The beginning of April is an intense time for any fan of the late great Marvin Gaye. He was born on April 2, 1939 in Washington, D.C., a definite cause for celebration. He was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984 in Los Angeles, a tragedy of epic proportions. He was only forty-four years old. Back when it was first reported, it initially seemed the nastiest April's fools joke ever broadcast. Alas, it was true, and put an end to Marvin's life and the complex love/hate relationship between he and his minister/cross dressing father Marvin Gay Sr.
Growing up with a soul music loving mother, Marvin's Gaye was an essential part of my upbringing. Somewhere in storage are my mother's 45rpm singles of “Hitch Hike” and “Stubborn Kinda Fella,” which played on our Motorola hi-fit as she polished the living room furniture with lemon Pledge, and at the parties where folks danced the watusi and hully gully later that night.
Though Marvin is rightfully celebrated for the masterpiece, 1971's ‘What’s Going On,’ I'd be lying if I didn't say the erotic essays in ‘Let’s Get It On’ and ‘I Want You’ were essential to my being, since they coincided with my adolescent and teenage years. ‘I Want You’ will always be connected in my mind to Lauren, a brown skinned beauty who sat with me in her living room, and made out with as Marvin crooned “After the Dance.” Very few singers have had such a connection to our libidos as Marvin. His vocal stylings have influenced several generations of singers from Maxwell, Miguel, and Usher to youngsters like Daniel Caesar and October London (if you’re not familiar with his Marvin like sound you’re in for a treat.)
A decade later I got to interview the Motown legend twice in the early ‘80s, once on the phone from England and later in a Silicon Valley hotel at the start of his “Sexual Healing” era comeback tour. Both interviews are contained in The Nelson George Mixtape Volume One, available in paperback via www.pacificpacific.pub or https://pacificpacific.pub/shop/the-nelson-george-mixtape-volume-1-softcover-1/.
Also worth looking up is an obituary I wrote about Marvin for the Village Voice in 1984 that was collected in Shake It Up: Great American Writing on Rock and Pop from Elvis to Jay Z, edited by Jonathan Lethem and Kevin Dettmar and published in hardcover by Library of America. It uses material from both the interviews, as well as reporting that I was doing on a book on Motown, ‘Where Did Our Love Go: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound,’ that would be published in 1986.
Filmmaker Allen Hughes has been developing an bio pix on this great artist, and complex man, for many years. Fingers crossed that it happens.