Audio CD review:
Marvin Gaye - A Tribute to the Great Nat King Cole

Marvin Gaye - A Tribute to the Great Nat King Cole

Band: Marvin Gaye Title: A Tribute to the Great Nat King Cole Rating: Release Date: 26 February, 2002 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Nature Boy 2: Ramblin' Rose 3: Too Young 4: Pretend 5: Straighten Up And Fly Right 6: Mona Lisa 7: Unforgettable 8: To The Ends Of The Earth 9: Sweet Lorraine 10: It's Only A Paper Moon 11: Send For Me 12: Calypso Blues

Customer Reviews Some things work...Some things don't....This is one of them On a few songs (The Ballads) Marvin does "Wonders", but on the uptempo songs there's nothing to write home about. Although Marvin Gaye did a killing on the "When I'm Alone I Cry" album, this one just didn't quite get over the hump. If your buying this just to complete your Marvin Gaye collection, fine!, but to hunt this down, No!. Don't Slag On This! So it's only natural that he would pay tribute to him on this covers album midway through his early 60's success. Early in his career Motown legend Marvin Gaye had wanted to be a crooner and his primary idol in this field was Nat King Cole. The amazing part of this is he actually pulls it off-offering up beautiful covers of tunes like "Rambling Rose" and "Nature Boy", right up there with the standards set by Nat himself!Now there will never be another Nat King Cole but Gaye puts his own,more sudtle spin on this classics using very similar backup orchestrations. The highlight is the closing "Calypso Woman" in whitch Marvin Gaye delivers a more soulful,animated and pugnacious approch to the vocals then Nat ever did and it ends up sounding like an original!Now normally I've always questioned Barry Gordy's need for his acts to appeal to the early 60's white supper club crowd but because Marvin Gaye always tended to gravitate to these kinds of songs on his own then it was perfectly legidiment for him to do this album. But without a hit it became burried back in 1965,was reissued on CD with all of Gaye's 60's albums in the mid 80's and is actually still in print as something of a cutout,but who knows for how long. Before it goes out of print ALL Gaye fans should pick this album up!And for thouroughbred Nat Cole fans I'd take antoher look at this album-it won't dissappoint you either!. . You can see a complete list of all Marvin Gaye discography, or go back to the Marvin Gaye tabs