That's_the_Way_Love_Is_(The_Isley_Brothers_song)

That's the Way Love Is (Isley Brothers song)

That's the Way Love Is (Isley Brothers song)

1969 single by Marvin Gaye


"That's the Way Love Is" is a 1967 Tamla (Motown) single recorded by The Isley Brothers and produced by Norman Whitfield.[1]

Quick Facts Single by Marvin Gaye, from the album M.P.G./That's the Way Love Is ...

Marvin Gaye recording

The single was later covered in a 1969 hit version by Marvin Gaye. It was his third consecutive million-selling solo hit after "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" written by Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Whitfield took the up-tempo Isley Brothers record, and turned it into a slowed-down psychedelic soul opus. Like "Grapevine", Gaye delivers the song in an emotionally wrought fashion, approaching a preacher-like tone through which he tells a woman to "forget" her lover now that the lover has gone off to someone else.

Chart performance

The song peaked at #7 on the Billboard pop singles chart and held the #2 spot for five weeks on the soul singles chart in October 1969[2][3] (it was held off by The Temptations' "I Can't Get Next To You"), eventually selling a million copies.

Personnel

Isley Brothers version
Marvin Gaye version
  • Lead Vocals by Marvin Gaye
  • Background Vocals by The Andantes: Jackie Hicks, Marlene Barrow and Louvain Demps
  • Instrumentation by The Funk Brothers
Temptations version
The Commitments version

Cover versions


References

  1. "discogs.com". discogs.com. June 1967. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
  2. The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 9: 1969 [CD liner notes]. New York: Hip-O Select/Motown/Universal Records
  3. Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 225.

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