Loop Diggin' Thursdays, News & Rants 04.05.07
Posted by Phil Watts, Jr on 04.05.2007
"There are still times I feel unhappy and I must smile, and there are times I want to cry and I must laugh... people rarely see the real Marvin Gaye"
On April 1st, 1984, the world heard the one news report that everyone wished was an April Fool's joke. Granted, it would've been a terrible April Fool's joke, but nonetheless, people wished it actually was a farced instead of it being true.
On the surface, Marvin Gaye was the kind of guy that girls wanted and guys wanted to be. Yet, when you really look at his life, there was so much non-stop DRAMA that people would think twice about wanting to live his life. We all know about the hits, the classic records and his lover-man image that influenced countless artists to want to get into the business…but what about the circumstances behind all that?
First off, let's look at his childhood. He was one of four children who lived in a segregated neighborhood in Washington, DC, and lived under the rule of strict preacher father, Marvin Gay, Sr. Marv Sr. was definitely a true father figure, as he was abusive to all four of his kids. As if living through the turbulent era of segregation and rampant racism wasn't bad enough. Young Marvin didn't know what was worse: dealing with racists in white sheets who want all black people dead…or dealing with his own father. Doing whatever it took to get away from that hell called 'home', he dropped out of high school and joined the Air Force. Problem was, after years of having his own father get in his face, the idea of having total strangers scream on him didn't really appeal to him too much, so he got discharged out. Thankfully, he already knew what he wanted to do with himself.
Now I know what some of you young-uns are thinking: Since this is the point where he first gets in the music industry, he must have been cranking out the hits straight from jump, right? Wrong. The music industry back then wasn't like the Microwave Popcorn industry we have these days, where people are expected to blow up IMMEDIATELY. It took years for Marvin to even GET to Motown, much less get a hit while signed to Motown. It took years of paying ‘dues', ‘don'ts, and ‘why-should-I's to become the icon he'd eventually be. First things first, Marvin added an 'e' to his last name, taking a cue from his musical idol, Sam Cooke (and separating himself from his father). From there he would sing with many different doo wop groups, like Bo Diddley's group, the Marquees, and another group called the Moonglows. Thankfully, his stint with the Moonglows was enough to get him noticed by Berry Gordy, which lead to a deal with Motown…AS A DRUMMER. He backed up many groups from Smokey & The Miracles to The Contours (which featured a pre-Temptations Dennis Edwards). You know those old Motown hits like The Marvelettes' "Please, Mr. Postman", Martha & the Vandellas' "Dancing In the Street", and lil' Stevie Wonder's "Fingertips"? Yup…that was all Marvin. Yeah, he was a damn good drummer, but GODAMMIT, he wanted to SING!!! So after much begging and pleading, Berry FINALLY signed him as a singer.
So from there, he went on to nonstop hits and superstardom, right? Wrong again. It took years and several albums for him to find his nitch. He spent many of his early albums emulating his heroes Sam Cooke and Nat King Cole in an attempt to find his voice. After the failure of some of his early singles, he finally hit some pay dirt with "Stubborn Kind Of Fellow", followed by "Hitch Hike", "Can I get A Witness", and "Pride & Joy" (a song dedicated to Anna Gordy, one of Berry's daughters, whom Marvin married during his time as a drummer…and trust me, you'll be hearing a lot more about her later on!)
In 1964, all those DUES, DON'Ts, and WHY-SHOULD-I's started really paying off, as he released his first hit album, TOGETHER, a colab album with Mary Wells (which had the singles "Once Upon A Time", and "What's the Matter With You Baby"). However, Mary Wells would leave Motown shortly after this album, as she was dissatisfied with the direction Gordy wanted her to go. The success of this album led Motown to try pairing Marvin with another lady, this time Kim Weston for the TAKE TWO album (which gave us the hit, "It Takes Two")…however SHE left the label shortly thereafter due to money disputes. Thankfully, things kept going good for him, as Berry saw some acting potential in Marvin, and he wanted to push him as a movie star by attempting to cast him as Sam Cooke in a movie about his life. Marvin vehemently refused, not only because he didn't care about the Hollywood game ("I just didn´t have the fortitude to play the Hollywood game and put my ass out there like a piece of meat."), he thought the idea of playing as his murdered idol was sickening ("I got the chills thinking about it. There was no way I´d even consider the role. It made me extremely nervous to even think about a soul singer who gets shot to death.") Putting that aside, the hits still kept coming, as Motown decided to pair him with another lady…Tammi Terrell. The undeniable chemistry between these two, and the songwriting talents of Nick Ashford & Valerie Simpson lead to non-stop classics, making songs that would become Motown staples.
A few words on Ashford & Simpson…
It's often said with so much frequency that people wind up believing it, that there's no way you can mix business and personal without it getting ugly, 9 times out of 10, resulting in the artists hating each other. Obviously, they don't know about Ashford & Simpson, since not only have they worked together since the 60's (and married on 1973), they have written and produced hits for themselves and millions of other artists, and have remained together to this very day! Today's hot-hot-hot celebrity couples could learn a thing or two from them.
