Divided Souls: Marvin Gaye vs. Berry Gordy

Marvin Gaye's 1971 masterpiece What's Going On was recently voted by Rolling Stone magazine the greatest album of all time. But one person who was not a fan of that record initially was the head of Gaye's label, Berry Gordy, the visionary founder of Motown. Gordy believed that alienating white audiences and deviating from a proven pop-R&B formula was commercial poison. But even before What's Going On, Gaye and Gordy were at odds, playing out a twisted father-son dynamic that Gaye instilled from his own deeply troubled childhood. Over time, Gaye and Gordy's professional squabbles would spill into their personal lives, as Gaye married (and acrimoniously divorced) Gordy's sister Anna.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Reveals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:21):
I'm Jordan's. Rolling Stone recently proclaimed What's Going On by
Marvin Gay the greatest album of all time. So today
we're gonna look at the complicated relationship between Marvin and
Motown boss Barry Gordon. And they battled over the decision
to release that record and also many other records and
many other things. They were always at each other's throats
over the years that Marvin was on the label. Yeah,
you know, the story about a visionary artist battling his

(00:42):
record label for creative control is a tale as old
as the music business. But this really is a version
of that story told on the grandest scale because the
stakes are so high. I mean, on one hand, you
have a man who prided himself on essentially building the
pop music factory of all time in Motown, in which
he was the ultimate autour who picked the singers, the songs,

(01:03):
and the musicians. And on the other hand, you have
this visionary, tortured genius who wants to make his own
statement about the state of the world and set it
to music that will progress beyond the formulas of pop music.
It truly is an epic battle. I think it really
fascinates me so much about their relationship is that it
transcends the artist label brass relationship. Marvin married Barry's sister

(01:24):
for reasons that definitely had at least the tinge of
Machia Valley and opportunism. So they were literally family, and
Marvin looked to him in many ways like a mentor
and a father figure. But you know, as we know,
Marvin's relationships with his father figures could be combative, and
you know, at least this one was more fruitful and
way less tragic than his relationship with his actual dad.
Oh man, Yeah, that's for sure. I mean, Marvin Gabers

(01:47):
is his dad would be a much darker episode. So
let's piping away from that and let's look at Marvin
Gaye versus Barry Gordy. Let's get into this mess. Marvin
Gay was born just outside of Washington, d C. To
a very very strict Pentecostal minister, Marvin Gay Senior, who
would just brutally beat him as a boy for like

(02:09):
minor offenses, and he would say to him, I brought
you into this world, I can take you out, and
he made good on this promise in I mean, it
is just beyond tragic. I mean, Marvin's own mother admitted
that Marvin Gay Senior never really wanted him and questioned
whether he even ever loved his son. So relations between
them were not great, and they got worse when Marvin

(02:30):
Senior lost his job many jobs actually, and sort of
descended into alcoholism throughout Marvin's childhood. So the only time
there was really any harmony between the pair was when
they sang together at the local church. Yeah. Yeah, I
don't think this can be overstated that Marvin Gay's dad
was a total monster. I mean I saw this one
documentary in which Marvin's sister tells this story about how

(02:51):
their dad would rattle the buckle on his belt before
he beat his children, you know, just to like psychologically
terrorize them. I mean, this is like he's like the
guy in Saw hunting. Yeah, it's awful, and you know,
and clearly that would have an emotional effect on anyone,
but it really impacted Marvin Gaye. And we're going to
see that as this episode unfolds, just the father's son

(03:14):
dynamic that he would seek out like throughout his life
and his relationships. You know, you know, Marvin, he was
like this free spirited kid. He was an artist. He
was rebellious, and his father would tell him, You're not mine,
you have the devil in you. I mean, just just
just awful treatment from his father, and it really divided
him in half to I mean, David Ritz wrote this
incredible biography about Marvin called Divided Soul that really sums

(03:37):
it up. I mean it really he just felt cut
in half between you know, the church that he grew
up in and the sort of the sensual pleasures of
the secular world. And yeah, he was definitely he was
a tortured man. And it really starts here in his
childhood with his dad, and his dad kicked him out regularly,
and I guess finally when he got kicked out one
too many times, Marvin joined the Air Force, and he

(03:58):
quickly realized that being in the military was even more
oppressive and limit with his dad. So he apparently faked
the mental illness to secure a discharge and uh to
make money to make rent, he he sang and played
drums in local bands, and he was gigging as a
backing singer for people like Chuck Barry and a guy
named Harvey Fuqua, and he made his first recordings with
Harvey in a group called Harvey in the Moon Glows,

(04:18):
and they're on YouTube. There's a song called Mama Lucci,
which I think is Marvin's first appearance on record as
a singer, as a lead singer, and it's really interesting.
Definitely check it out. So Marvin moves to Detroit with
Fuqua after Harvey and the moon Glows split in nineteen
sixty and he's gigging around town a sort of a
working session musician, and he's booked to play a gig
at the Motown Records company Christmas party, and that brought

(04:40):
him in contact with Barry Gordy, who was apparently so
impressed that he basically decided to sign him on the spot. Yeah,
and you know, Barry Gordy was only ten years older
than Marvin Gay, which isn't that great of an age difference,
but it seems like from the beginning he had this
almost like patriarchal role in Marvin Gay's life, and I
think it has a lot to it was just the

(05:00):
natural authority that Barry Gordy had. I mean, Gordy to
me is that archetype of like the manifest destiny great American,
you know that we we've seen throughout history. He's like
the Daniel Plain view of soul. You know, like he's
going out into the desert and he's gonna find oil
and he's going to become a millionaire. Only he's in
the desert of Detroit, and it's gonna be with music.

