The y The Music Stopped
The Day The Music Stopped-A Series
Some believe your birth and life are predetermined, recorded in the “Book of Life”. Set forth by dimensions and destiny high above your pay-grade. This may be true... and if it is... you definitely want your name recorded. Some also believe in Karma, latent shit that comes back to haunt you life after life... Something only you can atone for... good or bad you own it.
Who can fathom Karma that murders you 12-hours before your 45th birthday; dad fires the killing shot point blank through your heart- with a “Saturday Night Special”... in front of your mother? Shakespeare could not write a more tragic tale of abuse, hate, jealousy paranoia and musical elan. Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., known professionally as Marvin Gaye, April 2, 1939 in the DC projects. Mom was a domestic worker, Gay Sr. a preacher, who once had the divine gift of healing touch. Now absent the gift he becomes strict-violent and abusive too everyone he “loves”. A closet cross dresser, who becomes a stone alcoholic, fallen from divine grace. Marvin begins to sing at age 4- in church... where else! The boy has a gift and he makes it look/sound swell. He gets serious and as a teen begins to network with other musicians and “people in the business”. Sings do-wop on the corner with local groups, and connects up with movers in the local music scene. In an attempt to escape his father, who beats him 6 out of 7 days a week, he joins the USAF, but soon realizes he's not gonna be fixing fighter jets, just shit work, hard ass sergeants trading one abusive home for another. Marvin gets discharged by acting bat shit crazy and dogging it.
Following his discharge from the Air Force, Gay and his good friend Reese Palmer formed a quartet The Marquees. The group performs with Bo Diddley and knocks around.They ultimately fail to chart, and the group is drooped from Columbia Records. Marvin adds the letter (e) to his last name, cause of fairy jokes and such. Gaye begins composing music during this period and plays the drums, seeing himself as a “drummer” more than a singer. Marvin has been beating the skins for years and is a good stick man drummer.
The group finds work as session singers for established acts such as Chuck Berry. Gaye's initial recordings fail terribly. Commercially he spent most of 1961 performing session work as a drummer for artists such as The Miracles, The Marvelettes and blues artist Jimmy Reed for $5 a week....51 clams in today $$. Playing part of the Chitlin' Circuit, a series of rock shows performed at venues that welcomed mostly black musicians, success finally comes like a slow moving flood “Motown”. Marvin sings some singles and is getting noticed. Then in 64' "How Sweet it is to be Loved by You" and Dick Clark- American Bandstand fame... gets him seen and heard nationwide.
Marvin is a duet crooner with Kim Weston, Mary Wells, Diana Ross but is remembered for his natural glow with lovely Tammi Terrell. Gaye had two number-one R&B singles in 1965 with the Miracles–composed "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar".
Marvin recorded sixty seven charted singles on the Billboard charts, with forty-one reaching the top forty,18- reaching the top ten and 3- peaking at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Marvin marries Anna Gordy/Berry Gordy's daughter, they eventually divorce. Marries again, has kids and gets divorced again. Gaye was the father of three children: Marvin III, Nona, and Frankie. Marvin III was the biological son of Anna's niece, Denise Gordy, who was only 16-at the time of the birth. Nona and Frankie were born to Gaye's second wife, Janis.
Marvin had issues snorting coke, so he would use it by either rubbing it on his gums or eating it, but by the late 1970s, he had developed a serious dependence and addiction to the drug and would later begin freebasing while in London. In those days, liquor, drugs, gambling, broads... if it's not one poison it's another looking for ya!
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The 1985 Commodores song "Nightshift" was a tribute to Gaye. His 1983 NBA All-Star performance of the national anthem, Lifetime Grammy Award, R+R Hall of Fame, Top 200 vocal Artists, numerous film soundtracks “The Big Chill”, Post office, streets and Marvin Gaye Day in DC honored after him. Marvin defines the era, the tone, the chaotic shit going down all around. Look back and listen, there were so many righteous people playing/singing/performing...a golden era of golden musical talent. You gotta have something to be remembered...Marvin Gaye had it.
Gaye’s mother, Alberta Cooper Gay, spoke out a number of times about the harbored animosity Gay Sr. held for his boy. “My husband never wanted Marvin, and he never liked him, For some reason, he didn’t love Marvin, and what’s worse, he didn’t want me to love Marvin either. Marvin wasn’t very old before he understood that.” We can only hope that Marvin fixes his shadow Karma ...next time around.