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Marvin's Midnight Love Turns 30: Guitarist Gordon Banks talks about the making of the album 'The Man Was a Genius': Tales From Making Marvin Gaye's Final Album
Oct 1 2012, 9:01 AM ET
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By the end of the 1970s, Marvin Gaye had vaulted himself into the ranks of soul music's elite. During the decade, his catalog included the epic opus What's Going On (1971), as well as classics Let's Get It On (1973), I Want You (1976) and Here, My Dear (1978). But the success was taking its toll. As the 1980s began, Gaye, beset by drug and financial problems, left the United States for refuge in Belgium. There, he recorded what would be his last studio album (and first without Motown Records), Midnight Love.
How did you become involved with working for Marvin Gaye?
I lived a couple of blocks away from his drummer. When I met him, he showed me what he did and he took me to an audition. It just took off from there. This happened between 1977 and 1978. It was honestly a job to me. At first, I didn't really talk to Marvin that much because I was a newcomer. After getting to know him, he was pretty down to earth. It turned out to be a great job, and I enjoyed working with him.
What was your collective mindset during the making of the Midnight Love with him?
It was basically him and I in the studio. Columbia Records gave him some new toys to play with. They gave him two drum machines, a synthesizer called a Roland TR-808 and a Jupiter 8. Marvin didn't know too much about technology so it was my job to figure out how to get the stuff working. He kind of liked the sounds that came from it and he went from there. Marvin was a great pianist. After getting past the challenges with the Jupiter 8, it was like he had been playing it his whole life.
Can you talk about the creative relationship that you and Marvin had in the studio together?
It was a learning process for me, but I didn't have a lot of time to learn. When Marvin wanted something to be done, he wanted it to be done. It was only the two of us in the studio. When it came time to do some splicing of the tape, the engineer didn't want to do it because you didn't want to mess up a take of anything that came from Marvin. Marvin would create during the day time and at night, but we would write music at home and then go to the studio to write more music then go home.
The man was a genius. He would lie down on the couch in the studio and fall asleep while I was working on track after track. Then he would wake up and do a whole track like he wasn't even asleep. He would lay back down and wake up to do another track. It wasn't something he did for a living; it was truly a part of him. I was amazed, but I couldn't act like I was amazed. We didn't have a concept of time because we stayed in that studio all of the time.
In terms of coming up with the arrangements for the songs, was it all Marvin, or did you both handle those responsibilities?
There were side men doing sessions with us all of the time. No individual from Michael Jackson all the way down can tell a musician what to play note for note. So when musicians are warming up and playing on the tracks, the artist gets ideas from the musicians. This is why many artists hire the best musicians. In some cases, if you really listen to Michael or Marvin, you could hear them singing riffs from the musicians. Take a guitar line here and take a guitar line there or a keyboard line. They feed off of the musicians just like the musicians feed off of them. On "Sexual Healing," I did 17 tracks, and from a lot of those tracks Marvin took some lines for songs and from his lines I created music as well. It was like, "This guy totally trusts me." It was really deep, man. The following album we were doing, CBS Records hired Barry White to produce it. Marvin told the record company no. The morning that he died, I was finishing up music for that CD. Musicians take from each other and the sounds grow from there. I'm very blessed to have been trusted by Marvin in that way.
Marvin is one of the few geniuses we've had in the past 50 years of music. What was the experience like working with him so closely?
Can you delve into the process of making some of the songs from the album?
How do you feel about the impact that this album made on popular culture, given that it was his last studio album?
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They gave him two drum machines, a synthesizer called a Roland TR-808 and a Jupiter 8. Marvin didn't know too much about technology so it was my job to figure out how to get the stuff working. He kind of liked the sounds that came from it and he went from there. Marvin was a great pianist. After getting past the challenges with the Jupiter 8, it was like he had been playing it his whole life.
This sentence seems to be full of errors (most likely made by the interviewer or the editor).
TR-808 is a drum machine and Jupiter 8 is a synthesizer. Both were made by Roland.
Might have been originally something like "they gave him two Roland TR-808 drum machines and a synthesizer called Jupiter 8". Just guessing, but it wasn't unusual to use two drum machines at the same time as they had a limited number of sounds you could use at the same time. | |
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Thanx for posting, Tim. Of all Marvins albums, this is the one I like the least, but it's always nice to read stuff like this. | |
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Nice info!
