Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On Celebrates 50 Years With Deluxe Digital Release

Marvin Gaye’s ultimate classic Let’s Get In On will celebrate its 50th birthday with a deluxe digital release.

Motown/UMe is releasing a digitally revised and expanded vinyl reissue featuring over 33 bonus tracks — 18 of them previously unreleased. The album was recorded during an intense six-month timeframe in 1973 in Los Angeles. While the album was only released with eight tracks, the session also saw Gaye record multiple ballads that he returned to — but never saw the light of day.

According to the press release,

Marvin’s first step in early ’73 was to seek out Ed Townsend, the artist, songwriter, and producer best known for his 1950s ballad hit, “For Your Love.” He initially had Townsend guide him through ballad arrangements created especially for Marvin by arranger/pianist Bobby Scott in 1966, tracks he obsessed over for years. But these versions of the ballads, like ones Marvin recorded earlier, were left behind; the revealing, previously unreleased ’73 versions are included in the new Let’s Get It On: Deluxe Edition. (Later vocals were included on the posthumous release, Vulnerable.)

The 50th anniversary digital release will feature the following:

Let’s Get It On: Deluxe Edition
Tracklisting

Original Album *
1.     Let’s Get It On
2.     Please Stay (Once You Go Away)
3.     If I Should Die Tonight
4.     Keep Gettin’ It On
5.     Come Get To This
6.     Distant Lover
7.     You Sure Love To Ball
8.     Just To Keep You Satisfied

Single Edits
9. Let’s Get It On (single version) *
10. You Sure Love To Ball (single version) *
11. If I Should Die Tonight (original LP edit) *

Album Bonus Tracks
12.   Let’s Get It On – demo **
13.   Let’s Get It On – Pt. II (a.k.a. Keep Gettin’ It On) **
14.   I Knew One Day My Day Would Come (instrumental)
15.   Interlude #1
16.   Please Stay (Once You Go Away) – alternate mix 1 **
17.   Lovely Lady (instrumental)
18. If I Should Die Tonight – demo **
19.   I Don’t Have To Get High To Do It (instrumental)
20. Come Get To This – alternate mix 1 **
21.   Distant Lover – alternate mix 1 **
22.   You Sure Love To Ball – alternate mix 1 w/alternate vocal **
23.   Just To Keep You Satisfied – alternate mix w/alternate vocal **
24.   Interlude #2
25.   If I Should Die Tonight – SaLaAM ReMi’s Piano Mix
26.   Just To Keep You Satisfied – John Morales’s Stripped Mix

The David Van DePitte Sessions
27.   Song #1 (instrumental)
28.   Song #2 (instrumental)
29.   Song #3 (instrumental) **
30.   Song #4 (partial vocal)
31.   Shake Well (instrumental)
32.   Perfection (instrumental)
33.   Cakes (instrumental) **
34.   My Love Is Growing (Super Polished) **

Vulnerable: The 1973 vocals
35.   She Needs Me
36.   Why Did I Choose You
37.   Funny, Not Much
38.   This Will Make You Laugh
39.   The Shadow Of Your Smile
40.   I Wish I Didn’t Love You So
41.   I Won’t Cry Anymore

* Previously released
** Previously released bonus songs with fresh mixes
All other tracks are previously unreleased.

The newly revised Deluxe Edition replaces a deluxe edition first released in 2001, as most of its bonus tracks are now available in the previously vaulted album of 1972 recordings, You’re the Man, issued by Motown/UMe in 2019.