David Ritz

Divided Soul came out in 1985, a year after Marvin Gaye was shot by his father in Los Angeles, and David Ritz had the material because he had spent years around him: the two wrote Sexual Healing together, which is Ritz's own line in a songwriting credit. The book is unusually frank about Gaye's religious upbringing, his fights with Motown, his money and his collapse, and it set the pattern for what Ritz did afterwards. He has written or co-written memoirs for Ray Charles, B.B. King, Etta James, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin and Buddy Guy, usually credited on the cover, and he has been open about the difference between what a subject wants said and what the record shows. He grew up in Texas and New York and has taken three ASCAP Deems Taylor awards for music writing.