Biography Born 1939 in Washington, D.C, Marvin Pentz Gay Jnr (Who
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Biography orn 1939 in Washington, D.C, Marvin ed piece called “The South’s Problems”, BPentz Gay Jnr (who later added the and a piece covering opera singer Marion “e” to his name1) was one of four born to a Evans’ refusal from a performance at the mother he remained devoted to throughout Constitutional Hall by the Daughters of the his life and a father whose cross-dressing American Revolution. As Dyson writes, ‘the tendencies he reportedly found both same forces of poverty and racial conflict’ humiliating and confusing. A minister for that underpinned these two stories ‘shaped a small Hebrew Pentecostal sect, according the young Gaye’s life.’4 By all accounts to his daughter, Marvin Gay Snr. was not (except, occasionally Gaye’s own5), his was one to “spare the rod” when it came to a highly regimented, austere and terrorised his children.2 Violence coursed through childhood. Gaye’s life (in a BBC Radio 2 documentary Escaping from his troubled home-life, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Gaye dropped out of high-school aged 17 What’s Going On, Gaye also alluded to and joined the Air Force for a short stint frequent scuffles with Motown boss Berry but was discharged owing to his inability Gordy), culminating in his violent death at to obey authority;6 a trait that would the hands of his father in 1984. find further resonance in his fractious relationship with the Motown machine. An austere and terrorised childhood Building on the love of doo-wop he had As Michael Eric Dyson depicts it: ‘[t] fostered throughout school, Gaye joined a he world into which Gaye was born in variety of D.C bands in the late fifties and Washington, D.C – much like the world early sixties. One, the Moonglows, was his music would resonate – was torn by discovered by Bo Diddley and signed to racial conflict.’3 According to Dyson, the Okeh, then Chess Records. When manager edition of the Washington Post published Harvey Fuqua moved to Detroit, Gaye on the day Gaye was born featured an op- moved with him. Gaye was taken on by 90 ‘Things Ain’t what they used to be’ Biography Motown as a session drummer, playing for real aspirations during this period were far Frank Sinatra or Sammy Davis Jr and was of stage-fright that led Gaye to retreat bands like Martha and the Vandellas, the removed from the upbeat party songs or heavily influenced by the jazz-inflected from public view at the end of the sixties. Marvelettes and the Spinners. soul ballads for which he became known. phrasings of Nat King Cole.7 Subsequently Between ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ An early record of jazz standards had expressing his frustration with the Motown and What’s Going On, he ventured into Motown family failed to chart but Gaye retained visions system in an interview with Rolling production work for other artists. Worn Gaye became a staple member of the of himself as a crooner in the mould of a Stone’s Ben Fong-Torres, Gaye described out from chasing after Anna Gordy-Gaye, Motown family (also himself as a ‘free-thinking person’ who whom he suspected of infidelity, Gaye’s marrying Berry did not respond well to Berry Gordy’s mind took a turn. As he told an interviewer Gordy’s sister Anna regimented, assembly-line approach: in the late 1970s, leading up to the making of in 1964), churning Invariably, when you are a free-thinking What’s Going On: ‘I stopped thinking about out hits throughout person, one who feels he or she has my erotic fantasies and started thinking the sixties - from something on the ball, and involved in a about the [Vietnam] war.’10 Increasingly the apt ‘Stubborn group of people who are in power, and aware of his country’s slide into chaos and Kinda Fellow’ in you don’t become part of the power … or violence- what with Vietnam, the 1967 race 1963, to his run of bend toward it, or…that’s the problem riots in Detroit and the Kent State shootings duets with Tammi right there. It was power against me, (1970) - Gaye was also under keen pressure Terrell (whose and I didn’t like the feeling of made to from Berry Gordy to produce another premature death in do something simply because a bunch of hit. As Gaye told biographer David Ritz: 1970 from a brain people said this is that I should do […] and My phone would ring, and it’d be Motown tumour greatly the biggest insult was that they always wanting me to start working and I’d say, affected Gaye), claimed they recognized me as talent […] ‘Have you seen the paper today? Have to the paranoid but they never proved it by letting me do you read about these kids who were killed torment of ‘Heard my own thing.8 at Kent State?’ The murders at Kent State it Through the It was this sense of being treated ‘as though made me sick. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t Grapevine’ in 1968. I’m a robot’9 coupled with grief over Tammi stop crying. The notion of singing three- However, Gaye’s Terrell’s death and clustering attacks minute songs about the moon and June 92 ‘Things Ain’t what they used to be’ Biography didn’t interest me. Neither did instant- Me (The Ecology)’ where ‘things ain’t what Al Cleveland and Obie message songs.11 they used to be.’15) Speaking to, if not Benson were already Yet according to Ritz, in 1970 ‘message directly about, the spiritual overtones of working on a song of songs were selling. Edwin Starr’s ‘War’ hit Gaye’s album, Hall writes: Somewhat like the same title and, it big, John and Yoko were hot and so were the religious revivals of the Seventeenth according to Benson, Simon and Garfunkel.’12 But imagining and Eighteenth centuries, individuals as ‘all the music was himself as both cultural commentator diverse as Martin Luther King, James already there’18 before and divine conduit, Gaye saw the artist’s Baldwin [...] and many others demanded Gaye heard the track for purpose as to shock audiences into new that Americans face up to a deteriorating the first time. That said, states of consciousness. His sense that ‘an social order.16 Gaye added lyrics to the artist, if he is a true artist, is only interested Motown songwriter Lamont Dozier has track, produced it and in one thing and that is to wake up the characterised What’s Going On as a sonic brought in his friends minds of men’ was not an affect that could call to attention: We as a people have from the Detroit Lions be achieved in three minutes alone.13 short attention spans and we need to be to add the snippets lectured. And he was lecturing the people of conversation that A sonic call to attention with those songs that were going right punctuate ‘What’s According to James C. Hall, for many into each other like that.17 Going On’ - lending it the African-American artists throughout the As a form, the concept album was the ideal feeling of ‘a successful 1960s, there was a rising and ‘fundamental format for Gaye’s messages of equality, social festivity’ rather disbelief in the inherent goodness of the ecology, pacifism and an end to familial What’s Going On. Inspired by the horror- than ‘of uprisings or offerings of modernity’14, fed by events such discord. Providing him with the expressive stories Frankie Gay (Gaye’s brother) told demonstrations,’19 as Eric Henderson puts as the Birmingham, Alabama bombings latitude he had felt lacking from the returning from Vietnam, coupled with the it. The listener becomes interlocutor – an of 1963. This disbelief permeates What’s 3-minute format, What’s Going On is the violence witnessed in San Francisco by effect heightened by the multi-layering Going On with its often prelapsarian sound of an artist driving his message home Renaldo “Obie” Benson when he was on of Gaye’s vocal throughout the record. longings for a better time (especially the but taking in the scenery along the way. tour with the Four Tops, ‘What’s Going This conversational, anecdotal register case in the regretful refrain of ‘Mercy Mercy ‘What’s Going On’ was written before On’ was a joint effort. Motown songwriter continues throughout What’s Going On, 94 ‘Things Ain’t what they used to be’ Biography especially in ‘What’s Happening Brother’, politics comes out in a 1972 Rolling Stone What’s Going On is an album of questions; insistent, his melodies ruminate, swing where Gaye imagines his brother returning interview. When asked whether he intended from that implied by the title track with and lazily stretch back (the exception from Vietnam to an America he no longer to continue with ‘more serious work’ its double-meaning - Gaye is going to tell being the bluesy opening and spiralling understands, wondering whether ‘things after What’s Going On, Gaye responds: us “what’s going on” but he also wants flutes of ‘Right On’, although this too are really gettin’ better, like the newspapers If you notice, I never stepped on anybody’s us to ask - to the plaintive ‘where did all has a distinctively languorous feel). But said.’20 toes and I didn’t intend to. Somebody said the blue skies go?’ of ‘Mercy Mercy Me lecture he does, according to Motown’s The appeal of ‘What’s Going On’ and, to the other day, “That’s a fine black album.” (The Ecology).’ Of the latter, David Kahn Lamont Dozier.