♫ ON NITE-TRAKS MUSIKXPRESS STUDIO THE ALBUM CLASSICS: Mr. Marvin Gaye - I Want You (Full Album Studio) (1976 | Tamla Motown Records) I Want You, while it was a Top Ten smash for Marvin Gaye in 1976, is not as generally well-known as its predecessors for a number of reasons. First, it marked a sharp change in direction, leaving his trademark Motown soul for lush, funky, light disco. Secondly, its subject matter is as close to explicit as pop records got in 1976. Third, Gaye hadn’t recorded in nearly three years and critics were onto something else — exactly what is now anybody’s guess. From the amazing Ernie Barnes cover painting “Back to Sugar Shack” to the Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson string and horn arrangements to Leon Ware’s exotic production that relied on keyboards as well as drums and basses as rhythm instruments, I Want You was a giant leap for Gaye. The feel of the album was one of late-night parties in basements and small clubs, and the intimacy of the music evokes the image of people getting closer as every hour of a steamy night wears on. But the most astonishing things about I Want You are its intimacy (it was dedicated to and recorded in front of Gaye’s future second wife, Jan), silky elegance, and seamless textures. Gaye worked with producer Leon Ware, who wrote all of the original songs on the album and worked with Gaye to revise them, thus lending Gaye a co-writing credit. The title track is a monster two-step groover with hand percussion playing counterpoint to the strings and horns layered in against a spare electric guitar solo, all before Gaye begins to sing on top of the funky backbeat. ♫ youtu.be/F66Ftb4C2pI
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 06:16:53 +0000
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