This is one of the Marvin albums I do not own (Although I have Joy, SH, MLIW and RAM on my ipod). I really liked his use of the Roland...more r&b artists to day need to use it again. Straight Jacket Funk Affair
Album plays and love for vinyl records. | |
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You have some of the best songs on the album. This is another favorite of mine.
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U 'gon make me shake my doo loose! http://www.twitter.com/nivlekbrad | |
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Rockin' After Midnight was a real genius track. Amazing that it was two songs mixed together... | |
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possibly my third fav Marvin album, Sexual Healing is my jam
proof that he had that "instinct" to adapt to modern trends without losing quality or integrity
damn, he could have had a long career (Elton, Stones, Dylan, etc), this album was a turning point
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Yeah you always wonder about that. But even then, 22 years was a pretty long time in terms of how things were then. It's just for Marvin, time went by too fast. But yeah he adapted real well. | |
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Most def one of my favorite artist, great album, wish he was still with us | |
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Great thread. Great article as far as the insight to Marvin's creative process. I love to hear/read stuff like this. That real behind-the -scenes shit. Thanks! | |
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I have always wondered, if Prince was listening to this song when he came up with, " Insatiable"? "Love is like peeing in your pants, everyone sees it but only you feel its warmth" | |
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... [Edited 10/3/12 17:36pm] "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato
https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0 | |
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You can take a black guy to Nashville from right out of the cotton fields with bib overalls, and they will call him R&B. You can take a white guy in a pin-stripe suit who’s never seen a cotton field, and they will call him country. ~ O. B. McClinton | |
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One of my favorite Marvin albums. Huge fan of all his albums from What's Going On and after | |
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Whoah. Thanks for pointing out this. I've never realized it myself. It very well could be. | |
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It makes you wonder. **--••--**--••**--••--**--••**--••--**--••**--••-
U 'gon make me shake my doo loose! http://www.twitter.com/nivlekbrad | |
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GENIUS!
Check me out and add me on:
www.last.fm/user/brandosoul "Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley | |
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Better than the album version. More edge and groove. Sounds like a lost In Our Lifetime? outtake. Check me out and add me on:
www.last.fm/user/brandosoul "Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley | |
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Could've been. Marvin started working on the album in December 1981, four months before he signed his contract with Columbia in March of 1982. | |
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True. It very well could've been. Check me out and add me on:
www.last.fm/user/brandosoul "Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley | |
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This is one of my favorite Marvin records!
It's a shame cause seem's it gets overlooked & is only remembered for it's huge single.
Midnight lady & Rockin After Midnight could have been big hit si think. Pistols sounded like "Fuck off," wheras The Clash sounded like "Fuck Off, but here's why.."- Thedigitialgardener
All music is shit music and no music is real- gunsnhalen Datdonkeydick- Asherfierce Gary Hunts Album Isn't That Good- Soulalive | |
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When I listening to Midnight Love & The Sexual Healing Sessions earlier tonight, this sense of sentimentality and sadness came over me. That second disc did it for me... Check me out and add me on:
www.last.fm/user/brandosoul "Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley | |
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Me too, I almost had a chance to see his last concert, wish I had ..I remember when my husband told me that he had died, I was so stunned, I was 7 months pregnant & became so emotional starting having contractions. | |
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I can only imagine the pain people were having when they heard the news. I even heard some compare it to other deaths, saying "I was real sad when Sam Cooke and Otis Redding died but I almost had a heart attack when I heard about Marvin!"
Midnight Love did show he had a lot more to offer so that makes looking back on it real sad but also thankful that music of his existed at all. | |
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I think the sad part about Midnight Love was that it was a look at the past and a hint at what the future was going to hold as it pertained to Marvin and his music. It was both tragic and exuberant at the same time, in knowing that Marvin had so much to offer in his art, but it was cut short by the demons that returned back into his life when he came back to the United States.
The last cut, "My Love Is Waiting" really plays a significant part to the album and it is shameful that it isn't spoken in the same light as his other cuts. [Edited 10/5/12 22:54pm] Check me out and add me on:
www.last.fm/user/brandosoul "Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley | |
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Speaking of "My Love", I don't know what was up with Columbia that they didn't see the hit potential of it. The UK did (it went to 34 there) but I think if it had been fully promoted, it would've been as much of a good seller as Sexual Healing, maybe not as successful but still a good seller. It's one of my all time favorite Marvin songs. | |
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