The city had given him pain. It had also given him music. These things, in Marvin Gaye’s life, were never entirely separable.
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THE VOICE ITSELF: A TECHNICAL APPRECIATION
We have talked about what Marvin Gaye did with his voice. It is worth pausing to talk about what his voice actually was.
He was a tenor—not a classical tenor, but a voice that lived comfortably in the tenor range while reaching freely into a falsetto that could be delicate or powerful depending on what he needed it to do. He had unusual range, but range is not what made him distinctive.
What made him distinctive was his control of timbre—his ability to change the texture of his voice within a single phrase. He could begin a line with a fullness of tone that recalled gospel singing and finish it with a falsetto thread so fine it barely seemed to be there. He could move between these qualities fluidly, without audible breaks or effort.
He was also, technically speaking, extraordinarily precise in his pitch while appearing effortlessly casual—a combination that is much harder to achieve than it sounds. Listening to his performances closely, you hear a man who knows exactly what he is doing harmonically, who understands the chords beneath him and is navigating them with precision, while sounding as though he is simply talking to you.
This combination of technical command and apparent ease was part of what made his duets with Tammi Terrell so successful. She matched his ease with her own warmth and directness, and the recordings sounded like two people who genuinely enjoyed being in each other’s sonic company—which, by most accounts, they were.