Marvin Gaye was probably the best listening homework we have had so far. I really enjoyed his album “What’s Going On.” While the Beatles and the Beach Boys have their place, I would much rather listen to someone like Marvin Gaye.
Before Marvin Gaye was a solo artist, he started as a studio musician in the Snake Pit studio of Motown. He spent hours of his life recording and arranging songs for big name artists of that era. He finally found his place in music once he got his record “What’s Going On” distributed.
This album was greatly influenced by people around him that were going through hards times and even people he didn’t know. His brother shared many stories with him about people in Vietnam while he was there for the war. He decided to sort of “call out” people on all the hate going on in the world.
Once the album was recorded and finished, the hardest part was getting it cleared by the higher ups. His biggest obstacle was actually his wife’s brother, Gordy. He refused to send this album up to the next person in line for approval.
Marvin did not want to be like the normal Motown style artist. He went as far as getting a whole new set of studio musicians to come in and help him record the album. All the other albums had the same producers, engineers, arrangers, and writers. He decided to not use any of them and have his own sound. His engineer accidentally played two different tracks of Marvin’s vocals at once created a double of his voice. When Marvin heard this he feel in love with it and this become sort of his signature sound of that time.
As an engineer, I really liked this album. Marvin, as rebellious as he was, realized the importance of sound quality and made a really good sounding album. I liked how he talked about needed to love each more. I love the idea of loving each other and helping your neighbor. It’s a very powerful message he presents to us.
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