FEATURE:
Mercy Mercy Me
Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On at Fifty
___________
I want to bring in a few articles…
IN THIS PHOTO: Marvin Gaye in 1971/PHOTO CREDIT: Redferns
to mark fifty years of Marvin Gaye’s stunning eleventh studio album, What’s Going On. It turns fifty on 21st May. There will be commemoration and celebration around the world. Not only a moment when Gaye hit a real peak; many of the songs and themes documented through the album are relevant today – from alarm about the environment to racial injustice and violence. One can listen to What’s Going On on one level and appreciate its musicianship, incredible vocals and overall quality. On another, one can listen closely to Gaye’s imploration regarding sanity, peace and progression. I think that is why the album resonates today: we have not really moved on as a world in many ways. I am going to get to some articles and a review of the seminal What’s Going On. Before that, a little overview regarding its recording and impact:
“What's Going On is the eleventh studio album by American soul singer, songwriter, and producer Marvin Gaye. It was released on May 21, 1971, by the Motown Records-subsidiary label Tamla.
Gaye recorded the album between 1970 and 1971 in sessions at Hitsville U.S.A., Golden World, and United Sound Studios in Detroit, and at The Sound Factory in West Hollywood, California. It was his first album to credit him as a producer and to credit Motown's in-house studio band, the session musicians known as the Funk Brothers.
What's Going On is a concept album with most of its songs segueing into the next and has been categorized as a song cycle. The narrative established by the songs is told from the point of view of a Vietnam veteran returning to his home country to witness hatred, suffering, and injustice. Gaye's introspective lyrics explore themes of drug abuse, poverty, and the Vietnam War. He has also been credited with promoting awareness of ecological issues before the public outcry over them had become prominent.
The album was an immediate commercial and critical success, and came to be viewed by music historians as a classic of 1970s soul. In 2001, a deluxe edition of the album was released, featuring a recording of Gaye's May 1972 concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Broad-ranging surveys of critics, musicians, and the general public have shown that What's Going On is regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time and a landmark recording in popular music. In 2020, it was ranked number one on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time”.
I want to bring in an article that talks about the powerful title track. It is a song that has so much punch and importance, at a moment when there is racial violence and intolerance around the world – it is especially pronounced in the U.S.
Not to cobble together different sections from a fascinating article, but Sound on Sound dissected the recording of What’s Going On back in 2011. I wanted to highlight some interesting portions. We get some recollections and insights from engineer Ken Sands:
“For the previous few years, Gaye had felt increasingly frustrated by the lack of artistic freedom afforded him by the commercial, pop‑oriented edicts of the Motown hit machine and its autocratic founder Berry Gordy (who also happened to be his brother‑in‑law). Then, in March 1970, when a brain tumour claimed the life of Gaye's friend and collaborator Tammi Terrell, he plunged into a full‑blown depression. Refusing to sing on stage or in the studio, he made an unsuccessful attempt to join the Detroit Lions football team, before agreeing to record once more, but only on his own terms, which meant making artistic decisions without deferring to Motown's head honcho.
"In 1969 or 1970, I began to re‑evaluate my whole concept of what I wanted my music to say,” Gaye would later tell Rolling Stone magazine. "I was very much affected by letters my brother was sending me from Vietnam, as well as the social situation here at home. I realised that I had to put my own fantasies behind me if I wanted to write songs that would reach the souls of people. I wanted them to take a look at what was happening in the world.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Marvin Gaye in 1973
Accordingly, after a golf game with Obie Benson and Al Cleveland resulted in them playing Marvin Gaye the unfinished song back at his house, he came up with the title and added more lyrics, while also embellishing the melody on his piano. 'What's Going On', Gaye thought, would be ideal for the Originals, whose hits 'Baby I'm for Real' and 'The Bells' he had co‑written and produced. Benson convinced him otherwise, and so on June 10th, 1970, Marvin Gaye entered Studio A at Motown's Hitsville USA to record the song himself.
In the case of 'What's Going On', it was Steve Smith who recorded the basic drums, bass and piano.
"That's how Marvin would usually start his sessions,” Sands continues with regard to the general approach on Gaye's records. "He'd play the piano while Pistol [Richard 'Pistol' Allen] was on the drums and Jamerson was on bass, and he would also do a demo vocal along with that rhythm track on track one. The microphones that we used were tube Neumann U67s; they had an extremely clean sound, but they would also allow for a certain amount of distortion/compression that was just enough to give things an edge.