(05:23):
And if you look at his early life, there's the
series of formative events that you can see really form
his outlook as an artist, because he was an artist,
he was a songwriter, and also as a businessman. Like
for instance, when he was a kid, he was selling
newspapers in the black part of town. It was a
black newspaper, and he had the idea one day that
he was going to go into the white neighborhood and

(05:44):
sell this newspaper. And he had tremendous success. He made
twice as much money as he normally would. And the
next day he decided, oh, I'm gonna bring my friend
with me, and you know, because I want him to
share my good fortune. And he found that when there
were two black kids selling newspapers in the white neighborhood
that he didn't make any money at all. And the
lesson that he learned there was that one black kid

(06:05):
is charming to white people, and two black kids can
be frightening or off putting. So that's one lesson that
he learns. Another lesson that he learns is that when
he's a little bit older, he loves music and he
decides he's going to open a record shop, and he's
a huge jazz fan, so he decides that he's going
to focus on selling jazz records. But he finds that
people really don't want to buy jazz records. They want
to buy pop and R and B records, So his

(06:26):
record store goes out of business. So that's another lesson
that he learns. And then after his record store goes
out of business, he has to get a job, so
he goes to the auto plant and he's working on
the assembly line, and there he can observe this idea,
you know, cooked up by Henry Ford about the assembly line.
This is a way that you can efficiently and relatively
cheaply turn out a lot of high quality product and

(06:49):
make a lot of money in the process. So from
these lessons, we can see from selling newspapers he learned
something about the prejudices of white audiences. From the uh experience,
at the record store, he learns the taste of pop audiences,
and at the Rotto Plant he basically learns the way
that he's going to be operating as the head of motown,

(07:11):
Like he's going to operate motown in the same way
that Henry Ford built cars. We're going to turn things
out according to a formula, you know, dictated by this
sort of mastermind businessman, and we're gonna become rich in
the process. It's also important to note too that kid
Barry was a boxer too, so you have all this
business acumen wrapped up in this like pugnacious, like bantam
guy too, so that that I feel like the boxing

(07:33):
element also college his approach to you know, how he
approaches business deals too. What I mentioned, You know that
he was a songwriter, and one of his most famous
songs that he wrote early in his career is the
song Money, which was a hit for Barrett Strong, I believe,
and then the Beatles covered it and it's just become
a soul standard. But you just think of the course
of that song, you know, like money is what I want,
you know, and there's an irony to that. There's, you know,

(07:56):
sort of an ironic message about America and capitalism in that.
But it seems like in a way that you could
just take that base value in terms of like Berry
Gordon's belief, like he wanted to be rich and he
had the vision to make it happen, and Marvin admired
him so much. Barry became a huge role model in
his life, you know, especially after he rejected his own father. Uh.

(08:16):
You know, Gay was really influenced by strong man. I
mean there was managers, mentors, and later in life, professional
athletes and uh. He would tell his biographer David Ritz later,
I respected Barry for his guts, but even in the beginning,
I knew we were destined to clash. But he was
so impressed with Berry's ability to make money date beautiful women.

(08:38):
He just said, he would say, this cat was serious.
So it was this push and pull from the very beginning,
much like his own dad. And uh, and Barry, as
you said, was always looking out for number one. And
that's something that I think Marvin also really admired about him,
but also when it came to their personal relationship, it
pissed them all. I think he had a begrudging acceptance
of of Barry's ability to control him, because, I mean,

(09:02):
first of all, Barry Gordy is one of the like
most truly terrifying autocrats in music history. I mean, when
you signed to Motown, Barry Gordy truly did own you.
I mean, first of all, the singers didn't choose what
to sing. You were told what to sing by Gordy
and his producers. And if you even if he wrote
songs from Motown like like Marvin did, and Stevie Wonder
and Smokey and those guys would also do. Barry had

(09:22):
the publishing wrapped up from the very beginning too, And
by all accounts, royalty rates were really substandard and song
credits were often improperly assigned. So it's really funny to
think that actually the business stuff wasn't usually what Marvin
and Barry feuded about. I think Marvin actually sort of
in a way, was impressed that Barry was able to
get that level of control. But Marvin, as we've learned

(09:43):
with his dad, doesn't want to be controlled. Ever, I
don't know how much we want to talk about this
in this episode. But there's also the thing with Marvin
Gay's dad about him dressing up in women's clothing. Yes,
and like how that was something that Marvin Gay had
a lot of angst over. That's something that in his
own life drove him to act out in these sort
of displays of machismo like throughout his life because he

