What’s Gog On at 50: Marv Gaye’s masterpiece is still so te to life | Marv Gaye | The Guardian

Contents:

• MARVIN GAYE VYL RERDS AND CDS
• MARV GAYE - WHAT'S GOG ON
• WHAT’S GOG ON AT 50: MARV GAYE’S MASTERPIECE IS STILL SO TE TO LIFE
• 50 YEARS LATER, WHY MARV GAYE'S SEMAL ALBUM 'WHAT'S GOG ON' ENDUR
• MARVIN GAYE ALBUM SAL
• ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’: WHEN MARV GAYE UNVEILED A MASTERPIECE
• MARV GAYE’S ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’ GETS 50TH ANNIVERSARY DIGAL REISSUE
• WHAT’S GOG ON AT 50: MARV GAYE’S MASTERPIECE IS STILL SO TE TO LIFE

MARVIN GAYE VYL RERDS AND CDS

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MARV GAYE - WHAT'S GOG ON

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WHAT’S GOG ON AT 50: MARV GAYE’S MASTERPIECE IS STILL SO TE TO LIFE

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50 YEARS LATER, WHY MARV GAYE'S SEMAL ALBUM 'WHAT'S GOG ON' ENDUR

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MARVIN GAYE ALBUM SAL

Marv Gaye’s classic 1971 rerd What’s Gog On turns 50 this month, which means more people than ever will have ocsn to note how timely is. “He uld have wrten What’s Gog On yterday, ” poet Nikki Gvanni noted an terview last tumn, explag that the ver portra of her 2020 llectn, Make Me Ra, pays homage to Gaye’s album ver, picturg Gvanni a raat, her llar upturned.

The rerd’s endurance – most movgly displayed by Nelson Manla, who, shortly after his release om prison 1990, reced l om the album at Tiger Stadium Detro – has practilly bee a one is wrong, of urse, to say that Gaye’s album cuts as eply today as did 1971. A dively spired work driven by social rage – one that braid doo-wop harmoni, jazz and the hymns Gaye had loved as a child – What’s Gog On was also Gaye’s claratn of creative pennce om Berry Gordy’s Motown mache. After a of polished pop hs, Gaye, now his early 30s, revealed there was a lot on his md: the outrage of the war Vietnam (What’s Happeng Brother?

‘WHAT’S GOG ON’: WHEN MARV GAYE UNVEILED A MASTERPIECE

The surgent subject matter was acpanied by a change Gaye’s personal style: he stopped wearg ti and grew a beard. ”What’s Gog On remas val, above all, for how turns away om that “Ameri” and stead addrs the tle qutn to a closer-kn group – those people gathered at the hoe party Gaye stag the album’s openg moments; the “mother, mother” and “father father” he lls out to (and that the party settg might emboln him to ndidly addrs). ” the speaker asks What’s Happeng Brother?, checkg the claims of those power agast the thory of everyday Black is one thg to celebrate Gaye’s endurg and prcient mo of creatn; another to appld the ntued ronance of his album’s ncerns.

We should not be sangue, for stance, that Gaye’s unrstated blu crique of “trigger-happy policg” has stayed so relevant; or that anti-Black vlence has so persisted over the last 50 years that remas necsary for Black artists and everyday people to approach the task of survivg and thrivg Ameri wh the energy, elegance and grace that Gaye molled this landmark work. This, any se, is the imprsn I get when watchg Gaye troduce the tle track at the Montrx jazz ftival the summer of 1980. Maybe he was tired – was the last song of a long set – but the 40-year-old Gaye, his illed whe shirt and sequned red su jacket, appears to not jt work the crowd but panr to wh some ntempt: “This was our very first No 1 rerd ever the world, ladi and gentlemen.

MARV GAYE’S ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’ GETS 50TH ANNIVERSARY DIGAL REISSUE

Photograph: US Army/Getty ImagThis is precisely the kd of galvanisg work that Gaye was dog wh What’s Gog On, for his own people his own time – a historil pot that is often obscured when we fixate on the rerd’s timelsns.

Gaye’s crique of the Vietnam war, for example, which was rmed by his brother Frankie’s experienc of the nflict, was disarmgly distctive.

So, too, was Gaye’s growg matury, which Black fans heard both his mment to Black life and their own potential. ”Vcent se Gaye’s actns as “the drivg force” behd Stevie Wonr’s polil turn at Motown, as well as the rigoro funk of Sly and the Fay Stone and the righteo soul of Aretha Frankl’s 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black.

WHAT’S GOG ON AT 50: MARV GAYE’S MASTERPIECE IS STILL SO TE TO LIFE

The stars, along wh untls ssn micians, were “dog their bt work ever at this ccial moment time” – settg the standard, the se of Gaye and his llaborator David Van De Pte’s meticulo strg, nga, bass and vol arrangements – for what Vcent lls “soul mic as high art” be sure, What’s Gog On is an impecbly posed sue. Listen to how Gaye cranks the volume back up jt as the tle track starts to fa out – a sign of rilience as well as a petty refal to let a track that Gordy hated end whout a fight. ” Here is a nvivialy you make jt by showg up, where you don’t have to know someone to be glad they Gaye the stud 1973.

Photograph: Jim Brt/Getty ImagWhat I listen for now are moments like the, which, spe repeated plays, ver versns and sampl of Gaye’s songs, still sound disrdant and unrolved. (oh, for the children), ” Gaye sgs, makg his way up a hntg and haltg mil sle, as if toward a future jt out of reach.

In this portn of the rerd, timg and melody e unmoored, as Gaye mak room for hard, even spairg qutns: is possible to “save a world that is sted to die”? If at first Gaye seems ncerned wh parsg good om bad actors, “those of who simply like to socialise” v “those of who tend the sick and heed the people’s cri, ” he also gathers them all to an affirmative, right-on roll ll that mellows out to an oblique paean to sex: “And my darlg, one more thg / If you let me, I will take you to live where love is kg. The squawkg tenor saxophone solo wh which Wild Bill Moore tears through Mercy Mercy Me might be the most dramatic performance of the “holler” Gaye sgs about Inner Cy Blu – but which Gaye himself livers, at the end of that song, as a stylised cry: “Owwww!