The 20th of February 1974
Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 17th to Saturday the 23rd of February 1974
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 16th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 17th,
and published on Wednesday the 20th of February 1974.
Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye
Diana & Marvin
At No.25, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 2nd Birthday, are Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye with Diana & Marvin.
For an album…
…that oozes so much warmth and love, it’s surprising that it had such a difficult and tenuous start; and with so many logistical issues during the process itself, it’s a wonder it ever got made at all.
On paper, it seemed a sure-fire, natural and assured idea to get two of the best voices on the label together and make a huge album. In reality, it was anything but easy; taking around three years to fully complete. It’s only when you look deeper into their separate lives at this time, that you can really see why.
Let’s start with Diana,..
…whose career at this point in time is absolutely huge.
After successfully stepping away from the Supreme’s, she’s knocking everything she’s releasing out of the park. Hit singles, hit albums, even becoming a hit movie draw with her recent award winning success in ‘Lady Sings The Blues‘. Her life is being fulfilled in every possible way, and that includes (at the point of this collaborative album’s conception) carrying her first expectant child.
For Marvin,..
…he’s dealing with far more darker and challenging difficulties.
The huge loss of his previous singing partner Tammi Terrell only months before, was still having a profound affect on his psychological wellbeing, and the resulting depression which had become a lodger into his soul and which also would ultimately never fully leave him for the rest of his life. He’d also vowed to never duet with anyone again, believing he was a curse to any female who he sang with, with previous collaborators disappearing from the label soon after he’d recorded with them.
Pouring these, and other issues into his ground-breaking and now legendary album ‘What’s Goin’ On’ had managed to quiet some of the anxieties, but he was coming out the other side of it with more cynicism as well as a new maturity. Nevertheless, he decided to try his best to bury the curse and duet with Diana.
The project almost finished…
…as soon as it started, when a heavily pregnant Diana walked out after discovering Marvin smoking a big reefer to calm himself (a recreational side effect which he by now used to cope with his ailments), and was sitting defiantly in the studio refusing to stub it out.
When he eventually relented under pressure from those higher up, and they began recording, Diana hated the track chosen for them so much, she asked seriously why they were even bothering with the whole idea in the first place.
It wasn’t long after,..
…before Diana had the most important role in her life to take on, that of being a mother to her new daughter, Rhonda. This of course, put any immediate future recording of the album on hold indefinitely; and so with all the spare time to kill, Marvin dived into other projects.
It was eventually decided that the album, if it was ever going to happen, would have to have the vocals recorded separately, at different times, when schedules allowed. So if you had the vision of these two standing either side of the microphone singing these songs and laughing and smiling at each other, then think again. They weren’t even in the same room together.
For this, a special mention must go to the wizard behind the desk, Russ Terrana, for making us believe they were. It seems one of the few times they did manage to be in the same room would have been for the photo-shoots exhibited on the cover.
When the release finally came,..
…it brought with it some absolute classics which are still heard to this day; and most probably due to the length of time it took to complete, it spans the change which soul music was experiencing at the time, from the last classic period of Ashford & Simpson, to the newer sounds of Gamble & Huff.
For the packaging, it seems that most territories including the U.S., had a split front gatefold design (quite apt when you think of how the singers were split apart when recording the majority of it. The British edition looks instead to have been your normal standard gatefold design.
It’s also worth noting that the LP and the Cassette versions had different track sequencing, possibly due to keep each side’s time more even for the tape length, rather than have a longer period of silence on one side. For whatever the reason, as cassettes were really beginning to come into their own at this time, I thought it a good idea to include both the LP and Cassette sequences below for yourselves to choose whichever sounds more familiar to you.
The album…
…had first entered the chart last month when it landed at No.44 on the 13th of January, but then it jumped straight back out after a week.
It had appeared again at the end of that month, and this time it stuck around, climbing steadily until it got as high as No.18 last week; that’s before it slipped 7 places to land at this position this week.
From here…
…it will survive one more week before it falls away again at the beginning of March, with a brief one-week showing again in the middle of that month.
After another week away, the album would enter back with a much healthier intent, re-entering at a new high of No.12 before soaring through into the Top 10 to secure the No.6 position. It will then yo-yo back to No.12 again before hitting No.6 for a second time. This time staying in the Top 10 and hitting No.6 once more, and this time staying there for two weeks before slipping back once again; this position will end up being its highest peak to date.
This run, which began at the end of March, will carry on all through the spring and summer, and will eventually fall away again during the autumn after the 26th of October. It will then make one final appearance this year, for two weeks in November, but that will be it for 1974.
There will be future appearances, but none of them have fallen during the week of my birthday to date.
The first of those is a week in late January next year in 1975, then it lands for two separate weeks either side of my birthday week in February. After that, the collection disappears for six years, by which time the album chart has expanded to its current Top 100 format, and the album re-enters, this time at the lower end for a couple of weeks in late August / early September 1981; and so far, that fortnight is the final showing.
Adding it all up, the album, up to this point, will have spent a respectable 45 weeks somewhere in the chart, spanning over a seven-and-a-half year period.
Thinking about it, that’s only about double the length of time it took to make the record in the first place.
LP Side 1
LP Side 2
Cassette Side 1
Cassette Side 2
Many thanks go to the following YouTube Channels for providing the chance to hear these tracks, so that together we can experience both sides of this album release, as it was intended, once again.
Please show your appreciation by visiting their channel:
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