(10:07):
was frankly just like scared that what his dad did
is something that he would end up doing in his
own life. And that's you know, obviously speaking to the
prejudices at the time, you know, like about the sort
of discomfort with you know, I guess exploring gender identity
and all that. But I wondered to what degree Marvin
Gay was attracted to Barry Gordy, because Barry Gordy was
more of a macho guy. He like you said, he

(10:28):
was this boxer, he was like, you know, very aggressive
in business. He was dating all these beautiful women. It
seems like, in a way, Barry Gordy could be that
sort of idealized macho dad that he didn't have in
his real family. Yeah, that's a really interesting way of
looking at I mean, Marvin even he changed his own name.
He added an E to his name because he was
worried people were going to pick on him for being

(10:48):
in a Marvin Gay. So it was definitely something that
really haunted him throughout his life. You're right, But getting
back to this issue of control, I mean that is
the thing that ends up really animating the relationship between
Marvin Gay and Barry Gordy, because, like you said, on
some level, the sort of alpha maleness of Barry Gordy,
I think was something that Marvin Gay responded to positively.

(11:09):
And it in still a lot of respect that he
had for that head of Motown because Barry Gordy was
like that. But Marvin Gay also again was this rebellious person.
And I think because Barry Gordy's control extended into to
the art part of it. You know, it wasn't just
the business part. It was also controlling the kind of
music that his artists was doing. Yeah, I think that

(11:31):
was something that obviously became like a huge issue in
their relationship. You know, Marvin Gay once said that, you know,
I felt Barry was the pilot and I was the plane.
And I don't think he said that in a positive way,
Like I don't think he really liked feeling that way. Uh,
and you see this like throughout the sixties years before
what's going on that like Marvin Gay is already sort

(11:54):
of bristling at the control that Barry Gordy is trying
to put on him. From Berry Gordy's perspective, I think
it's worth noting that like Marvin Gay for a long
time was like not the biggest star on Motown. You know,
the artists that were more tightly controlled by Barry Gordy,
you know, the Supremes, Temptations, the Four Tops, they were
much bigger in the sixties and Marvin Gay was and

(12:16):
it kind of took Marvin a while, like to ramp up.
Marvin wanted to basically be the black Sinatra when he
wanted to follow in that King Cole's footsteps and be
this kind of middle of the road balladeer type figure,
which you know, and it was Embarry just had visions
in his head of when he tried to make a
highbrow jazz record store that no one wanted to listen to.
He said, no, this isn't what people want. They want

(12:36):
to dance, they want R and B do this, and
so yeah, I think for the first couple album. I
think his first album was something called what was it like,
the Soulful Sounds of Marvin Soulful Moods of Marvin Gay,
I think, and it was all like old you know,
American songbook type stuff like My Funny Valentine and Love
for Sale and Witchcraft and yeah. They went back and
forth on that for a long time, trying to figure out,

(12:56):
you know, how to how to package him, and Marvin
didn't want to be packaged. I mean, look, in these conflicts,
I'm always on the side of the artist, you know.
I think artists should be free to pursue their muse
and do what they want to do. But I feel
like in terms of the actual product, like Barry Gordy
was maybe right at least in the early years, because
I Marvin Ga is an incredible singer, but like turning

(13:17):
him into this sort of like Black Sinatra type that
Marvin gave himself wanted to be, I mean, I don't
know that that music just seems a little snoozy to me.
Like like when he starts making more prototypical sounding motown
records like in the sixties, that's when he starts getting
really exciting. Oh yeah, absolutely, And I think I think
we also got to talk about two is the fact
that we mentioned this in the intro to Their relationship
is complicated even further by the fact that Marvin is

(13:39):
now part of his Barry's family when he starts dating
and ultimately marrying Barry's sister Anna, and Anna is seventeen
years Marvin's senior. And uh, it's the whole thing just
has shades not only of like Machia Valley, but also
a little edible too, because I guess a lot of
people have said that Anna reminded them of Marvin's own
mother so's and especially if Barry is his sort of

(14:03):
father figure. Yeah, there's a there's a lot to impact
their psychologically. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that
Marvin Gay was pretty screwed up sexually. I mean, let's
let's just you know, again, we we're not gonna delve
too deep into that, but I think just as a
general statement, that's I think I feel pretty confident in
declaring that. Yeah, no, I I agree, And uh, and
their relationship was really troubled too, I mean, he would

(14:23):
there were really wonderful patches. He wrote the song Pride
and Joy for her and and Anub more of other
songs too, but they were also was it was rife
with They would get physically violent with each other at times,
and things got even more strange when, um, I think
another of I think Barry's teenage niece became pregnant and
Marvin and Anna adopted the baby as their own to

(14:46):
sort of so people wouldn't talk that kind of thing.
And I guess even Anna like wore like a fake
bump for a time too. So it added this other
level of like intrigue in their family where they had
this son who wasn't really their son, and it was
this big family secret. So just layers upon ladies, and
then you have all the business stuff on top of that.
So yeah, Marvin's relationship with Barry gets increasingly intense and

