Marvin Gaye’s lost 1972 LP ‘You’re the Man’ is being released to mark what would’ve been his 80th birthday.
Motown/UMe will release the unused follow-up to 1971’s ‘What’s Going On’ on March 29, four days before the ‘Let’s Get It On’ hitmaker’s birthday.
The record – which will be available as a 2LP vinyl and psychical CD – contains all of Marvin’s unreleased solo recordings from 1972.
Only the album title track was previously released.
The song ‘My Last Chance’ – which was remixed by Amy Winehouse producer Salaam Remi – is now available to stream.
After the success of ‘What’s Going On’, Marvin – who died from a gunshot wound at the age of 44 in April 1984 – won full creative control of his career and renewed a $1 million contract with Motown’s subsidiary Tamla.
Instead of releasing ‘You’re the Man’, which he scrapped in protest after the album title track only made it to number 50 in the Billboard Hot 100, Marvin decided to solely write and produce the soundtrack to the crime thriller movie ‘Trouble Man’ which also acted as his 12th studio album.
Among the 17 songs is a long version of Marvin’s 1972 Christmas single ‘I Want To Come Home For Christmas’ and an unreleased mix of its instrumental B-side.
Though some tracks on the release have been released on albums in the past, 15 of them will make their debut on the vinyl edition, which also features liner notes by Marvin biographer David Ritz.
From his ‘Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye’ interview, the music icon said that after ‘What’s Going On’, he felt like he was fighting his own war "inside his soul".
He said: "Now I could do what I wanted. For most people that would be a blessing. But for me the thought was heavy.
"They said I’d reached the top, and that scared me because Mother used to say, ‘First ripe, first rotten.’ "When you’re at the top there’s nowhere to go but down.
"No, I needed to keep going up — raising my consciousness — or I’d fall back on my behind.
"When would the war stop? That’s what I wanted to know — the war inside my soul."
Motown/UMe are also reissuing the soul star’s 1965 covers LP ‘A Tribute To The Great Nat King Cole’.
Marvin Gaye’s lost 1972 LP You’re the Man set for vinyl
