Harvey Fuqua sold Gordy on Marvin Gay Jr.
According to the account that has come down through multiple sources, Fuqua offered Marvin to Gordy as part of a deal in which Gordy acquired some of Fuqua’s business interests in exchange for taking on his protégés. Marvin signed with Tamla Records—a Motown subsidiary—reportedly on September 19, 1960.
He was 21 years old.
His first few years at Motown were not what he had imagined.
Gordy saw potential in Gaye’s voice, but he wasn’t yet sure where to point it. In the meantime, Gaye worked as a session drummer, earning approximately five dollars per week playing on recordings by other Motown artists. He played drums on recordings by the Miracles, the Marvelettes, and others. He accompanied Martha Reeves. He was learning the machinery of how records got made.
He also set himself apart from his colleagues in one significant way: when Gordy offered all of Motown’s young talent the opportunity to attend the John Robert Powers School—a finishing school that would teach them etiquette, presentation, and the comportment expected of crossover entertainers—Marvin refused. He later said he regretted this. But the refusal was telling. He was never going to be groomed. He was going to be himself, or nothing.
His first solo single under the name “Gay” was released in May 1961: “The Masquerade Is Over.” It was a standard, not an original composition. It made no impact on the charts.
It was somewhere around this time that Marvin Gay Jr. made a small but meaningful gesture of distance from his father. He added an “e” to his last name, becoming Marvin Gaye. He later said he wanted to sound like Sam Cooke and Ray Charles. He did not say he was also creating another degree of separation between himself and the man who had beaten him throughout his childhood.