(15:06):
complex as the sixties progress. All right, hand, we'll be
right back with more rivals. So Marvin is now married
to Barry Gordy's sister. He's already battling and Berry Gordy
about his career direction, what kind of music he wants

(15:28):
to do. Marvin Gay doesn't want to be packaged. He
wants to do these standards. He wants to do my
funny Valentine. He wants to do really music that's already
seeming old fashioned by the early sixties. Finally, there's a
breakthrough when the writer's at Motown come up with this
song called Stubborn kind of Fellow, and it's basically like
a subtweet of Marvin Gay, because like, they write this

(15:49):
song for Marvin Gay, but it's also saying, like, dude,
you're so stubborn man like you, Like you're a great
looking guy, you have a tremendous voice, but you're doing
these snoozy standards, like we want to turn you into
the pop star we know you can be. So they
write him this song and it ends up being his breakthrough,
and from then on he's on his way. He's going
to start becoming the Marvin Gay that we all know
and love, right. I mean, you get hit songs like

(16:11):
kind of Got a Witness, how sweet it is to
be loved by you? Ain't that peculiar? But these all
really kind of exacerbate the inherent in her conflict in Marvin,
because again it's pushing him into this this secular pop
world and he has he still feels uncomfortable there because
of his religious upbringing, and he also feels incredibly stifled

(16:31):
at this point by Motown's musical assembly lime process. I mean,
he's complaining that he felt like he was just Barri's
puppet and that all the artists were just treated like
products and everything was just all focused on sales and money,
and you know, they made hits like the car factories
in Detroit, you know, I mean it was the same
kind of process. They thought it was totally lacking soul.
So who begins to fight with Barry sometimes physically. There's

(16:53):
some Motown staff members who remember seeing Marvin and Barry
like tussling out in front of the Milan. It hits
all uh like like just literally like like berries and
like boxing with him basically, which is funny because you know,
Barry was a boxer. I guess Marvin at that time
was like ninety pounds and really just kind of scrawny,
so like Barry could definitely take this guy. But it

(17:15):
was it was like cool hand luke. Like Marvin didn't
know when to just stay down. He kept going for it.
And you know, you have just all sorts of different
Motown staff are saying like, yeah, they were just having
a pissing match all the time, Marvin was never going
to give in. And um, as the sixties progressed, Marvin
starts to get more and more politicized. And this is
in the era when Motown makes their artists go to

(17:36):
basically a finishing school to learn how to be you know,
kind of presentable for for white audiences. Is insane as
that sounds, it's the newspaper lesson right there. You know,
it's going back to Barry Gordy's childhood. He feels like, well,
you have to act a certain way to peel the
white audiences. And I mean, I think there's a lot
of truth to that, and you can look at Motown
successor Lyon as a testament to I guess that lesson

(17:59):
that learned early on in his life. Yeah, and at this,
at this sort of finishing school, they taught all the artists,
you know, in interviews, don't basically talk about any don't
basically talk about current events, and just sort of bland
pet pleasantries and that's it. So Marvin starts showing up
to interviews with like copies of Malcolm Hex's biography and
like sol on Ice and these kind of like very

(18:21):
very radicalized books and uh, you know, and Barry sees
this and he's not happy, and probably I would say
one of the most politically adventurous songs that Motown released
in in this period was Marvin sang a version of
the Dion song Abraham, Martin and John about you know,
the assassinations of of Martin, Luther King and um John F.

(18:42):
Kennedy and then Bobby Kennedy. But to that point, Motown
really wasn't touching any of that stuff. They were the
sound of young America. They were just supposed to be,
you know, toe tap and dance songs. So that is
another layer ranks that's being laid on top of the
Marvin Gayberry Gordy dynamic. There's also gonna be something else
crucial that happens in Marvin Gay's life that ends up

(19:03):
just totally destroying him emotionally. And that's the death of
Tammy Terrell, which occurs in nineteen seventies. She dies at
the age of twenty four from a brain tumor. And
you know, Tammy Terrell was like one of those people that, like,
if you don't know her name, you know the duets
that she's sang with Marvin Gay. I mean, you've got
songs like eight No Mountain High Enough, Ain't nothing like
the real thing. You're all I need to get by,

(19:24):
just iconic motown songs, and those two together just had
this great thing going on in the late sixties and
really like some of the biggest hits that Marvin Gay
was having at that time, we're with Tammy Terrell. But
you know, as early as nineteen sixty seven, Tammy was
having health problems. There was an incident in October of
sixty seven where she collapsed into Marvin Gay's arms on stage,
but she continued to work with Marvin basically until the

(19:47):
end of her life, until she was too sick to perform,
and when she died in nineteen seventy, it just again
it devastated Marvin Gay. I saw this story once. It
was in one of the documentaries I watched, where he
would go on stage and wouldn't wouldn't even be able
to sing, like he couldn't talk to the audience, like
he was that despondent. During this time. He also started

