hopefully someone will know a way to get in touch with the man or his management because a comprehensive pre-Maze history needs to be done on Frankie Beverly (his real name is Howard, by the way). Below you'll find every Frankie Beverly (pre-Maze) song available to me right now ("Color Blind" will be up soon). 

If you have a song that is not included below, shoot it over to funkinsoulman (at) yahoo.com and it will go up in the next Frankie Beverly post (later this week--highlighting Maze). Also, if you have any more information please share your knowledge. The Butlers material has been comp-ed sporadically (usually imports) but the entire Maze catalog has been reissued and is available. 

Enjoy.  "She Kissed Me" (Fairmount, 1966 or 1967) 
 
 "I Want To Feel I'm Wanted" (not sure which label or year) "Laugh, Laugh, Laugh" (Phila, 1966) "Because Of My Heart" (Fairmount, 1966 or 1967)
   
 "Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)" (Sassy, 1967)
   
 "If That's What You Wanted" (Sassy, 1967)
 



Frankie Beverly is one of those cats that has lasting power. He started in the music business doing a tour with doo wop group the Silhouettes and then formed his own group called the Blenders. The Blenders never recorded a single, Beverly wouldn't appear on wax until forming the Butlers a few years later. Along with Beverly, the Butlers included Jack "Sonny" Nicholson, Joe Collins, John Fitch, and Talmadge Conway.

Beverly would later enjoy great success fronting Maze and Conway would become a
well-known penning Double Exposure's
"Ten Percent" and the Intruders' "Memories Are Here To Stay." 
 While Maze is a phenomenal group, Beverly's work before that group will always stand out as his best (imo).

The Butlers produced tunes that most Northern Soul fans would kill for and Raw Soul gave the funksters something to pursue. If, by chance, you know of a way to get in touch with Frankie Beverly or his management, please drop me an e-mail. It would be absolutely great to do an interview with him about his pre-Maze work. He's still playing out, most recently doing a New Year's Eve show in Atlanta.
:: Funkinsoulman ::

Power...Through Simplicity ♪♫♪

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