How Marv Gaye's 'What's Gog On' Changed the Sound of R&B Forever - Variety

Contents:

• 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
• 50 YEARS AFTER MARV GAYE ASKED, ‘WHAT’S GOG ON?’ AMERI STILL SEARCHG FOR AN ANSWER
• 50 YEARS LATER, WHY MARV GAYE'S SEMAL ALBUM 'WHAT'S GOG ON' ENDUR
• MARV GAYE’S ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’ IS AS RELEVANT TODAY AS IT WAS 1971
• HOW MARV GAYE’S ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’ CHANGED THE SOUND OF R&B FOREVER
• REMEMBERG MARV GAYE'S INIC 'WHAT'S GOG ON'
• DEVON GILFILLIAN RE-RERDS MARV GAYE'S 1971 ALBUM 'WHAT'S GOG ON'
• THE STORY OF MARV GAYE'S 'WHAT'S GOG ON'
• WHAT'S GOG ON

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

Motown/UMe has marked the 50th anniversary of Marv Gaye’s sgle release for “What’s Gog On” — the tle track om Rollg Stone’s Greatt Album of All Time — wh an all-enpassg digal reissue of the 1971 LP out now on streamg servic.

To honor the sgle’s 50th birthday, Motown/UMe grouped together all that bon mic for the digal release dubbed What’s Gog On: Deluxe Edn/50th Anniversary, which ntas the origal album pl 12 bon tracks cludg sgle versns, mos and more, the “Detro Mix” of the album and the llectn of “Funky Natn” stmentals om Gaye’s post-What’s Gog On rerdg ssns.

“The Detro Mix” of What’s Gog On, Gaye’s origal versn of the album before ncelg and reworkg Los Angel, prevly featured on the 30th anniversary reissue of the album 2001.

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

“Funky Natn: The Detro Instmentals, ” a seri of jams Gaye laid down the rerdg ssns after releasg What’s Gog On, was clud the 40th anniversary reissue. “Through the regnn of What’s Gog On Day, we hope to brg awarens to Marv Gaye’s profound words as his timels mic remas our hearts and mds and ntu spirg generatns to e. Both Gaye and Wonr have been relatively pennt at Motown, their reers followg their own fluctuatns outsi the mastream stud trends, but the latt albums are partur even for them.

Both are self-produced and largely self-posed (Wonr workg wh his wife Syreeta, Gaye wh six others cludg his wife Anna) personal “statements. Motown has begun to give cred to s stud micians, listg 39 of them on Gaye’s album and acknowledgg for the first time that such people really exist. Although both albums suffer om this over-exposure of lyric stiffns, Gaye’s work is much more supple and nversatnal ultimately smoothg self out on what is a very fe rerd while Wonr’s is too self-nsc and edg to pretentns (“Suffote the new high Ri the thorny mule that cri ‘Dig your grave and step right '”) the recently-veloped Curtis Mayfield Syndrome beg nearly prehensible when sung.

50 YEARS AFTER MARV GAYE ASKED, ‘WHAT’S GOG ON?’ AMERI STILL SEARCHG FOR AN ANSWER

Where Stevié was ntent to liver his msag — however blurred — three or four songs, Gaye has signed his album as one many-faceted statement on ndns the world today, ma nearly seamls by reful transns between the cuts.

The style is set the first cut, “What’s Gog On, ” wh s sweet horn openg le; Gaye’s soft, simmerg voice reflectg on self betifully om two or three tracks; the ntrast of ngas and strgs; the breaks an excg jumble of street-rner jive and sttg. ” “Mercy, Mercy Me” is one of the most bearable elogy songs, a genre that don’t seem to spire pecially subtle or telligent lyrics; Gaye’s are offensive and the song self is lovely. 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.

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

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 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.

MARV GAYE’S ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’ IS AS RELEVANT TODAY AS IT WAS 1971

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. 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.

HOW MARV GAYE’S ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’ CHANGED THE SOUND OF R&B FOREVER

”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. 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.

REMEMBERG MARV GAYE'S INIC 'WHAT'S GOG ON'

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. 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!

” It often seems to me that that holler, the culmatn of the growlg ton Gaye sgs on the track, should be fiercer, more unhged. What Gaye performs stead is the virtuosic, ant ntrol required, the midst of panic, of Black people Ameri, no ls than that other war elements are not easily absorbed or nscripted to narrativ about Gaye’s moment or our own; precisely bee they are the rerd’s jagged edg, they keep reachg out to grab listeners through time.

DEVON GILFILLIAN RE-RERDS MARV GAYE'S 1971 ALBUM 'WHAT'S GOG ON'

As a child, mician Devon Gilfillian remembers his father, a profsnal weddg sger, harmonizg wh Marv Gaye’s inic “What’s Gog On” album their livg room. In a recent terview for a new CNN documentary about Gaye’s work, tled “What’s Gog On: Marv Gaye’s Anthem for the Ag, ” the Grammy-nomated artist and activist relled redisverg the album jt before headg to a prott Nashville last summer.

Fd that d Marv Gaye's rerd "What's Gog On" me out 1971, unemployment was at a high of 6%, people were prottg police btaly, and Amerins were angry over the Vietnam War. “Motown was not a pany that was built on any kd of personal statements, ” says Nelson Gee, a mic journalist, thor and cultural cric who terviewed Gaye durg the sger-songwrer’s the 1970s, Motown Rerds was known for s “superb productn le, ” which clud the stud band, The Funk Brothers, Gee says. ”“That kd of polil, social, personal work was not a signature of the pany, ” Gee a tour stop Berkeley, California, Renaldo “Obie” Benson of Motown giant the Four Tops was spired to wre “What’s Gog On” after wnsg a scuffle between police and monstrators at an anti-Vietnam War Benson brought the song to him, Gaye was reluctant to rerd .

At this pot his reer, Gaye was famo for his pop duets and love ballads, such as “A't No Mounta High Enough” wh Tammi Terrell and “I Heard It Through the Grapeve. ”Gaye thought the song was better sued for a band lled The Origals, but he agreed to rerd himself after Benson allowed him to rewre some parts of .

THE STORY OF MARV GAYE'S 'WHAT'S GOG ON'

One of the most notable chang Gaye ma was the fal versn of the song, there was no qutn mark the song illtrat the challeng society durg the 1960s — “spirualy, brotherhood, the onens of man” — and speaks to what Gaye thks are solutns, Gee explas. ”When “What’s Gog On” me out January of 1971, was an stant h, and Gordy sisted Gaye rerd an entire album to back up the sgle.

”Gaye Captured A ‘Sense Of Confn And Sadns’The send song on the album, “What's Happeng Brother” was wrten for Gaye's brother, Frankie, who had jt returned om a tour Vietnam and was stgglg to fd a 1971, the Amerin people were learng through the Pentagon Papers how the U.

4 on the Billboard pop sgl chart and even had a rare appearance for Gaye on the adult ntemporary sound of that song has an “herent spirual dimensn” that embrac many tradns om European and Black church, Gee says. (Gems/Redferns)‘A Betiful Piece Of Art’In the followg years after the album was released, Gaye stggled wh prsn and dg abe, survivg a suici attempt 1979.

WHAT'S GOG ON

Released on May 21, 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, Marv Gaye’s album beme a monster, spawng three h sgl on s way to beg Motown’s bt-sellg album to date. And the host of the weekly rad show “Soul Stori, ” I am stck by how many of the them Gaye explor rema as relevant today as they were when he first wrote about them 50 years ago.