Marvin Gaye at the Copa is a live album recorded at the exclusive New York club, the
Copacabana, where singer
Marvin Gaye performed in August 1966, over a year following
The Supremes' 1965 performance there. Marvin was only one of just a few R&B musicians after
Sam Cooke and
Jackie Wilson to perform at the club where performers such as
Sammy Davis, Jr.,
Nat King Cole and
Frank Sinatra had performed at regularly. Marvin was the next act from
Berry Gordy's fabled
Motown label after the Supremes to perform at the nightclub and would be followed by
The Temptations in 1968 and
Martha and the Vandellas that same year. According to the liner notes later on, Marvin's performance there was a success, however, an ongoing feud between Gaye and his brother-in-law, Motown recording boss Gordy, was said to have been one of the reasons why the album was eventually shelved with the duo fighting over how the album was to be produced. The album had been scheduled for release in January 1967 as
Tamla 273 before its permanent shelving. In 2005,
Hip-O Select Records, a Motown-associated label created to re-release or release unreleased material from Motown's vaults re-mastered sessions from this album and released it that year.
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