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

Contents:

• MARV GAYE
• HOW MARV GAYE’S ‘WHAT’S GOG ON’ CHANGED THE SOUND OF R&B FOREVER
• MARV GAYE'S SISTER CALLS OUT 'WICKED & VDICTIVE' QUCY JON
• 50 THGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MARV GAYE'S WHAT'S GOG ON
• MARV GAYE AND 5 R&B ARTISTS OM THE ’60S AND ’70S
• HERE'S WHO INHERED MARV GAYE'S ESTATE WHEN HE DIED
• LOL R&B STAR RAHEEM DEVGHN TO HOST MARV GAYE TRIBUTE AT WOLF TRAP

MARV GAYE

Marv Gaye is different, different for one simple reason: he had immense talent, not jt as a sger but also as a songwrer that set him on a higher plane, as well as a social nscience that advoted change. His new directn and newfound social nscns is bt heard on the h, ‘Abraham Mart & John’ which Gaye ma his own, spe the origal beg rerd by rock and roll survivor Dn (of the Belmonts fame).

One of the most gifted, visnary, and endurg talents ever lnched to orb by the Motown h mache, Marv Gaye blazed the trail for the ntued evolutn of popular black mic. Gaye later took up piano and dms and mic beme his pe om the nightmarish reali of his home life – throughout his childhood, his father beat him on an almost daily basis.

While tourg the Midwt, the group performed Detro, where Gaye’s graceful tenor and three-octave vol range, won the tert of fledgelg imprar Berry Gordy, Jr. Wh 1963’s ‘Pri and Joy’, Gaye sred his first Top Ten smash, but often found his role as a hmaker stiflg – his sire to bee a crooner of lh romantic ballads, ran direct opposn to Motown’s all-important emphasis on chart succs and the ongog battle between his artistic ambns and the label’s mands for a mercial product, ntued throughout Gaye’s long tenure wh the pany.

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

Wh 1964’s Together, a llectn of duets wh Mary Wells, Gaye sred his first chartg album; the duo also notched a number of h sgl together, cludg ‘Once Upon a Time’ and ‘What’s the Matter Wh You, Baby? As a solo performer, Gaye ntued to enjoy great succs, srg three superb Top Ten hs 1965; ‘A’t That Peculiar’, ‘I’ll Be Doggone’ and ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)’. However, Gaye’s greatt duets were to be wh Tammi Terrell, wh whom he sred a seri of massive hs, penned by the team of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, cludg 1967’s ‘A’t No Mounta High Enough’ and ‘Your Prec Love’, followed by 1968’s ‘A’t Nothg Like the Real Thg’ and ‘You’re All I Need to Get By’.

The team’s succs was tragilly cut short 1967 when, durg a ncert appearance Virgia, Terrell llapsed to Gaye’s arms on-stage, the first evince of a bra tumour that abptly end her performg reer and fally killed her on March 16, 1970. Her illns and eventual loss, left Gaye eply shaken, marrg the chart-toppg 1968 succs of ‘I Heard It Through the Grapeve’, his biggt h and arguably the pnacle of the Motown sound.

A highly percsive album, which rporated jazz and classil elements, to fe a remarkably sophistited and fluid soul sound, What’s Gog On was a nceptual masterpiece that brought Gaye’s eply held spirual beliefs to the fore. Explorg issu rangg om poverty and discrimatn to the environment, dg abe, and polil rptn; chief among the rerd’s ncerns was the nflict Vietnam, as Gaye stctured the songs around the pot of view of his brother Frankie, himself a soldier recently returned om bat. The album’s succs guaranteed Gaye’s ntued artistic ntrol over his work helped loosen the res for other Motown artists, most notably Stevie Wonr, to also take mand of their own sti.

MARV GAYE'S SISTER CALLS OUT 'WICKED & VDICTIVE' QUCY JON

The long-simmerg eroticism implic much of Gaye’s work reached s boilg pot wh 1973’s Let’s Get It On, one of the most sexually charged albums ever rerd. Let’s Get It On also marked another signifint shift Gaye’s lyril outlook, movg him om the polil arena to a eply personal, even sular stance, which ntued to fe his subsequent work.

50 THGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MARV GAYE'S WHAT'S GOG ON

As a rult of a 1976 urt settlement, Gaye was orred to make good on missed alimony payments by rerdg a new album, wh the tentn that all royalti earned om s sal would then be award to his ex-wife. The 1978 rerd, a two-LP set sardonilly entled Here, My Dear, bterly explored the uple’s relatnship such timate tail, that Anna Gordy briefly nsired sug Gaye for the vasn of privacy. In 1981, longstandg tax difficulti and renewed prsur om the IRS forced Gaye to flee to Europe, where he began work on the amb In Our Lifetime, a eply philosophil rerd that ultimately severed his longstandg relatnship wh Motown after he claimed the label had remixed and eded the album whout his nsent.

It would bee the first Top 10 LP for Gaye, a major rerdg artist who’d had many h sgl but hadn’t reached higher than number 33 on the Top 200 album chart.

The album was unlike anythg prevly released by a Black superstar: Wrten and produced by Gaye (a first for any Motown artist not named Smokey Robson) and clockg at jt over 35 mut, secured his spot as one of mic’s leadg Black trs of the .

