On the Billboard Sizzling 100 for September 9 1967, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell had the best new entry of the week, at No.73, with “Your Precious Love,” which went on to succeed in No.5. Their hit-making duet conjures up our playlist of Motown’s best (and, in at the least one case, weirdest) duets.
“Your Precious Love,” written by common Tamla hitmakers Ashford & Simpson and produced by Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol, was one in all many nice examples of the vocal chemistry between Marvin and Tammi earlier than her life was so cruelly minimize brief. “What we accomplished was to create two characters and let them sing to each other,” Gaye later advised author David Ritz. “That’s how the Marvin and Tammi characters were born. While we were singing, we were in love…but when the music ended, we kissed each other on the cheek and said goodbye.”
Gaye virtually owned the duet format on Motown. He options on 13 of our 22 choices, with 4 totally different companions: Terrell, Kim Weston, Diana Ross, and Mary Wells, on such songs as “You Are Everything,” “Once Upon A Time” and “What Good Am I Without You.” However there’ve been loads of different notable double-headers in Tamla historical past, as we observe with the mix of the Ruffin brothers, David and Jimmy, and on to the Nineteen Eighties pairings of Rick James and his protégée Teena Marie, and Johnny Gill with Stacy “Jump To The Beat” Lattisaw.
We even have the vocal mix of seasoned soul man Chuck Jackson with Yvonne (“It Should Have Been Me”) Truthful, Smokey Robinson’s ballad with Barbara Mitchell, and Edwin Starr’s teaming with Sondra “Blinky” Williams. There are hit duets by former Temptation Dennis Edwards with Siedah Garrett, Lionel Richie and Ms Ross, and Billy Preston with Syreeta. It takes two, that’s for positive.
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