MARVIN GAYE BIOGRAFIA

MARVIN GAYE BIOGRAFIA

Era un adolescente en esa época, 1975-77 +-, un chaval con vocación libertaria y con muchas ganas de conocerlo todo, cuando descubrí, a través del Giussepe y del Disco Expres, uno de los discos que sin duda alguna, yo, humildemente, considero, por derecho propio IMPRESCINDIBLE.


Esta es la biografía conocida de Marvin Gaye, una vida marcada por la desgracia, una experiencia condicionada desde su infancia por la relación con su padre, que fue quien puso fin a su vida. El pasado 1 de Abril se cumplieron 20 años de su muerte.


Marvin Pentz Gaye, nació el 2 de abril de 1939, en Washington D.C. Su padre era un ministro de la iglesia, fue criado entre música gospel y mensajes evangélicos, desde su más tierna infancia es una persona problemática, tenía una gran pasión por las chicas y por las peleas entre bandas, así como poco interés por los libros.
A los 15 años Gaye cantaba en la iglesia de su padre y en el grupo Raimbows. Ganó un concurso de talentos con el tema “The ten commandaments of love”. Raimbows se convirtió en The Marquees. Cumplió su servicio militar en aviación, cuerpo del que fue expulsado por problemas psíquicos.
Fue batería en los principios de Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. Tras esta etapa descubrió su verdadera vocación, quería ser cantante de Jazz, empezando a cantar con un grupo llamado The Moonglows, dedicados a la música Doowop, liderado por Harvey Fuqua. En 1961 Harvey Fuqua y él salían con las hermanas de Berry Gordy que era uno de los principales editores discográficos del país. Por mediación de Anna Gordy, con la que contrajo matrimonio en 1962, firmó un contrato con la Tamla Motown, editando su primer Lp “The soulful moods of Marvin Gaye”, que fue un desastre comercial, que obligó a cambiar a Gaye su estilo de música pasando al Soul puro.
Su cuñado le buscó una nueva imagen de cantante guapo y sexy, convirtiendo a Marvin Gaye en un símbolo erótico, a partir de entonces ninguna de sus canciones pasaría desapercibida: “Try it baby”, “How sweet it is to be loved by you”, “Ain´t that peculiar”... Llegando a alcanzar en 1964 altos puestos en el top 20 de los hits en EE.UU. Tras llegar a la cima del éxito colaboró con la cantante Tammi Terrell con la que tuvo una aventura extramatrimonial por la cual se divorció de su mujer Anna Gordy.
En 1970 Tammi Terrell murió de un tumor cerebral y Marvin entró en una depresión de la cual se recuperó centrando su trabajo en la política y en los problemas sociales.
En 1971 apareció con “Inner city blues” y “What's going on” de la que es autor de la música y de la letra. Con “What´s going on” fue número 6 en los hit USA.
Marvin producía sus propios discos, independientemente de la compañía discográfica, privilegio que sólo compartía con Stevie Wonder, ya que Berry Gordy tenía un férreo control sobre sus artistas.
En 1973 replantea otra vez su estilo musical cambiando la canción política por la sensual. Eso se refleja en su álbum “Let's get it on”. Tras este Lp, trabajó con Diana Ross en “Diana and Marvin”, disco que llegó al número 2 de las listas.
En su vida privada sufre un nuevo revés, su mujer le abandona por su mejor amigo Teddy Pendergrass, denunciándolo además por malos tratos y abuso sexual.
Tras estos lamentables hechos y para pagar la manutención de sus hijos, publica el álbum doble “Here my dear”, para desaparecer de la vida pública comenzando a vivir como un bohemio, recorriendo Hawai en una roulotte. Refugiándose en el alcohol y las drogas en Bélgica, siendo expulsado de la Motown por esas fechas.
Después de esa oscura etapa autodestructiva resurge con fuerza en 1982 con “Midnight love”, un Lp producido por la CBS. En 1983 fue adorado por el público y la crítica por el tema “Sexual healing”. Lamentablemente el 1 de abril de 1984, en su mejor momento artístico, su padre, que veía a su hijo como un demonio, lo mató de un tiro después de una discusión.

