Diana & Marvin
| Diana & Marvin | |||||
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| Studio album by Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye | |||||
| Released | October 26, 1973 | ||||
| Recorded | 1972–1973 | ||||
| Studio | Motown Recording Studios, Hollywood, California | ||||
| Genre | Soul | ||||
| Length | 30:01 | ||||
| Label |
Motown M5-124V1 Universal Music |
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| Producer |
Hal Davis Berry Gordy Margaret Gordy Bob Gaudio Ashford & Simpson |
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| Diana Ross chronology | |||||
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| Marvin Gaye chronology | |||||
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| Singles from Diana & Marvin | |||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Robert Christgau | B+ |
| Q | |
| The New Rolling Stone Album Guide |  |
Diana & Marvin is a duets album by American soul musicians Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, released October 26, 1973 on Motown. Recording sessions for the album took place in 1972 and 1973 at Motown Recording Studios in Hollywood, California. Featuring vocal collaborations by Gaye and Ross, widely recognized at the time as two of the top soul and pop performers, respectively.
Diana & Marvin became a multi-chart success that managed to sell over a million copies worldwide. The album was remastered and re-released on compact disc with four bonus tracks on February 6, 2001.
Initial plans to make the Ross/Gaye duet album began as early as 1970, but due to Gaye being in a personal lull following the death of Tammi Terrell, Motown failed to bring the two together and instead focused on Ross' emerging solo career, which didn't take off until the release of her cover of Gaye and Terrell's "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", which became an international hit; however, during that time, Gaye had made a promise that he would never again record a duet with a female performer because he felt they were cursed by him recording with them (Mary Wells abruptly left Motown following the end of the Together album and her career failed to recover, Kim Weston also abruptly left the label following the end of their Take Two sessions and Terrell's complications with a brain tumor made duets between her and Gaye difficult, later resulting in her death).
In mid-1971, Gaye returned to the charts with the What's Going On album, which redefined his career and direction. Due to this, Gordy again approached him on doing a duet album with Ross. Though Gaye had insisted he wouldn't record any more duet albums, he later wrote that he felt the move to do a duet album with Ross would increase his popularity and confirmed that he was indeed what the media had labeled him around this time: "the prince of Motown". Gaye then agreed, with Ross joining him in sessions. Engineer Russ Terrana will later recall that the start of sessions met difficulty as Gaye, who had the habit of coming to recording studios late, came unusually early but was inside the studio smoking reefer. Terrana said when Ross, still pregnant with her first child, daughter Rhonda, walked in, she immediately walked out, upset that Gaye was smoking reefer and told Gordy to stop him from smoking because of her pregnancy fearing her baby might die from the smoke.
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Wikipedia