"Pistol would play a relatively small, dark mother-of-pearl Rogers drum kit that was actually designed for jazz. There was a large ride cymbal, a crash on the left, a small tom‑tom, a floor tom‑tom and snare. Pistol would keep that set tuned the way he liked it for playing — he was responsible for the drum sound after Benny Benjamin died.
"Benny was a heavy drummer with a broader sound,” Sands says. "Pistol, on the other hand, was a really good, close friend of mine, and he taught me how to play drums. Then there was Uriel Jones — they were consummate jazz musicians. To record Pistol, I would use just three mics: an RCA DX77 ribbon on the foot, a U67 on the snare, and a U67 overhead. People couldn't believe we were using a ribbon microphone on a bass drum — 'Why would you do that?' The wave front of a bass drum would tend to stretch the ribbon of a ribbon microphone, but that's what we used. That was the foot sound, that was Motown.”
The result, after Ken Sands took care of the mix, was a protest song like no other that had come before; a number that, rather than ask "what's going on,” answered this by reporting on America's struggles and Marvin Gaye's personal strife without bitterness or anger. In a relaxed, laid‑back manner that exuded empathy and understanding, Gaye addressed a "father, father” in reference to his troubled relationships both with God and the patriarch who would eventually kill him, and reached out to the "brother, brother, brother” as an appeal to not only his Vietnam vet sibling Frankie, but all of humankind.
"You see, war is not the answer, For only love can conquer hate,” Gaye intoned, blending the vocal spirituality of his gospel roots with the soulfulness and warmth of the song's sax breaks and jazz‑flavoured rhythms, but this didn't impress Berry Gordy. On the contrary, denouncing 'What's Going On' as "too jazzy”, after Gaye presented it to him with the religiously‑infused B‑side 'God Is Love', the Motown CEO refused to issue the single.
The possibility that Gaye's political statements might alienate certain white listeners can't have been Gordy's primary concern — earlier in 1970, he had approved the release of Edwin Starr's 'War' and the Temptations' 'Ball Of Confusion' (mixed by Ken Sands with producer Norman Whitfield). Quite simply, he just didn't like 'What's Going On', telling Harry Balk — who had sold his Impact and Inferno labels to Motown before running its Creative Division — that it sounded "old” and that he hated its "Dizzy Gillespie‑styled scats”.
Marvin Gaye responded by refusing to record any other material until 'What's Going On' was released, and when Gordy asked Smokey Robinson — then Motown's Vice President, as well as one of its biggest stars — to persuade the Prince of Soul to change his mind, Robinson informed him that, "like a bear shitting in the woods, Marvin ain't budging.”
The stalemate lasted several months until January of 1971, when Harry Balk pushed for the single's release. Quality Control's Billie Jean Brown disagreed, so they turned to Vice President of Sales Barney Ales, who sided with Balk, resulting in 100,000 copies being pressed and promo singles being mailed to radio stations. Gordy was placated when the former sold out within 24 hours, leading to the pressing of a further 100,000 discs to meet demand and 'What's Going On' hitting the top spot on the R&B chart that March. Reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100, it ended up shifting over two‑and‑a‑half million units, making it the fastest‑selling release in Motown's history up until that time.
By then, predictably, Berry Gordy had commissioned the recording of an entire album to cash in on the single's success. Ken Sands took care of the strings and brass on those sessions alongside David Van DePitte in Studio B, while also recording the lead vocals and some of the backing vocals. The rhythm section and other parts were tracked at Studio A, Detroit's United Sound Studios and The Sound Factory in West Hollywood before, according to Sands, he did the final mix on the tenth floor of the Motown Center. Completed in May 1971 and released that same month, What's Going On was the first of Marvin Gaye's albums to afford him credit as sole producer.
"Steve Smith did a couple of mixes and I did the final one,” Sands recalls, contradicting the conventional wisdom that, after he arrived in LA for a film project, Gaye scrapped 'The Detroit Mix' and remixed the album to give it an even softer, smoother feel. "It was my mix that I heard on the radio,” Sands insists, "and that was my final assignment for Motown before the company relocated to the West Coast.”
Either way, What's Going On remained on the Billboard Top 200 for over a year, selling more than two million copies, while being named 'Album Of The Year' by Rolling Stone, which, in 2003, would rank it number six on its list of the '500 Greatest Albums Of All Time”.
