DETROIT (WWJ) - The U.S. Postal Service is making it easier to add a little soul to the top right corner of your letters.
The USPS is honoring Motown legend Marvin Gaye with a commemorative Forever stamp. The stamp was unveiled Tuesday on what would have been Gaye's 80th birthday.
The stamp features a portrait of Gaye inspired by historic photographs. His name appears vertically on the right side of the stamp, with "USA" and the Forever denomination in the top left.
The stamp pane is designed to resemble a vintage 45-rpm record sleeve. One side of the pane includes the stamps and brief text about Gaye's legacy, with the image of a sliver of a record seeming to peek out the top of the sleeve. Another portrait of Gaye, also inspired by historic photographs, appears on the reverse along with the Music Icons series logo.
The Marvin Gaye Forever stamp is the ninth in the Postal Service's Music Icons stamp series. Other honorees in the series are Ray Charles, Lydia Mendoza, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, Sarah Vaughan and John Lennon.
The stamps can be purchased at your local Post Office or online at usps.com/shop.
Gaye is known as one of the most influential music performers of his generation. He helped shape the buoyant sound of the Motown record label in the 1960s and broaden the scope of R&B music in the 1970s. Released in 1971, his expansive masterwork, "What's Going On," is widely considered one of the greatest recordings in the history of American popular music.