Anyway, after two hit albums together, UNITED and YOU'RE ALL I NEED (the latter written and produced entirely by Ashford & Simpson), it seemed that it would never stopped. Then suddenly…Tammi left, too. She was diagnosed with brain cancer, rendering her unable to record or perform live. Unfortunately, Berry wanted to get as much mileage out of Marvin/Tammi as he could, so he hooked up another album, EASY, which had Marvin's vocals dubbed alongside old Tammi vocals (and even tried to get Valerie Simpson try to sing some of Tammi's parts). However, Marvin wasn't feeling it. The news of Tammi's sickness absolutely crushed him…so much so that by the time his smash solo hit, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" came out (and became one of Motown's greatest hits ever), he was pretty much out of it. Having to sit there and watch Tammi slowly fade away (until she finally died in 1970), watching his marriage with Anna Gordy fall apart, having to watch all this bullshit going on around him (remember, it was during this period where Martin Luther King was assassinated and racial tension was at an all time high, especially with the Watts Riots), he wasn't in a rush to go back to the studio to sing about love-love-love during all this. Needless to say, he wouldn't be back to the studio for a couple of years (he even considered getting out of the music business altogether to join the Detroit Loins, but he got turned down.) Pretty soon, all the pain, the anguish, the depression, and all the things going on around him, finally motivated him to go back to that studio.
It was during this period where many artists wanted to get away from the tried and true love-love-love ballads, and wanted to make more personal, challenging, and socially/politically conscious records…and Marvin was no different. On June 1, 1970, Marvin got together with Al Cleveland (the man who wrote "I Second That Emotion" for Smokey & The Miracles), and Obie Benson of the Four Tops to work on a politically charged song. The result was the following…
Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother, there's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today...
Father, father, we don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today...
Picket lines - sister - and picket signs - sister
Don't punish me - sister - with brutality - sister
Talk to me - sister - so you can see - sister
Oh, what's goin' on...
After they finished, Marvin thought about giving this song to a Motown group called The Originals. Cleveland and Obie thought it would be a better idea for Marvin to sing it himself. So with enough convincing, Marvin got in the booth, laid the vocals down, and eventually, it would get printed on plastic and shipped to record stores everywh…HOLD UP.
One major problem. Berry, who was thinking about the bottom line, was not about to sell this song. He did not think this type of song would work, as it was too political and the arrangement wasn't exactly catchy material. He didn't think this shit would sell, so he planned on shelving it. Marvin threw both his hands and said either put it out or I'm not recording for your ass again. Berry FINALLY released the single the very next year on 7" (with "God Is Love" as a B-side), all while thinking, "GOD is this going to flop…"
2.5 million copies.
Berry would slowly but surely realize that all that music-factory/focus group/"would you buy this 45 single or a sandwich" bullshit was stifling the creative freedom of his artists, though it would take a while for it to get to his head. Stevie Wonder was just as vocal about the lack of artistic freedom at Motown and threatened to leave. He left, and then resigned to Motown under the condition that he'd get total control over his projects. Eying that 2.5 million that the "What's going On" 45 sold, Berry decided to take a chance and let him have his freedom. The result: A string of brilliant albums, including one of the greatest double-disc sets of all time.
In the case of Marvin, the 2.5 million forced Berry to let him record a whole album with similar material, resulting in the WHAT'S GOING ON album. The album veered away from the usual love ballads and focused on such weighty subjects such as the environment, the Vietnam War, corruption, and God. Similarly, the album veered away from the usual Motown sound and used elements of jazz and classical music. Marvin would handle most of the writing (with the help of Cleveland, Benson, and even Anna Gordy, who, despite the messy marriage woes, still made some contributions to his records).
A whole lot has been said about how much of a masterpiece this album is. Many of the songs in the album have been covered by numerous artists (with varied quality, of course). This album has been placed either within the top 20 or top 10 in almost every ‘greatest albums of all time' list. This album has received accolades galore from every publication where it was reviewed. It's no surprise that whenever you ask about Marvin Gaye, they automatically think of this album. And to think that it almost never happened because a record exec didn't see any commercial value in it.
There's so much that can be learned from this, but today's record execs are too busy looking at dollar signs to even think about letting their artists take a chance and develop into their own voice. Marvin Gaye's growth as a musician did not come overnight nor did it come easy, and yet, they keep expecting their artists to make a massive impact on the charts right out the starting gate. If the music business is ever going to recover, they need to learn the lesson that Berry Gordy had to learn.
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Part 2 next week…
But before I go, a REST IN PEACE goes out to Luther Ingram (1937-2007), who's most famous for his hit "If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right", and was a part of the legendary Stax Records family.
