Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On"
It's Music Monday and the album of the week is Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On". Let's take a deeper look!
Gaye had fallen into a deep depression before the album's conception
Following the brain tumor diagnosis of his Motown singing partner Tammi Terrell, the failure of his marriage, a growing dependency on cocaine, troubles with the IRS, and struggles with Motown Records, Gaye attempted suicide with a handgun, only to be stopped by Berry Gordy's (the founder of Motown) father.
At the time, the singer was considering a career shift to play in the NFL
Around the spring of 1970, Gaye also began seriously pursuing a career in football with the professional football team the Detroit Lions of the NFL, even working out with the Eastern Michigan Eagles football team.
The 1969 People's Park Protest planted the album's seed
Four Tops member Renaldo "Obie" Benson witnessed an act of police brutality and violence against anti-war protesters at Berkeley's People's Park:
"I saw this and started wondering 'what was going on, what is happening here?' One question led to another. Why are they sending kids far away from their families overseas? Why are they attacking their own kids in the street?" Al Cleveland wrote and composed a song based on his conversations with Benson. After his Four Tops bandmates turned the song down, Benson offered the song to Gaye. Gaye suggested the moody flow would be better fit for The Originals but Benson eventually convinced Gaye the song belonged to him.
"My partners told me it was a protest song" said Benson "I said 'no man, it's a love song, about love and understanding. I'm not protesting. I want to know what's going on.'"
Gaye had personal connections surrounding making a protest album
Marvin's brother, Frankie had served in the Vietnam War. Letters between the two after Frankie returned from service deeply affected Marvin as he was troubled by the treatment of veterans. The second track, 'What's Happening Brother' is dedicated to Frankie.
The 1965 Watts riots was also cited as a pivotal moment in Gaye's life: "with the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs?" He suggested to Berry Gordy about doing a protest record, to which Gordy replied, "Marvin, don't be ridiculous. That's taking things too far."
The laid-back sessions of the title track were credited to lots of "marijuana smoke and rounds of Scotch"
Gaye's trademark multi-layering vocal approach came off initially as an accident
Engineer Kenneth Sands later explained that Gaye had wanted advice on which of the two lead vocal takes for 'What's Going On' he should use for the final song. Steve Smith and Sands accidentally mixed the two lead vocal takes together and Gaye loved the sound, deciding to keep and use it for the duration of the entire album.
'Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)' functions as an emotional plea for the environment
And 'Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)' focuses on urban poverty
It was Gaye's first album to credit Motown's in-house session musicians, known as the Funk Brothers
The group was made up of Detroit-based session musicians who performed the backing to most Motown recordings from 1959 until the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972 and Gaye functioned as a Funk Brother keyboardist in Detroit from 1961–1962.
Gaye was the first male solo artist to place three top ten singles on the Hot 100 from one album
The title track, and the album's lead single, hit number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and held the top position on Billboard's Soul Singles chart five weeks running. The follow-up singles 'Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)' and 'Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)' also reached the top 10 of the Hot 100.
It was ranked number one on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time
'What's Going On' also earned the slot for Rolling Stone's greatest song of all time.
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