15/4/17 - Marvin Gaye And Tammi Terrell - Easy - 1969 / Good Lovin' Ain't Easy To Come By - 1969 / The Onion Song - 1970

Album Of The Day

Video Of The Day

There can’t be that many complete albums of male/female duets by the same two singers. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell were a musical marriage made in heaven releasing three duet albums on the Motown label. They scored many hits together in the late sixties starting with Ain’t No Mountain High Enough in 1967 reaching No.19 on the US chart, the follow up, Your Precious Love, written by prolific Soul singer/songwriters and couple Ashford & Simpson reached No.3 in the US charts. Other hits followed written by Ashford and Simpson and singer/songwriter/producers Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol.

But there’s a twist. Tammi Terrell had collapsed on stage in October 1967. This led to a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumour that led to her death in 1970 at the age of 24 (this sending Gaye into a three year depression). In 1969 Motown released Easy, a third album of duets that has conflicting stories about Terrell’s role in the record. Gaye suggests that due to her illness she only sang on two tracks and that Valerie Simpson took her place despite the credit to Terrell. Simpson says she helped with the guide vocals but Terrell came in and sang the lead vocals when she was feeling well enough to do so. Whatever the truth, the success of Terrell’s musical partnership with Gaye was one of the many high points in the history of Motown.

This is a previous post from the In Deep Music Archive that has a must see video of Gaye & Terrell’s first single release together. I’m unable to find a performance video from the Easy album due to Terrell’s illness but if you want to see a great song, a great performance and joyous chemistry, follow the link below.

19/5/14 – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – 1967

This is the first single from the Easy album, Good Lovin’ Ain’t Easy To Come By, reached No.30 in the US and No.26 on the UK chart in 1969. See the links below to read more about the wonderful Tammi Terrell and her premature departure from the planet.