Marvin At 70

Unbelievably, almost, April 2, 2009 would have Marvin Gaye’s 70^th birthday. Tragically, as we all know, he was shot on the eve of his 45^th birthday in 1984. Behind him he left a legacy of music that changed not only RnB and soul, but all music, everywhere.

 If the ‘60s were spent producing mod anthems and pop classics from ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ to his gorgeous duets with Tammi Terrell on ‘Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing’ and ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’, it was the death of Tammi from a brain tumour in 1970 that thrust Gaye into a complete reawakening.

At the time he’d talked of quitting music and even tried out at American Football, but his production work with Motown bands like the originals led him, following a two year hiatus, to produce one of the classic albums of all time. ‘What’s Going On’ sounds like a timeless call for rationale that’s as relevant today in the world’s war torn, ozone-threatening, superfast culture as it was back then in the early ‘70s.

Gaye’s production experience gave him the map of the studio and the results are the stuff of legend. The birth of the project wasn’t easy though. The genesis of the title track came from The Four Tops’ writer Renaldo ‘Obie’ Benson after he saw the police beating up kids in Berkley. The Four Tops weren’t interested and the view was that it was a protest song, something that Benson couldn’t see. Eventually the song found its way to Gaye. “He added lyrics and added some spice to the melody.” Benson recalled in MOJO back in the late ‘90s.

That song and conversations with his brother Frank led Gaye to take a second look at the planet and how it was in free fall, the result was the lushly stringed, multi-layered harmonies and poignant lyrics that made up the album. Gaye was excited about the project that he called up Berry Gordy on holiday, but he wasn’t enamoured with the idea and thought it would ruin his career. Indeed, quality control at the label turned down the record at first but its eventual release and the mix of soul, jazz and funk styles made it an instant success.

The following project was the under rated blaxploitation soundtrack to Trouble Man, a low budget movie with a high quality score. Vocals are few and far between but the mounting tension continues the work of ‘What’s Going On’ and the orchestrations and arrangements are key to this classic set.

Gaye was now re-invented. Re-signed to Motown his next work turned up the bachelor pad sensuality and ‘Let’s Get It On’ took him to new audiences. His relationship with Anna Gordy collapsed and the autobiographical ‘Here My Dear’, an aching set of tunes that allegedly settled the divorce recast Gaye as a troubled man indeed, something that his last Motown album ‘In Our Lifetime’, with its apocalyptic worldview took to new extremes.

Everything in the Gaye canon reflected his world, from the sweet pop love songs of the ‘60s through to his social awakening and his downbeat view of life and love in his later years at Motown. The latter works lack of commercial success on release came as people hankered for Gaye to stay with his original ever changing plot, their place in history now suggest that he was, as ever, way ahead of his time.

If he’d stayed around to celebrate this most momentous of birthdays, it’s a sure thing that his vision of our future would be similarly as straightforward and outspoken as the barbed commentary that makes up ‘What’s Going On’ and indeed ‘In our Lifetime’.