David Ritz

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David Ritz (born c. 1942) is an American author, most of whose books are biographies of soul music and R&B legends such as Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye. On four occasions, his co-authored autobiographies of musicians (for books with Jerry Wexler, The Neville Brothers, B.B. King and Etta James) have been awarded the Ralph J. Gleason Award. ^[1] He is also a novelist (Blue Notes Under a Green Felt Hat, The Man Who Brought the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn).^[1]

Ritz is probably most notable for his work with Marvin Gaye. The two first met in 1978 shortly after the release of Gaye's tormented Here, My Dear album. Ritz had publicly defended Gaye's album as a body of work after a Los Angeles Times critic had panned the album (it wasn't a commercial success either).

Ritz began giving out interviews with Gaye as part of an autobiography Gaye was working on. Those interviews became the basis to Ritz's most successful book, Divided Soul: The Life & Times of Marvin Gaye, which Ritz released in 1985, a year after Gaye was killed by his father.

According to himself, Ritz also collaborated with Gaye and Odell Brown on Gaye's successful 1982 single, "Sexual Healing". Originally, Gaye forgot to credit Ritz because of a publishing complaint that never got straighten out but eventually, Ritz finally got his credits later on.^{[citation needed]} Ritz may have also assisted Gaye in naming the song; after looking at Gaye's extensive porn collection, he had told Marvin that he needed "sexual healing".^{[citation needed]}

Ritz has also taken part in several other albums by other artists, most notably Janet Jackson on her 2004 album Damita Jo, on the interludes "Looking for Love" and "The One". Ritz also wrote an essay for Jackson on her 1995 greatest hits compilation Design of a Decade 1986/1996. He has also written liner notes and has done essays on Marvin Gaye albums after they were re-released.

Ritz wrote the liner notes on Linda Ronstadt's 2002 compilation The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt.

His latest work is titled Rickles' Book, a memoir that Don Rickles has released with the help of Ritz.

As of 2008, Ritz is working on books with Leiber & Stoller, Scott Weiland, Cornel West, Janet Jackson and David Letterman's longtime band leader Paul Shaffer.^[1]

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