A second volume of Motown Funk and a gloriously red version of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On are albums scheduled for release April 21 on this year’s Record Store Day in the U.K. and the U.S. They are among the many vinyl products available exclusively through the hundreds of independent record stores which are participating in this year’s event.
The Gaye album, which was originally released 45 years ago this August, will be available as a limited edition on 180g heavyweight red vinyl. It contains some of the Motown superstar’s most celebrated work, including “Distant Lover,” “Come Get To This” and the title track. When released as a single, “Let’s Get It On” reached Number One hit on the Billboard charts in September 1973.
While making the music heard on Let’s Get It On, Marvin first met Janis Hunter, the young woman who would become his muse, and his second wife. Under the circumstances, red seems like an appropriate color for this exclusive edition of one of Gaye’s signature albums.
Earlier work by Marvin also figures on Motown Funk Volume 2, including “Closing Jimmy’s.” This was part of the original score from Trouble Man, the 1972 so-called “blaxploitation” movie for which Gaye wrote and produced the soundtrack music.
Motown Funk Volume 2 will be available exclusively through participating Record Store Day retailers as a 2LP set on colored vinyl. In addition to two tracks by Gaye, the artists featured include the Commodores, Stevie Wonder, Edwin Starr, Eddie Kendricks and the Undisputed Truth.
The set’s compiler, Johnny Chandler, describes its contents as “funky soul, jazz, ’60s, ’70s and even some early ’80s ‘new’ funk courtesy of the Dazz Band’s ‘Let It Whip’.” Chandler compiled Motown Funk Volume 1, a previous Record Store Day release. The latest edition opens with Valerie Simpson’s “Drink The Wine” from her second solo album, and closes with the Grammy-winning Dazz Band hit from 1982.
The compilation’s rarer tracks include James Jamerson’s instrumental “Behold,” featuring the legendary bass player from the Motown house band, the Funk Brothers.
