Marvin Gaye: What Happened Brother?

       Nat King Cole was an internationally popular jazz pianist and singer during the 1940s and 50s.  He had a rich smooth vocal style and had numerous hit records.  Cole was one of the first black entertainers to host his own television variety show.  He was a role model for Marvin Gaye, who began his singing career in the late 50s. In 1965 Marvin Gaye made a tribute album of the music of Nat King Cole.




             The son of a preacher, Marvin Gaye began his musical career singing and playing in the church.  In the late 50s he began singing in a R&B/Doo-wop group called the Marquees.  They were discovered by Rock and Roll legend Bo Diddley and signed to record what would become a minor hit.  Later, Gaye joined the Doo-wop group The Moonglows. 

             After leaving the Moonglows, Gaye went on to first become a session drummer on a number of records by well known artists and in 1961, began recording as a solo artist for Motown.  He began achieving a modest success and charted several hit records.  In 1967 he teamed up to record duets with Tammi Terrell, another Motown artist.  They recorded some of the finest male-female duet records ever made. Tammi Terrell was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died in 1970.  Marvin Gaye went back to solo recording.

             In 1970, depressed from Tammi Terrell's death, Gaye recorded the first songs of what would later become the great album What's Going On.  Gaye wanted to release the song "What's Going On", but Barry Gordy, the head of Motown resisted, calling it "the worst record I ever heard".  Gaye insisted that the record be released and it became a major hit.  Gordy then ordered an entire album of songs in the same vein.  Rolling Stone magazine has ranked "What's Going On" as the fourth best song of all time.  The What's Going On album has ranked highly in many album rankings.

          What's Going On was Gaye's creative peak.  He recorded some fine highly successful albums in the following years, but eventually was caught in marital problems, drugs, and debt.   In 1984 he had gone back to live with his parents.  Since the days of youth he had been in difficult relations with his father.  The tension increased now that Marvin was back under his parents' roof.  Marvin was suffering from paranoia and delusions and had become difficult to relate to.  On April 1, 1984 some sort of conflict between the two men, which led Marvin Gaye's father to shoot his son, killing him instantly.  Marvin was nearly 45 years old when he died-- almost the same age as his idol Nat King Cole was when he had died twenty years earlier.

         If you have never heard the great album What's Going On, then you should make every effort to do so.  I think most of you will probably agree that it was a milestone in music history.  A clip of a live performance of two of the songs from this album is offered below.

         On Monday I will be posting NINE NICE JAZZ FAVORITES, a listing of jazz albums that are some of my favorites.  If you enjoy jazz, feel free to join me in this listing.  And remember that jazz can cover a wide range of musical styles including big band, smooth modern jazz, many vocalists, and numerous other styles.  I'll leave it to your interpretation.   As far as I am concerned, jazz does not just have to be hard to understand improvisational music.  What does jazz mean to you?