SECOND GLANCE: At the crossroads of spirituality and sensuality with Leon Ware

It's easy to say that I Want You is sexy. Not just because of its subject matter, Marvin Gaye made enough legendary sensual music for his voice to personify the concept of what sexy should sound like. But, I Want You isn't just sensual. It sounds like it's from a different space, from another planet. Twinkling wind chimes, reverberating strings and synthesizer solos deepen the astral effect. Gaye didn't just want his girl; he wanted to transport her.

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SECOND GLANCE: At the crossroads of spirituality and sensuality with Leon Ware

POSTED: Thursday, November 10, 2011, 1:00 PM

Filed Under: Music | Blast from the Past

Leon Ware wrote “I Want You” for himself. The song went to Marvin Gaye, the title track of his 1976 album. Gaye and Ware produced the album together with T-Boy Ross, Diana Ross’ brother. Ware laid down the conceptual foundation; Marvin Gaye imbued it with his personal desire — a lustful, lovesick tribute to then-girlfriend Janis Hunter. Upon release, it was met with mixed reviews. Today, it is widely regarded as a landmark record, a zenith of musical sensuality.

It’s easy to say that I Want You is sexy. Not just because of its subject matter, Marvin Gaye made enough legendary sensual music for his voice to personify the concept of what sexy should sound like. But, I Want You isn’t just sensual. It sounds like it’s from a different space, from another planet. Twinkling wind chimes, reverberating strings and synthesizer solos deepen the astral effect. Gaye didn’t just want his girl; he wanted to transport her.

Speak to Leon Ware for longer than five minutes, and you’ll find out that the astral quality was entirely intentional. Ware says he’s always been called a “spacey little guy.” While explaining a love song, he’ll drift into meditations on humanity, then postulations on the cosmos. They are all one in the same to him. To understand Ware’s deviations, musically and otherwise, one must first see that sensuality, divinity, life itself and love itself are all interchangeable in his eyes. “I never work at [music,] and it never works at me. It’s like a joining of forces that continuously caress…” he begins.

Ware grew up in Detroit. He lost his sight for two years after a slingshot blinded him, and went to the same school Stevie Wonder attended. He won his first talent competition at three and a half. He wrote his first love song at nine. “My musical training is with me and the spirit,” he says. “In fact, I was directed away from [music school] by three different teachers before I was 15 years old.” He sang in a group with buddy Lamont Dozier. Both wound up songwriters for Motown. Ware notably wrote “If I Were Your Woman” for Gladys Knight and the Pips and Michael Jackson’s “I Wanna Be Where You Are.”

A great example of Ware’s songwriting philosophy and the polemics they ensued can be found in 1975’s “Inside My Love.” A song from Minnie Riperton’s Adventures in Paradise, its trajectory up the charts was a troubled one. The lyrics were considered so erotic that many pop stations refused to play it, stifling the song’s chart success. In the chorus Riperton sings, “You can see inside me/Will you come inside me/ Do you wanna ride inside my love?” Ware demurs any notion that the song is just about sex. He even admits to cursing out a DJ for describing it as such. Ware maintains that he drew those lyrics from a sermon he heard all throughout childhood. (“Won’t you come? Won’t you come inside the Lord?”)

Ware’s mother was a hairdresser and a minister. He credits her with showing him what a religion should be. He transferred that attitude to his approach to love, romantically and erotically. “I come from a place where sensuality is my religion,” he affirms. African-American music has long played with the tension between spirituality and sexuality. Ware refused to believe that there has to be tension at all. Of the tension, he says, “There’s certain levels… where you transcend the in or the out or the up or the down.”

He started laying down demos for his solo debut in 1975. Berry Gordy heard the early recordings and thought it they would be a fitting for the follow-up to Let’s Get It On. He sent the songs, and Ware, Marvin’s way.

The lyrical content and vocal delivery on I Want You were the primary targets of critics. NME said it was borderline voyeuristic. The Village Voice said whining over sex was in poor taste. The album turned out to be pivotal to quiet storm and made R&B history. The production that is now lauded didn’t escape criticism either. Rolling Stone said Ware’s arrangements were too “subtle for its own good.”

I ask Ware who his primary influences were instrumentally for the album. He tells me there’s a lot of names and says he’ll email them. He does. He only lists jazz artists.

Ware primarily records jazz and jazz fusion these days, but a jazzman he’s always been. He grew up hearing it in Detroit and considers it a part of his make-up. Beyond that, jazz is embedded in his philosophy. He claims to eschew structure and plans, preferring to make a go of the day improvisationally. He claims to write as the spirit moves him. The word jazz is American, but its exact origin remains unknown. Experts believe it came from one of two words: jasm, a slang word that meant energy or spirit, or its predecessor jism, which also meant spirit, but meant sperm too.

“Why am I sensuous? My answer is very clear: it’s because it’s where we all come from,” he declares. He’s always been proud of his religion. He jokes that he doesn’t have to convert anyone; he just has to share some love. “I don’t think I’m going to live long enough to say I’ve completed anything,” he estimates. “Most of us rarely get the full circle. But, in my lifetime, I’m afforded a wonderful… reputation — history of being a writer that’s been responsible for a lot of babies.” He laughs, “If I do not live another five seconds, that makes me smile.”