I Want You – Marvin Gaye
You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians
Peter Martin
4.9 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Marvin Gaye's I Want You could be one of his greatest albums, and he didn't even write it. Producer Leon Ware wrote most of the songs for himself. Marvin Gaye was only supposed to record the title track. But he heard Leon playing a demo of the album one night and stayed up listening until morning. The next day, he asked Ware if he could have the whole thing.
In this episode, Peter and Adam break down why the title track, "I Want You", might be one of his best songs, and whether the rest of the album can possibly live up to it.
This episode was recorded before the passing of James Gadson (June 17, 1939 – April 2, 2026), the drummer on I Want You. Gadson was one of the defining session drummers of 1970s soul. He was the drummer behind "Lean On Me," "I Will Survive," "Express Yourself", and the groove that powers this very album. Rest in peace, James.
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Adam and Peter break down Marvin Gaye's What's Going On: https://youtu.be/PHowrEiaInQ
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About You'll Hear It:
In this popular music series, Adam and Peter break down the greatest albums of all time. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, D'Angelo: Jazz is the foundation of the most GENIUS music in recent history. These seasoned jazz pianists bring their deep musical knowledge to every joyful episode to help you hear the hidden qualities that make music AMAZING. You'll never hear music the same way again.
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00:00 I Want You - Marvin Gaye
00:39 Welcome: You'll Hear It from Open Studio
01:53 Who is Leon Ware? The Man Behind the Music
07:23 "I Want You"
14:39 The Keys Are Back! Breaking Down "I Want You"
16:52 Isolated Stems on "I Want You"
20:53 Can the Rest of the Album Live Up to Track 1?
21:52 Kendrick Lamar's Interpolation
25:27 "Come Live With Me Angel"
28:20 "After the Dance"
31:11 "Feel All My Love Inside"
35:03 "I Wanna Be Where You Are"
38:18 "All the Way Around": The Best Moment On the Album?
40:07 "Since I Had You"
42:07 "Soon I'll Be Loving You Again"
43:40 "After the Dance"
45:16 "After the Dance (Vocal)"
46:41 Desert Island Tracks / Apex Moments / Bespoke Playlist Title
55:00 Snob-o-Meter / Better Than? / Accoutrements
58:00 Leon Ware Released HIS Version the Same Year
59:44 GALA + Thank You
1:01:23 Coda: "I Want You" feat. Brian Owens + James Gadson Tribute
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Producer Leon Ware wrote this album for himself, |
| 0:04.0 | but it took another man's genius to bring it to life. |
| 0:08.0 | Marvin Gay heard music bleeding through a wall at the studio one night. |
| 0:12.0 | He came to find out what it was, and he stayed up listening to it over and over again. |
| 0:17.0 | The next day he approached Ware and said if you give me that album |
| 0:21.0 | I'll do the whole thing. |
| 0:23.2 | It's I Want You, 1976. |
| 0:26.5 | Possibly one of the best Marvin Gay albums |
| 0:28.8 | and he didn't even write it. |
| 0:41.2 | I'm Adam Ennis and I'm Peter Martin and I'm Peter Martin. |
| 0:43.1 | And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. |
| 0:45.0 | Music, Explore. |
| 0:46.8 | Explore, brought you there by Open Studio. |
| 0:49.1 | Go to openstudiojazz.com for... Oh, go ahead. |
| 0:53.0 | Jazz lesson needs... Peter, we're just riffing. We're just riffing. We're just riffing. We thought more time before Martin came in as well, which is one of the most awesome things about a truly awesome record that we're going to be exploring today. Buddy, this album is really keyed off of this opening track. We talk about it all the time. Opening tracks, how important they are to albums. This might be just like A number one. And I've got a hot take on this later, but I'll save it. I mean, we'll listen to I want you here in a minute and kind of absorb the greatness of the title track. It's a dope track. This is a great album. This was 1976, a great year. this was a bicentennial of our... This is one of those first years that I kind of remember as a young lad. This was a big... You know, like you had Y2K? Well, this was Y76. Why am I saying that like that? I don't know, but it was a big year. Why indeed? It was the year I moved to St. Louis, because I like to |
| 1:45.4 | make everything about me. You do, as we all do. Yes, and I do. So, yeah, but this is a cool |
| 1:51.9 | record. Okay, so Leon Ware, that name, get used to saying that today because this is a towering |
| 1:58.5 | figure over this record because this was supposed to be a Leon Ware record. Yeah. And a lot of folks might be like, wait, who is Leon Ware? It's like one of those names that you've heard. And definitely, if you came up in the 70s or the 80s or even the 90s or actually even the 2000s, but mainly like if you used to handle, I like how you housed that lp right before we started that |
| 2:18.7 | was that was a pro move by you but used to like read names i mean you remember this when you read |
| 2:22.8 | names and you'd be like who is that and look how big produced by leon i miss it so much man yeah |
| 2:27.4 | and so like that's the kind of i think reference point a lot of people have for leonware but he was |
| 2:32.8 | one of the ogy writers and artists at Motown, |
... |
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