Marvin Gaye

Born Marvin Pentz Gay (he added the "e" to imitate Sam Cooke) in Washington DC in 1939, Gaye was the son of a minister in the Hebrew Pentecostal House of God, a conservative Christian sect. The Reverend Marvin Gay Snr was also a cross-dresser who drank heavily and regularly beat all his children, often after they had tried to save their mother from his violence.

Marvin Jnr began singing in the church choir, later learning to play the piano and drums. After high school, he joined the Air Force and, after being discharged, joined the The Rainbows (later The Moonglows). After a concert in Detroit, Gaye was offered a solo contract by Berry Gordy Jr of Motown Records. He also married Gordy's sister, Anna, in 1961.

Gaye released three unsuccessful singles, until Pride and Joy became a smash hit. By 1965, he had released 39 Top 40 songs for the Motown label.

Gaye hit the charts with his biggest success, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, but by that stage his marriage was crumbling and he felt irrelevant, singing about love while popular music underwent a political revolution. As a result, he released What's Going On? in 1971, one of the most memorable soul albums of the time, including unprecedented radical political and social statements. Gordy at first refused to release the album, but eventually gave in. The album produced three Top Ten singles.

1973's Let's Get It On was a sexually and romantically charged album that was very successful in the charts. His marriage ended soon after. After a failed single and a failing new marriage, Gaye moved to Hawaii, and then to Europe in 1981.

In Europe, Gaye signed to Columbia Records and released Midnight Love while battling a cocaine addiction. This album included Sexual Healing, one of Gaye's most famous songs.

On April Fool's Day in 1984, the day before his 45th birthday, Marvin Gaye was tragically shot to death in his parent's home in Los Angeles. His 70-year-old father, Marvin Snr, was arrested and charged with murder, although later acquitted on grounds of self-defense.

The singer's funeral on April 5 was attended by Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Quincy Jones, Ray Parker Jr and Gaye's former father-in-law, Motown chief Berry Gordy. Gaye was cremated the next day and his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean by his ex-wife Anna and their three children.