Marvin Gaye a lo largo de su carrera publicó discos magníficos como “ Let`s Get It On o “ Here My Dear “ pero con “ What¨s Going On “ alcanzó la cumbre de su carrera y consiguió algo que muy pocos artistas consiguen, innovar… crear, tanto a nivel musical como de producción( 1971 ) sin olvidarnos del mensaje de la obra, de carácter absolutamente revolucionario ( Vietnam ).
Fue, en origen, un disco que no contó con la aprobación de Berry Gordy Jr. dueño de la todopoderosa Motown Records, para la que trabajaba Marvin desde su época como bateria de los “ Miracles “.
La Motown en ese momento tenia en su escudería a Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Temptations y a toda una constelación de grandes estrellas de la música negra Norteamericana. El control de la compañía sobre la obra de sus artistas era total y su mensaje a nivel social era aséptico y bastante timorato. No se mojaban.
Marvin Gaye en “What¨s Going On “ desahogó su conciencia social en esta obra maestra de la música de color. Doblo su voz hasta el infinito y revoluciono el concepto artístico y musical imperante hasta ese momento. Una obra conceptual, donde las canciones están entrelazadas en una línea argumental de denuncia y critica social.
Se adentra en la guerra de Vietnam, en el estilo de vida americano, en su creencia en Dios. En el contexto histórico de la época y en Estados Unidos todos esos temas eran tabú y por esa razón Berry Gordy Jr. no veía con buenos ojos la publicación del disco, pero al final los resultados económicos y el apoyo unánime del publico y la prensa dieron la razón a Marvin Gaye; tanto que con este disco logró un contrato con el que tenia el control total sobre sus proyectos, convirtiéndose en su propio productor, algo que muy pocos artistas de la Motown podían conseguir Musicos “What¨s Going On”

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Marvin Gaye's extraordinary career matched his extraordinary life, a mixture of blessings and banes, dazzling success and inscrutable pain. His biography and discography are twin reflections of the same dualty: the artistic and personal struggle to heal the split between head and heart, flesh and spirit, ego and God. Meanwhile, the music lives on for the pleasures of its beauty and the marvel that was Marvin's voice.


Marvin's work divides along decades - the sixties when he hit as a commercial if somewhat rebellious artist, a brilliant product of the Motown assembly line; the seventies when he matured as an independent force, a self-produced self-reflective auteur who both rose to the challenge and fell to the temptations of his times; and the early eighties when, for a brief moment, he came roaring back on the scene for the final, tragic act of his spectacular drama.


The seeds of his discontent were sown in childhood. Born April 2, 1939, in Washington, D.C., Marvin Pentz Gaye, Jr. was the oldest son of a charismatic storefront preacher. The church was joyful, the holy roller music intoxicating; but the church was severe, and its no-drinking, no-dancing, no-nonsense regulations strict. The church was also eccentric - a small Christian subculture which celebrated the Jewish High Holy Days.


The church set Marvin, his brother and two sisters apart from ther peers. Marvin's mother worked as a domestic and carried the burden of the family's finances. The Reverend Gay - Marvin added the "e" later - worked as a part-time postal clerk and often not at all. A scholary but violent man, he beat his children for minor infractions and friolous misbehaviour. Marvin rebelled - Marvin would always rebel - and paid the price in corporal punishment.


He quit high school before graduation and joined the Air Force, only to be discharged. "My discharge was honorable", Marvin told me, "although it plainly stated, 'Marvin Gay cannot adjust to regimentation and authourity.'" After working with seminal rocker Bo Diddley, he joined the Moonglows, a quintessential five-part harmony group. It was the end of the fifties, and Marvin's impressions of the dawning Golden Age of Doo-Wop - with its lush romanticism, its otherworldliness, its idealization of women and pure melodic beauty - would prove powerful and permanent.


Harvey Fuqua had founded and led the Moonglows. A superlative writer and musician, he became Marvin's guru father-figure. When the group broke up, it was Fuqua who led Gaye to Detroit and Berry Gordy's just-born Motown Records. Marvin wanted in - into the studio and into the Gordy family. Gaye got what he wanted, marrying Berry's sister Anna, a woman 17 years his senior, and recording an initial series of records which ran contrary to Gordy's notion of selling black dance music to white teenagers.


Marvin dreamed of becoming a crooner in the silky-smooth style of Nat Cole, of besting Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. Shy but ambitious, mellow but fearful, broodingly serious, the singer wanted to sit on a stool, smoke a cigarette, nurse a martini and interpret the ballads of Gershwin and Porter. Gordy indulged Marvin's fantasy, even producing a number of his early efforts. But Marvin and Motown failed to crack the adult market. Gaye's destiny was Top Ten.


