Hard to believe, yes, but April 8th would have been MARVIN GAYE’S 80th birthday!, We all know that record labels are keen to cash in on such occasions, so no surprise to learn that Motown/Ume/Universal Music Canada are all set to release Gaye’s never-officially issued 1972 Motown LP ‘You’re The Man’.
The story that Motown has always peddled is that after the success of ‘What’s Going On’, his 1972 single ‘You’re The Man’ failed to ignite. So, Motown shelved the parent album and Gaye and Gordy sort of fell out (again!). Some believe that no such album ever existed, though, for, sure, Gaye had recorded a lot of material around that time – much of which has been released in various formats and on all sorts of compilations and collections.
Whatever, March 29th sees the official release of ‘You’re The Man’ as a 2 LP gatefold vinyl set (digital available too). The album contains things like ‘The World Is Rated X’, ‘I Want To Come Home For Christmas’, ‘I’m Gonna Give You Respect’, ‘Where are We Going’ and , of course, ‘You’re The Man’.
We’re told that 15 of the album’s 17 tracks have not been released on vinyl until now while three tracks from the album are newly mixed by SaLaAM ReMi.
In addition to ‘You’re The Man’, Universal will release a new expanded edition of Marvin Gaye’s 1965 album, ‘A Tribute To The Great Nat King Cole’, digitally on March 15. It commemorates what would have been Cole’s 100th birthday; the album’s original mono mix makes its digital debut with the new edition, which also adds more than a dozen bonus tracks, including six alternate takes from the studio sessions.