(20:08):
getting deep into cocaine around this period, and I think
with Barry Gordy, as far as that relationship goes, like,
didn't Barry Gordy like want to like immediately replaced Tammy
Terrell like with another singer. I think it was Valerie Simpson,
like pretty much as soon as she couldn't sing, he
wanted to put another singer in there. Yeah, they were
doing another duets album, Marvin and Tammy. I think it
was easy. It was their third duet album, and yeah,

(20:29):
and Tammy couldn't sing anymore. But they you know that
this duo sold an incredible amount of records and they
want to get one more out there. So for the
last couple of songs, I think Barry reportedly hired Valerie
Simpson to kind of dub Tammy's parts like ghosts singing
like and that really rubbed Marvin the wrong way. It
really made the underlying sense that he had that you know,
Barry doesn't view us as as people, we've used as

(20:50):
products was really really established then and and I think
at the same time too, and this was the era
when a lot of the Motown artists were starting to
really deal with substance abuse. And you've got people like
you know, Paul Williams from the Temptations who died in
the early seventies, and Florence Ballard who left the Temptations
and also died at a really young age in literally
seventies too, So a lot of his friends were really
in a bad way. And I think on some level

(21:12):
Marvin blamed the Motown machine uh for for pushing him
further and further that way, and and Barry was at
the head of it. Yeah, and you can really see
that Like Marvin Gay, I mean, it just seems like
he felt lost at this time. Like there's that story
about like how he tried out for the Detroit Lions,
which is insane. So he's like because he was just like,
I don't know if I want to be a singer anymore,

(21:33):
so maybe I'll play professional football, which yeah, that it's
crazy that that's your pivot or that's your backup job
to play pro football. And of course I didn't work
because it's Marvin Gay. Even the Detroit Lions, the sorry
Lions are not going to sign Marvin Gay uh for
for their lineup. But even though Marvin Gay decided to
stay with Motown and to continue his career, it seems

(21:55):
like this was a real turning point for him as
far as like finally drawing a line in the sand
about the show business aspects of motown, that he was
not going to play Kaye Berry Gordy anymore. He did
this thing where he grew a beard, which you know,
you look at that now doesn't seem like that's that
big of a rebellious gesture, but for a pop star
of his stature, especially someone who I think, again, he's

(22:16):
such a great looking guy. His face is a big
part of his appeal, and to grow a beard, I
think it was probably a pretty radical thing for him. Um,
I mean he even looked more handsome I think with
a beard. I mean like but again like Barbara Gays,
like just the movie star handsome person. But this always,
I think leading up to What's going On, because this
is going to be his definitive break from the orthodoxy

(22:38):
of motown. And something I didn't really realize was that
the song What's going On was actually written by Obie
Benson of the Four Tops, and he was on tour
with the band and he saw some cops beating up
a kid in in San Francisco and that kind of
planted the seed in his head about this song, and
he offered the song to the Four Tops and they passed.
And he also offered it to Joan Buyas, which is

(22:59):
InCred able to think about, and she didn't know that. Yeah,
that's that's really the definitely interesting like alternate history right there.
If Joan had done What's gone on, But I'm gonna
I'm gonna go on to Limb and say, it would
not be as good as the Mary version. That's that's
a fair yeah. So eventually it landed with Marvin and
it suited exactly where he wanted to go with his music.

(23:21):
And he would later say, you know, in nineteen nine seventy,
I began to reevaluate my whole concept of what I
wanted my music to say. I realized 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. So he polished the melody and reworked
some of the lyrics to reflect his brother's Frankie's experiences

(23:41):
in Vietnam as a soldier and his influence on the song.
He basically turned it into more of a story than
a song, Like it's an incredibly visual work. I mean,
the way it almost is like a poem rather than
a song. Um so this is really his first full
scale independent production. He paid for the sessions himself. He
hired his own musicians, including members of the Detroit Symphony,

(24:04):
and he had some friends from the Detroit Lions in
the session to adding the street chatter that you hear
in the background and uh and yeah, this was really
he would say that this was the moment that he
really found himself in the studio. Even down to his singing,
he's kind of like signature airy tenor, like the way
his voice kind of floats. He's not really belting like
he would on the on the sort of the more

(24:25):
poppy motown R and B stuff. This was really where
we hear like like this is where sexy seventies Marvin
Gay's vocals really originate. Oh yeah, and if you want
a clear demonstration of that, just play What's going On
next to you. I heard it through the grapevine. I mean,
his vocal style is so different, and of course I
heard it through the grapevine. That's awesome too, but it's
much more of a forceful vocal whereas What's going On,

(24:47):
like you said, it has this area almost jazz equality
to it and just completely gorgeous. So you know, imagine
you're Marvin Gay. You've paid for the sessions for the
song What's going On? You know, you hear it and
it's like, this is amazing. I've made this masterpiece. I
have to play for the head of my record label.
So he tracks down Barry Gordy, who I believe was
on vacation at the time, Like I'm not sure where

(25:09):
he was. I just picture Barry Gordy and like Bermuda
shorts or something, and Marvin Gay plays What's going On
for Barry Gordy, and Berry Gordy's responses, this is the
worst thing I've ever heard in my life. That's the quote.
That is the quote, that is the quote, that is
literally what he says that he hates what's going on.
And if you know anything about Barry Gordy, you can

(25:31):
see why he would react this way because it's a
political song. And he believes, again from his newspaper selling
experiences as a boy, that you don't alienate white audiences
by doing anything that they might find threatening. And he
he believes that a black man talking about social issues
is going to be threatening. Why would you think that's threatening.
It's like fifty years later, that's still true in America.

