‘Love Man’: Marvin Gaye’s lost freak-funk Motown masterpiece
A key architect of the Motown sound, Marvin Gaye is among the biggest names that soul and R&B have ever witnessed. From his early years crafting solid-gold soul hits for Berry Gordy to the profound political message of his seminal record What’s Going On, Gaye always remained a true artist, marching to the beat of his own funk-ridden drum. Despite his celebrated discography, the late 1970s saw Gaye in an increasingly difficult situation, struggling to stay afloat in the ever-changing world of pop music.
Gaye might have been one of America’s biggest names during the 1960s, but Motown’s heyday was never going to last forever. Initially, the songwriter managed to adapt his work to the changing tides of society and culture, penning the era-defining What’s Going On in 1971.
As the decade progressed, however, the performer witnessed a deadly combination of declining sales, declining relevancy, and an increasing dependence on drugs and alcohol to keep him going. The pop age of the 1980s was just around the corner, and inventive new artists were rapidly making their way through the ranks; Gaye was at risk of being left behind.
Towards the end of the 1970s, the Motown star embraced the infectious sounds of disco, writing tracks based on his own mental state and the difficulties of life in the music industry. While this material is certainly worth revisiting, evoking a particularly interesting part of Gaye’s discography, it was classed as a catastrophic failure at the time. Low sales and little to no commercial attention caused the songwriter to become disillusioned with the music industry.
His 1978 album Here, My Dear was a particular disappointment for Gaye. It’s far-out exploration of the songwriter’s inner-psyche, set to an expansive jazz-funk soundtrack, proved too experimental for mainstream audiences. At the same time as the album was in production, Gaye was going through a divorce from his first wife, Anna Gordy, and was deep into the realm of cocaine addiction.
To cope with this, he began working on a new project, entitled Love Man. Envisioned as a stunning return to form, the songwriter released the funk dance track ‘Ego Tripping Out’, the first single from a new project entitled Love Man. Meant to capitalise on the singer’s reputation for creating smooth, sexy anthems, the single failed to make the mark that Gaye so desperately hoped for.
For a while, Love Man was shelved as Gaye was forced to go out on tour to recuperate some of the money lost on ‘Ego Tripping Out’, in addition to a hefty $4.5 million tax bill. Due to his rapidly deteriorating mental state and increased pressure, however, the tour was soon abandoned, too. Marvin Gaye had reached the end of his tether, and, towards the end of 1979, he attempted to take his own life in 1979, snorting an ounce of cocaine in Maui. “I’d given up. The problems were too big for me,” he later revealed.
After settling in London, fearing the wrath of the IRS in London, Gaye began to rework Love Man into something much more commercial, harking back to his earlier Motown material. Unbeknownst to him, however, bassist Frank Blair kidnapped the master tapes of the album, delivering them to Motown’s offices in Hollywood without the knowledge or approval of Gaye himself. Before the songwriter could take action, Berry Gordy’s label published Love Man under the new title In Our Lifetime.
Without Gaye’s artistic guidance or approval, the album flopped. The songwriter left Motown soon thereafter, instead signing for Columbia. With the new label, the performer’s career witnessed a small resurgence, embarking on a successful tour and breaking into the top ten with 1982’s Midnight Love album. Just as things were looking up for Gaye, however, his life was cut tragically short when his father, Marvin Gay Sr, fatally shot the iconic songwriter.