MARV GAYE AND 5 R&B ARTISTS OM THE ’60S AND ’70S

He wasn’t the first Black artist to produce challengg mic after assumg plete creative ntrol — Jam Brown had done and so had former Imprsns lear Curtis Mayfield — but Gaye, who butted heads hard wh Motown orr to pursue a new artistic directn (he was signed to the Motown imprt Tamla), was the first to do wh such a thematilly and milly hive statement. If he had wanted to, Gaye probably uld have spent years astg on the 1968 succs of “I Heard It Through the Grapeve, ” a chart-toppg smash that, at one pot, was Motown’s bt-sellg sgle of all time. That probably would have helped Motown head Berry Gordy, who has said that he was “terrified” when Gaye first said he wanted to make a “prott album, ” sleep easier at night.

But stead of vg to creative expectatns, Gaye cid to challenge himself and his dience by embarkg on a stunng mic reventn that rivaled what The Beatl had done a half- earlier wh “Rubber Soul. ” Gaye, who had once harbored aspiratns to be the Black Frank Satra, thoroughly transformed his sound and image, creatg a new chameleonic mil persona that would rry him through the ‘70s.

In addn to reposng and rebrandg Gaye s before “rebrandg” beme a thg, “What’s Gog On” blend the polil and the relig a way no sger had managed to do sce Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” seven years earlier. ” John Lennon rerd “Image” about a week after the release of “What’s Gog On, ” and although the former Beatle had already been tacklg polil them his solo work, ’s easy to image him beg fluenced and spired by Gaye’s foray to social nscns. The followg year, Gaye’s Motown labelmate Stevie Wonr would, like Gaye, assume creative ntrol of his reer and release “Talkg Book, ” which end a ne-year Top 10 dry spell on the album chart and began his n of ‘70s classics.

HERE'S WHO INHERED MARV GAYE'S ESTATE WHEN HE DIED

Cyndi Lper, Robert Palmer, and Angela Wbh all enjoyed chart hs wh remak of “What’s Gog On” tracks; the Strok vered “Mercy Mercy Me” as a B-si; and when D’Angelo burst onto the R&B scene 1995 wh his “Brown Sugar” album, he sound like the rernatn of Gaye, who was killed by his father 1984, on the day before his 45th birthday. Although he rerd a thematilly siar album, “You’re the Man, ” as a follow-up, that project was shelved and went unreleased until 2019, and Gaye would never aga make such an overtly album-length polil statement. Curtis Mayfield veered to social nscns nearly one year before Gaye did wh his 1970 but solo album “Curtis, ” but like Jam Brown’s proclamatns of Black pri om the same era, sounds thoroughly of s time.

Gaye uld release today, and s melodi wouldn’t be out of place, and lyrics like “Crime is creasg/ Trigger-happy policg/ Panic is spreadg/ God knows where we’re headg” (om “Inner Cy Blu”) would stg as acutely now as they did then. Reviews were somewhat mixed upon s release (like several other ‘70s Gaye albums, cludg “Let’s Get It On” and “Here, My Dear, ” s cril reputatn would grow over time), and spe lnchg three Top 10 sgl, the album wasn’t a naway chart h.

It only reached number six on the Top 200 album chart, and sred jt one Grammy nomatn, bt R&B vol performance, male, for “Inner Cy Blu (Make You Wanna Holler), ” which Gaye lost to Lou Rawls’ “A Natural Man.

LOL R&B STAR RAHEEM DEVGHN TO HOST MARV GAYE TRIBUTE AT WOLF TRAP

Marv Gaye, byname of Marv Pentz Gay, Jr., (born April 2, 1939, Washgton, D.C., U.S.—died April 1, 1984, Los Angel, California), Amerin soul sger-songwrer-producer who, to a large extent, hered the era of artist-ntrolled popular mic of the 1970s.Gaye’s father was a storeont preacher; his mother was a domtic worker.

Gaye sang his father’s Evangelil church Washgton, D.C., and beme a member of a natnally known doo-wop group, the Moonglows, unr the directn of Harvey Fuqua, one of the genre’s foremost matros, who reloted the group to Chigo. Gaye also enjoyed a seri of succsful duets, most notably wh Tammi Terrell (“A’t Nothg Like the Real Thg” [1968]).Blsed wh an exceptnally wi range that enpassed three distct vol styl—a piercg falsetto, a smooth mid-range tenor, and a ep gospel growl—Gaye bed great technil prows wh rare mil dividualy. Gaye also displayed dazzlg virtuosy by overdubbg (buildg sound track by track onto a sgle tape) his own voice three or four tim to provi his own rich harmony, a technique he would employ for the rt of his reer.

It clud the chart-toppg sgl “What’s Gog On,” “Mercy Mercy Me (The Elogy),” and “Inner Cy Blu (Make Me Wanna Holler).”Other major artists—most importantly Stevie Wonr—followed Gaye’s lead and acted as producer of their own efforts. Here, My Dear (1979) brilliantly alt wh Gaye’s divorce om Gordy’s sister Anna (the first of the sger’s two tumultuo divorc).Gaye’s growg addictn to e exacerbated his psychologil stggl.