Every song on What’s Going On is a gem! They are all powerful in their own way. As this article explores, the story behind the title track is intriguing and important:
“The spring of 1970 was a dark time for Marvin Gaye. His beloved duet partner Tammi Terrell had died after a three-year struggle with a brain tumor. His brother Frankie had returned from Vietnam with horror stories that moved Marvin to tears. And at Motown, Marvin was stymied in his quest to address social issues in his music.
While he was pondering his next move, a song fell in his lap that would provide a channel for all his sorrow and frustration.
The initial idea for “What’s Going On” came to Four Tops member Obie Benson when he was in San Francisco in 1969.
“They had the Haight-Ashbury then, all the kids up there with the long hair and everything,” he told MOJO. “The police was beating on the kids, but they wasn’t bothering anybody. I saw this, and started wondering what was going on. ‘What is happening here?’ One question leads to another. ‘Why are they sending kids so far away from their families overseas?’ And so on.”
Benson shaped his tune with fellow Motown writer Al Cleveland, then pitched it to the Four Tops. But they weren’t interested in a protest song. Obie played a rough version to Joan Baez, who also passed. He then brought it to Marvin Gaye, who loved it, saying it would be perfect for the Originals, a Motown vocal quartet he was producing.
PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Benson disagreed, giving Marvin an ultimatum. “I finally put it to him like this: ‘I’ll give you a percentage of the tune if you sing it, but if you do it on anybody else you can’t have none of it.’”
Marvin agreed, then set about earning his writer’s percentage of the song. “He definitely put the finishing touches on it,” Benson said. “He added lyrics, and he added some spice to the melody. He added some things that were more ghetto, more natural, which made it seem more like a story than a song. He made it visual. He absorbed himself to the extent that when you heard the song you could see the people and feel the hurt and pain. We measured him for the suit, and he tailored it.”
Marvin was so thrilled by “What’s Going On” that he tracked down Berry Gordy while the boss was on vacation. “I was in the Bahamas trying to relax,” Gordy recalled in a Motown documentary. “He called and said, ‘Look, I’ve got these songs.’ When he told me they were protest songs, I said, ‘Marvin, why do you want to ruin your career?’”
All Motown artists went through a finishing school that taught them to carefully avoid controversial topics in both their interviews and music. But since day one of his tenure at the label, Marvin Gaye was a rebel. He’d come to blows with Gordy over lesser things. He wasn’t about to back down now.
To record “What’s Going On” and the concept album around it, Marvin drew from the full arsenal of local talent, from house arranger David Van De Pitte to the Funk Brothers. Paying for the sessions himself, Marvin drafted in extra players, including several Detroit Symphony members and two friends from the Detroit Lions football team to add street chatter.
Before ending with a recent article about the relevance of What’s Going On today, I think it is important to source a positive review. I think the album is one of the most highly-regarded in all of music. It is a masterpiece that has resonated through the years and inspired generations. In their review, this is what AllMusic had to say:
“What's Going On is not only Marvin Gaye's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With What's Going On, Gaye meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past -- as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty. These feelings had been bubbling up between 1967 and 1970, during which he felt increasingly caged by Motown's behind-the-times hit machine and restrained from expressing himself seriously through his music. Finally, late in 1970, Gaye decided to record a song that the Four Tops' Obie Benson had brought him, "What's Going On." When Berry Gordy decided not to issue the single, deeming it uncommercial, Gaye refused to record any more material until he relented. Confirmed by its tremendous commercial success in January 1971, he recorded the rest of the album over ten days in March, and Motown released it in late May. Besides cementing Marvin Gaye as one of the most important artists in pop music, What's Going On was far and away the best full-length to issue from the singles-dominated Motown factory, and arguably the best soul album of all time.