(25:52):
But Barry Gordy is very upset that the song is
doing that, and he also doesn't like the jazziness of
it us Again, that goes back to the lesson that
he learned about his record store, that like, if you
get to jazzy, if you get too complicated in pop music,
that's going to turn the pop audience off. And his
belief was just that, like, if you put this song out,
it's going to ruin your career, and it's also going

(26:15):
to diminish the image of Motown in general. So like, yeah,
he was just dead set against putting this song out.
And they played at Motown had the famous sort of
quality control meetings that they would have once a week
where they play a bunch of songs and vote on
which ones we put out a singles and which ones
would just be album tracks and which ones would just
you know, get dumped. And I guess everybody at the
quality control meeting hated this song except Stevie Want There.

(26:37):
Stevie Wonder was cool enough to get it, which of
course they also hated. I heard it through the grapevine too,
by the way. Yeah, exactly. They hated. I heard it
through the grapevine and they hated what's going on arguably
the two most famous songs that Marvin Gay ever performed,
So that shows what they know. So Marvin is heartbroken.
He's really is trying to argue with with Barry's trying

(27:00):
reason with him about what's going on out and it's
not going anywhere. So he decides to go on strike
and Motown says, okay, fine, and they put out a
Marvin Gay Greatest Hits compilation called super Hits, and it's
just it's almost like what they did with Brian Wilson
and Pet Sounds. They did the same thing where they
put out the Greatest Hits album to kind of cover
for Pet Sounds. Uh, it's this embarrassing. The cover is

(27:21):
like a cartoon with Marvin as like a superhero carrying
this like damsel over his shoulder. It's like, really weird.
Marvin went nuts, especially when he saw the artwork and
demanded that they changed it. They didn't. It never was changed. Um, Marvin,
he was furious. I mean, this was to go from
wanting to release your first self produced song to basically

(27:42):
have and and move ahead, and you know, he's in
his thirties now, he wants to control his own artistic destiny,
to not only be denied the right to do that,
but then they have all this other stuff that you're
not proud of then shoved in your face. It was
really adding salt in the wounds there. So that really
pissed him off, and he dug in his heels even
more and still refused to record. And after a while,

(28:05):
Motown's they, you know, Marvin's, i think, their biggest male
singer at that point, they kind of want them back
to make more product, and Barry goes to Smokey. Robinson
says he, you know, smoke, try to get Marvin back
into the studio and smoke He says, Hey, Barry, it's
like a bear shooting in the woods. Marvin ain't budget.

(28:25):
That's true. That is true of bear shooting in the woods.
They do not move, and neither did Marvin Gay for months,
and Barry Gordy didn't move either. I mean, the only
reason why What's going On came out as a single
is that there was another executive at Motown Records, a
guy by the name of Harry Bulk, who essentially pressed
up a hundred thousand copies of the single behind Barry
Gordy's back and shipped it off to record stores. And

(28:47):
if this would have failed, I'm sure Harry Balk would
have been, you know, found in a car trunk somewhere.
But it turns out that this becomes the fastest selling
single in Motown history, and before long, you know, before
Berry Gordy really even knows what's going on, they have
to order another hundred thousand singles, you know, just to
keep up with demand. One thing I think is like,

(29:08):
I mean, look, what's going on is like just an
incredible song, But that that fade out at the end,
where it fades out and it comes back up. I
was that that's kind of weird. Do you think that's
like a shot at Barry Gordy on some level? Oh,
I absolutely think it's a shot at Barry Gordy. And
it was like, oh, yeah, you think that that like
song that he really hates over up Surprised here it
is again, I could totally think that was a Barry Yeah.

(29:29):
So this song ends up becoming a huge hit for
Marvin Gay and you know, Berry Gordy he could recognize. Okay,
I didn't like this song, but I like to make money,
so let's let's put together an album, you know, with
this song on it. But he still is hedging his
bets here. He's like, I give you thirty days to
make an album, and not only did Marvin Gay live

(29:51):
up to that, he actually made the album in ten days,
and which is amazing because you look at that album,
you have songs like Mercy, Mercy me, Inner City Blues,
what's happening bro there? I mean, all songs that are
very much in the vein of the title track, but
are like really strong songs on their own. Uh. I mean,
it's incredible that he was able to just turn around
this masterful album that quickly. I think another fascinating thing

(30:13):
about what's going on also is that it was a
I think it was like the first Motown record to
actually credit the musicians in the liner notes, like usually
they would only credit it to the committee. You know
that was the name of you know this, this incredible
backing band that was on all of these uh, you know,
wonderful Motown hits, and you know, we know these musicians now.
But I feel like someone like James Jamerson, for instance,

