Musicina Blender

A Marvin Gaye Samba

Marvin Gaye vs. Celso Fonseca - I Heard It Through The Samba (Musicina Blender mix)

I recently saw an amazing YouTube video of Marvin Gaye singing an acapella version of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”. I recorded the audio part of the video, and set out to find a way to put a different instrumental spin on the tune.  And like my previous mix of Ryan Adams’s Wonderwall, the answer was found with the sounds of Brazil.  

Celso Fonseca is a guitarist, singer, composer, and record producer, and has played with just about every significant Brazilian artist, from Gilberto Gil to Bebel Gilberto. His voice is quite similar to Caetano Veloso and his guitar playing has the similar style of Baden Powell. His first U.S. release, Natural (2003), features a cool instrumental called Buteco, which is the basic instrumental track under Marvin. In previous versions of this mix, I also included the original keyboard hook from “Grapevine”, but upon further listening, it came across as a bit too obvious, so I took it out. The end result is a totally new musical arrangement.

This tune was mixed on my laptop in a small apartment about 50 yards away from the ocean in the beautiful village of Hana, on the east coast of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. An exquisite place!