Thirty five minutes and thirty eight seconds of creative brilliance is the best way to describe
Marvin Gaye’s
What’s Going On album.
May 21, 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of this epic opus being released by Tamla Records, a subsidiary of Motown Records. This album remains one of the most prophetic pieces of music to ever be recorded. The nine song offering is a song cycle into the thought process from one of soul music’s best statesmen. And just to think it may have never seen the light of day without the continuous pressure Marvin Gaye placed at the feet of Motown Records president
Berry Gordy.
In early 1970, Gaye was coming off a severe battle with depression after the death of his duet partner and dear friend
Tammi Terrell. He vowed to never perform or record again. As a result, he made the decision to switch careers temporarily by trying out for the National Football League’s professional team, the Detroit Lions. After failing to make the team, he came back into contact with Motown songwriter Al Cleveland and Obie Benson from the popular group,
The Four Tops. The three of them collaborated on the now famous tune “What’s Going On?” The song was written for the Motown collective,
The Originals, but Cleveland and Benson clamored for Gaye to perform the song.
A few months later, Gaye agreed to perform the song and the recording turned out better than any of them imagined. At the end of the 1960s, Gaye began to get the urge to change the direction he was going in as an artist and musician. The world was changing around him and he felt the desire to speak on the atrocities going on here in the United States and abroad. From the correspondence he was receiving from his brother serving in Vietnam, Gaye’s desire became stronger to produce an album centered on the topics of urban gentrification, environmental transgressions, military unrest, unemployment crisis and the rampant police brutality spreading across neighborhoods of color.