(30:35):
who is now just revered as like one of the
great bass players of R and B soul in rock music.
And who's playing on this record is just so epic
and beautiful. I feel like the cult around him really
starts like with this album. In a way, it's probably
the first time that people even knew like who were
on these records. Oh yeah, I mean, and the Jamerson
thing is great because the legend is he showed up

(30:57):
to What's going On that the single totally drunk and
he's playing that that incredible melodic bass part. He's like
flat on his back on the floor. Of course, that
that's the myth at least that's what I mean. I
choose to believe it because that's just how awesome Jamison is.
But uh yeah, I love that. That's great, And you know, look,

(31:19):
these things are easy to see in retrospect, and like
even Barry Gordy went on to say that he felt
that What's going On was like the signature album of Motown,
Like he thought it was the best thing that they
had ever produced. So even he came to see the light,
you know, decades later after this album had been valorized
so many times. But uh, you know, it's just a
boggles my mind that a record like this would be
considered controversial because that you know, it is protest music,

(31:41):
but it's also like a total like pop star move.
Like you look at Marvin Gay on the cover of
that album. He looks amazing. He looks cooler than he
will ever look in his life. He's wearing this like
awesome black cleather jacket. He's got like the canary yellow
shirt and tie, you know, and that is of course
being packaged with this mu is that that is so
beautiful and again so progressive and just loaded with like

(32:04):
melodic songs that yeah, they're saying something profound, but like
even if you ignore the lyrics, like they're amazing songs.
I just want to ask quick, and you know, I
don't want to get too distracted here, but just as
a quick sidebar, do you think What's going On is
the greatest album of all time? Because I'm not even
sure it's like my favorite Marvin Gay record. That there's
other records that we're going to talk about here in
a minute that I think I like a little bit more.

(32:24):
That's no disrespect to What's going On. I think it's
a masterpiece. But do you think it's the greatest album ever. No,
I mean, I I recognize it's importance. I feel about
it the same way I feel about Imagine by John Lennon.
I understand that it is this, you know, huge cultural
monolith and you know, a plea for for peace. Uh.
And I recognize what it means to people. But it's
not something that I I put on very often and

(32:47):
and I groove out to them and if I want that,
I put on like you know, I want you or
or let's get it on or something like that. Uh. Yeah,
it's I don't think it's even my favorite of his,
which is well, I mean it's incredible album. I mean
when I say that, that's not to dismiss what an
incredible piece of work it is. But he has other
incredible pieces of work too that I think I enjoy
a little bit more. So what's going on it comes out,

(33:10):
it's a huge hit. It's also a chance for Marvin
Gay to really stick it to Barry Gordy at this point,
like both like I guess personally and also professionally. Yeah,
I mean, for all the credits on the back of
the album, he had a big dedication section two and
he put all sorts of people, I mean, his fing
He even put his dad on it, which is interesting
in retrospect, Barry's not on it, which of all the people,

(33:32):
we think, Barry was not one of them, which I
think is uh, is very telling and uh. And this
is around the period when I think that the sort
of the balance of power at Motown starts to tip
in the favor of the artists and away from you know,
Barry and his committee. Because this album made Marvin turned
him from a hot R and B singer new like,
you know, an important musical spokesperson. And this was the

(33:53):
same year in that Stevie Wonder turned twenty one and
he renegotiated his contract as an adult and that gave
him a lot more creative control. That led to music
My Mind and Talking Book and He's incredible run to follow.
And this was also when the Jackson Five came into
the Motown and Joe Jackson was you know, I think
Barry Gordy met his match in Joe Jackson. Joe under

(34:13):
under no uncertain terms. It was like, yeah, you know,
you're the head of Motown, but I'm the head of
the Jackson Five. Don't don't get it twisted. Another great
dad by the way, Joe Jackson another Father of the
Year right there. So this is like, you know, to
use the factory analogy. This is when sort of the
power Motown was now in the hands of the workers.
You know, Karl Marks will be thrilled with this. So uh,

(34:35):
Barry Gordy realizes this that the kids that he mentor
were now more talented than he was. And and he
would later say, you know, for a person with my ego,
this didn't sit very well with me. You know, the
Motown sound was no more now it was a collection
of different artists doing their own thing. And and Barry
kind of busied himself with he was really trying to
launch Diana Ross as the solo film star, solo act,

(34:58):
Vegas act, all around performer kind deal. And Marvin felt
rejected by this. He thought that, you know that Barry
loved Diana more than him. And uh. He also was
really freaked out when, um, when Jermaine Jackson married Barry's
daughter Hazel, because he thought he'd been sort of supplanted
as sort of the Gordy family's Motown prince. And he
would later say, I saw myself being replaced Jermaine was

(35:20):
a singer marrying into the family just the way I had,
and just when I was being moved out. It was
all part of Barry's plan to give himself a new,
younger Marvin Gay. And again you can just see this
dynamic playing out again where Marvin Gay he wants to
please Barry Gordy. He's feeling threatened because he sees a
younger singer coming into the family and supplanting him, and

(35:40):
he feels that he's maybe not gonna get the same
kind of love or attention from Barry Gordy that he
got in the past. So there's that part of it,
But then there's also the other part where you know
he wants to rebel against Barry Gordon and he wants
to again just stick it to him over and over again.
And you can see this with Let's Get It on
that record that comes out in the seventy three And
with that record, Marvin Gay was was given this huge contract.

