Marvin's Room (recording studio)

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Marvin's Room (originally named Marvin Gaye Studios) is a recording studio founded by American soul musician Marvin Gaye.

Created by the singer in 1975 shortly after renegotiating a deal with Motown Records, the singer built the studios at the Los Angeles suburb of Sunset Boulevard as a spacious apartment-like complex big enough to be a studio, a home and, for a time, a dance club. It was once called "the Studio 54 of the West Coast"^[1]

There, Gaye recorded his late-'70s material including I Want You, Here, My Dear, the hit single "Got to Give It Up", his shelved Ballads album (later released as the Vulnerable, and a shelved disco-styled album, Love Man.

Gaye's studio would often run parties there where a vast majority of the Hollywood elite including Diana Ross and Muhammad Ali and other musicians and even politicians would be spotted^[2].

The studio was shut down due to the singer's legal and financial troubles foreclosed on his house, cars as well as the studio. Marvin's ex, Janis Gaye, said that Marvin was "emotionally crushed"^[3] by the sale of the studio in the end of 1979.

It was later rechristened in the mid-1980s as Eldorado Studios where rock groups such as Alice in Chains recorded there unbeknownst to anyone that the studio was once owned by Gaye. In 1997, the studio was restored by John McClain, who purchased the studio saving it from being turned into a photo lab^[4]. Since then artists like Prince, Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz have all since recorded there.

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[edit] External links

• Mix magazine Marvin’s Room-Mix magazine profiles recording studio Marvin Gaye’s Room on the November 2006 cover