Conceived as a statement from the viewpoint of a Vietnam veteran (Gaye's brother Frankie had returned from a three-year hitch in 1967), What's Going On isn't just the question of a baffled soldier returning home to a strange place, but a promise that listeners would be informed by what they heard (that missing question mark in the title certainly wasn't a typo). Instead of releasing listeners from their troubles, as so many of his singles had in the past, Gaye used the album to reflect on the climate of the early '70s, rife with civil unrest, drug abuse, abandoned children, and the spectre of riots in the near past. Alternately depressed and hopeful, angry and jubilant, Gaye saved the most sublime, deeply inspired performances of his career for "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," and "Save the Children." The songs and performances, however, furnished only half of a revolution; little could've been accomplished with the Motown sound of previous Marvin Gaye hits like "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "Hitch Hike" or even "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." What's Going On, as he conceived and produced it, was like no other record heard before it: languid, dark, and jazzy, a series of relaxed grooves with a heavy bottom, filled by thick basslines along with bongos, conga, and other percussion. Fortunately, this aesthetic fit in perfectly with the style of longtime Motown session men like bassist James Jamerson and guitarist Joe Messina. When the Funk Brothers were, for once, allowed the opportunity to work in relaxed, open proceedings, they produced the best work of their careers (and indeed, they recognized its importance before any of the Motown executives). Bob Babbitt's playing on "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" functions as the low-end foundation but also its melodic hook, while an improvisatory jam by Eli Fountain on alto sax furnished the album's opening flourish. (Much credit goes to Gaye himself for seizing on these often tossed-off lines as precious; indeed, he spent more time down in the Snakepit than he did in the control room.) Just as he'd hoped it would be, What's Going On was Marvin Gaye's masterwork, the most perfect expression of an artist's hope, anger, and concern ever recorded”.
After the murder of George Floyd last year, a lot of people were asking what was happening in the world. It seemed unbelievable to watch a police office kill an innocent Black man. This incident was not isolated. Brutality, police racism and injustice still reigns around the world. It is especially noticeable in America, particularly given the gun laws and the number of shooting we have heard about. I want to end by quoting from this article, where musician Devon Gilfillian revealed why, recently, the title track from Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On hit hard:
“(CNN)As a child, musician Devon Gilfillian remembers his father, a professional wedding singer, harmonizing with Marvin Gaye's iconic "What's Going On" album in their living room. While the groove of the music was palpable, the lyrics were lost on a young Gilfillian.
The haunting questions of the song resurfaced to Gilfillian, now 31, following the murder of George Floyd. In a recent interview for a new CNN documentary about Gaye's work, titled "What's Going On: Marvin Gaye's Anthem for the Ages," the Grammy-nominated artist and activist recalled rediscovering the album just before heading to a protest in Nashville last summer.
"I saw people with instruments, I saw people with drums, and I was like, man, I want to bring my guitar and I'm like, 'What am I going to sing?''
His song choice, "What's Going On," was easy, but performing it was not.
"I went home, picked the guitar up and started strumming through it. And immediately I just started crying," Gilfillian said.
It was an epiphany, a lyrical catharsis delivered from one man to another, a half-century later.
"He's saying everything, mother, mother, there's too many of us crying, brother brothers, too many of us dying. Father, we don't need to escalate. War is not the answer," Gilfillian said. "It hurt to sing those words. I was legitimately sad and upset and angry."
That was the moment Gilfillian caught up with the message, "I felt like Marvin was like, yo, see, this is what I was trying to say."
Gilfillian has since released a cover album of "What's Going On," paying homage to a man who was pleading for the world to listen, tackling controversial issues, perhaps, before some could hear them.
Who the hell was writing songs about the ecology?" music critic Nelson George said in a conversation for the special. "('Mercy, Mercy, Me') is a song about environmental racism in 1971."
"I'm not sure, in 1971 people wanted to hear that we were burning up the planet and we were polluting the oceans." Marvin Gaye biographer, David Ritz, told CNN for the same project. "He got the message across by grooving it up so craftily until you want to hear it over and over and over again."
"His melodies were like a voice of cry." Sheila E., who toured with Marvin Gaye in 1982-83, says in the film. "(He) talked about the ghetto, talked about injustice, talked about the war. But he wasn't yelling and protesting."
Gilfillian describes Gaye's music as a subtle seduction.
"He makes you hear the lyrics, which are very important and potent. But then he tricks you into listening to them with his music, you know, by making you move and feel and hypnotizing you. And at the same time, you don't know you're actually getting woke”.
Ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of one of the greatest albums ever, many people around the world will share their memories. Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father when he was aged only forty-four. It was such a premature and tragic death that, sadly, brings to light some of What’s Going On’s lyrics regarding violence and tolerance. In spite of the fact we lost Gaye far too early, we remember him through his music. What’s Going On, I feel, is his ultimate release. After all of these years, Gaye’s eleventh studio album remains…
A peerless work of wonder.