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

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"That's the Way Love Is"
Single by Marvin Gaye
from the album M.P.G./That's the Way Love Is
B-side"Gonna Keep On Tryin' Till I Win Your Love"
ReleasedAugust 7, 1969
Recorded1969, Hitsville U.S.A.
GenreSoul
Length3:35
LabelTamla
Songwriter(s)Norman Whitfield
Barrett Strong
Producer(s)Norman Whitfield
Marvin Gaye singles chronology
"Too Busy Thinking About My Baby"
(1969)
"That's the Way Love Is"
(1969)
"What You Gave Me"
(1969)

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

Marvin Gaye recording

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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

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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

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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

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References

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  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.