Seeing his colleagues - Mary Wells, the Marvelettes, the Miracles - score so resoundingly, Gaye jumped into the game with "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", a self-penned piece of autobiography that established his ability to rock in the rhythms of Young America. The song hit in 1962, as did a long series of others - "Pride and Joy", "Can I Get A Witness?", "I'll Be Doggone", "Ain't that Peculiar". As a writer, Marvin contributed to "Dancing In The Street", the covertly revolutionary anthem by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.


Not only did Gaye score as a solo artist, but proved himself a polished duet partner. "What's the Matter With You, Baby" with Mary Wells, "It Takes Two" with Diana Ross enjoyed widespread popularity. But it was his pairing with Tammi Terrel that created a series of classics - "You're All I Need to Get By", "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing", "You Ain't Livin' Till You're Lovin'", "Good Lovin' Ain't Easy to Come By" - remarkable for their sweeping lyricism.


Norman Whitfield became Mavin's main motivator in the mid-to-late sixties. Their relationship was difficult. Two head-strong men who nearly came to blows, they created sounds combining passionate yearning and restless anger. Whitfield's songs appealed to Gaye in their reflection of the turmoil of Marvin's marriage to Anna. And their most formidable collaboration, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine", expressed an anguish not before heard in Marvin's voice.


At the start of a new decade and on the strength of new sales records, Marvin articulated his declaration of independence in 1971. Now he would produce himself, singing his own songs, setting his own agenda. The result was a landmark in world pop, "What's Going On", a stunningly complex construct - and one of the first concept albums - in which Gaye's views of Vietnam, ecology, racism and religion are fashioned into haunting musical modes.


Marvin loved to shock; he relished surprise. Who else would move from a masterwork of high social consciousness to a celebration of wild eroticism? The shift from "What's Going On" to "Let's Get It On" in 1973 delighted Gaye's fans and served to strengthen his image as both unpredictable iconoclast and mysterious love man. While making "Let's Get It On", 33 year-old Marvin met Janis Hunter who, at 16, would become the second great love of his life. (Marvin and Anna adopted one son, Marvin III; before divorcing Anna, Marvin whould have two children with Janis, Frankie and Nona, now a singer in her own right).


Gaye continued exploring notions of sexuality in 1976 with "I Want You", a suite of overwhelming libidinous energy. A year later, he hit again with "Got to Give It Up", the seductive homegrown dance groove which became a successful oddity in the age of disco. Ironically, the song speaks to Marvin's shyness and obsessional fear of dancing.


His obsession with autobiography with "Here, My Dear", in 1978, the exquisite epic document of the decay of his marriage to Anna. Its theme, "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You", was esepecially poignant; by the time the album was out, Marvin's second marriage was also in shambles, precipitating a collapse in his psyche and career.


Inside Marvin's heart and head, wars raged on. He talked about giving up music and becoming a monk. He talked about being a bigger sex symbol than Elvis. He poured his agonized conflicts into his final album for Motown in 1981, "In Our Lifetime", and nearly hit bottom in London. His salvation, if only temporary, came with a move to Ostend, Belgium, where he and I, based on arhythm track by Odell Brown, wrote the lyrics to "Sexual Healing". As his biographer, it was my way of suggesting what I beleived he needed, a reconciliation of the confusion, fostered in childhood, between pleasure and pain.


With a new CBS contract and "Sexual Healing" topping the charts, Marvin ended three years of exile in 1982. His comeback was triumphant, but quickly turned tragic. His dependency on drugs worsened, his emotional stability collapsed, his humor and easy charm gave way to paranoia and fear.


On April 1, 1984, in his parents Los Angeles home, Marvin physically attacked his father for verbally abusing his mother. Gay Sr. responded by shooting his son to death - using a gun that Marvin himself had given him four months earlier - thus putting to rest a bitter, life-long Oedipal struggle.


Since then, the power and reach of Marvin's music has increased. His legasy as artistic rebel and sensual romanticist is secure. His songs are loved the world over, sung and resung by younger generations who feel the sincerity of his struggle and the joy of his spirit. Marvin Gaye is very much alive.




(David Ritz is the Author of "Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye", as well as biographies of Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Etta James and producer Jerry Wexler. His most recent novel is "Take It Off, Take It All Off!".)