Producer, mentor to Marvin Gaye and former doo-wop star with The Moonglows, Harvey Fuqua has passed away at the age of 80.
The versatile artist, entrepreneur and executive also shepherded the careers of such acts as Etta James, the Spinners, and Junior Walker & the All Stars.
According to Gaye biographer David Ritz, Gaye considered Fuqua his surrogate father. “Harvey saved my life,” Gaye once told Ritz. (Gaye was murdered by his real father in 1984.)
Fuqua enlisted Gaye in the Moonglows in 1958, and later brought him to Motown. He produced (with Johnny Bristol) Gaye’s duets with Tammi Terrell, including the Ashford and Simpson-pennd “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Your Precious Love.” Additionally they produced and co-wrote (with Vernon Bullock) the duo’s 1967 single “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You.”
On this weekend when we take time out to honor the men and women who gave their lives in military service to this country, I thought it might be appropriate to pick a few “covers” from the Patriotic Songbook.
Intro: Last week we had our first installment of our “Bridging The Gap” series. This week I’m delving into pretty well charted waters. In fact, in some instances you could say I’m selling out and going strictly commercial. Yes every now and then I descend from my lofty music hipster perch and…ok, who am I kidding, but the point remains that this post is more about my curiosity as to why some of these songs for better or worse won’t go away.
The only real nugget of discovery that I could potentially be offering up this week is the long held opinion that I have regarding the fact that every generation has a few entertainers whose sole mission is to make music that appeals to the widest possible audience. [Sidebar: I think that particular phenomenon has increased exponentially in the last decade due to a couple of factors, but I digress...that's an entirely separate blog post.] This mission is accomplished through association with any type of pop culture be it an A-List actress or a Saturday morning cartoon type character.
This post is a special edition of our “Bridging the Gap Matchup Series” you can find out more about the series and read the inaugural post here.
Prelude
Every generation has its musical heroes and sheroes and as fans we often support the “home team” even through a “rebuilding season”. If an artist is fortunate enough to last beyond a couple of albums and carve out a body of work that spans almost two decades, you can best believe that some material of a very personal nature that chronicles the strife that is concomitant to life will be created.
When this phenomenon occurs: Art imitating life and life imitating art, we find a wide range of reaction from the audience as we should because art should be provocative. But what moves a piece of music from the generic casting of “art” into the realm of “great art”? How do we qualify or even quantify “great”? Is it possible? When we make statements about what we believe to be great how much bias do we bring to the table based on our love of nostalgia? These are some of the issues I would like for us to consider as we ring the bell for the “Main Event”.
April 1, 1984, the day the world stood still. Today, Marvin would have been 70 years old. In commemoration of Motown’s 50th anniversary and Marvin’s birthday, Motown has released Then & Now. The digital only release features 14 rare tracks including “Soulie“, “Soldier’s Plea” and “I’m Yours, You’re Mine“. Enjoy and tell us, what’s your favorite memory of Marvin? Where were you, on April 1, 1984?
. The digital only release features 14 rare tracks including “Soulie“, “Soldier’s Plea” and “I’m Yours, You’re Mine“. Enjoy and tell us, what’s your favorite memory of Marvin? Where were you, on April 1, 1984?