(36:02):
It was like a million dollar contract. I think he
was like the richest black recording artist of that time.
And he wasn't just satisfied with getting that money. He
actually wanted Berry Gordy himself to sign the check again.
This is like another instance of like, you know, tracking
Berry Gordy down at Marvin Gay's request, you know, so
they could get a signature on here. And I guess

(36:22):
like Marvin Gaye had the check blown up to like
novelty size and like put over his fireplace. It was
like a kid with a report card, Like it's like
putting it on the fridge. Yeah, exactly. And he's like, yeah,
I want Barry Gordy to personally be giving me all
this money. And like he said later on that he's like,
you know, my goal, like I wanted to be richer
than Barry Gordy, you know, I wanted to have the

(36:44):
same kind of power than him, even more power. I
want to kill my father exactly. Another edible like overtone
to this. But you know, the thing with Marvin Gay
as opposed to Barry Gordy is that I think Barry
Gordy had ruthless core to him that kept him relatively stable,
you know, throughout the decades that he could maintain his
kingdom because he wasn't gonna let anything distract him from

(37:06):
the task at hand, whereas Marvin gay was very distractable,
and around this time he ends up getting distracted by
a seventeen year old girl named Janice Hunter who ends
up being the muse for Let's Get It On. Uh.
And I think she was like in the studio with him,
even like when he was like when he was recording
the song Let's Get It On. Wasn't she like in
the recording booth with him? So he was like literally

(37:28):
singing this song to this teenage girl, That's what I read. Yeah,
he was like looking her in the eyes as he
sang Let's Get It On, which definitely impacts my ability
to appreciate Let's Get It On exactly. We've ruined the
song for all of you by pointing that out. And
you know, from Berry Gordon's perspective, I'm sure this song
did not sit well because the song at best is

(37:50):
about Marvin Gay having sex with his sister. That's the
best case scenario. The worst case scenario is that it's
a song about Marvin Gay having said with his high
school aged mistress, uh from his sister. That's definitely the
worst case scenario. And that's it seems like that's the
actual scenario here, because it seems like this is the

(38:11):
point where the marriage between Marvin and Anna is really
starting to go down the tubes. Yeah, in the mid seventies,
Marvin leaves Anna Gorty for for Janice Hunter. And you know,
this is a risky move, and it goes beyond any
kind of fear of like any kind of career retribution.
As he said, he's afraid Marvin is afraid of losing
Barry's love. Like, I think that's what it boils down to.

(38:32):
It wasn't just like, oh my god, I'm I piste
off my label head. I think it was he had
so much wrapped up emotionally in Barry that I think
that was his biggest fear. In the same when Jermaine
married his daughter, and Marvin grew increasingly paranoid that Barry
and Anna were colluding against him. And I guess there
was a time that he was so paranoidal that he
refused to record from Motown for a while. Um, I

(38:53):
mean not very long, but long enough a couple of months.
And um, as part of the divorce settlement, Anna asked
a million dollars and Marvin definitely didn't have the cash.
And this was the late seventies and he was facing
bankruptcy on his home and cars were lost to foreclosure.
And I think at one point he was nearly imprisoned
for owing four point five million to the I R S.

(39:14):
And this isn't the seventies with inflation, and that's a
that's a huge bill. And there was a time I
think this is around the time and he was living
on the beaches in Maui and like a bread van
or something like, his finances were not in tip top shape.
Can we just say, like, is it awesome to be
living in a bread van in Maui doing tons of
cocaine or is it? Because part of me thinks that's

(39:35):
the most depressing thing I've ever heard. The other part
of me is like, ninety seven living on the beach
doing tons of blow that sounds kind of awesome. Like,
you know, if it was just like a brief phase,
I guess if you had the choice to do that, uh,
that'd be one thing. But if you're just a coke
addict and you don't really have a choice, then it
then it's sad. You know. Maybe that's the difference there.

(39:55):
I don't know. Part of me is a little bit
jealous of Marvin Gay in his lifestyle at this time time.
Oh yeah, even his tragedies around now. I have kind
of this like glamorous ring the I R S showed
up to Marvin's studio in l A. Wants to to
foreclose on it and uh and Barry got wind of
it and ended up paying Marvin's tax bill. It's around
the same time. So again, no matter what was going
on with them in a personally, Barry had his back

(40:18):
and Marvin wasn't at the studio at this time because
he was apparently at the super Bowl. So as his
studio is being foreclosed on, he's at the super Bowl.
So you're right, there's a lot of this. There's a
yin and yang to Marvin Gay's Black Knights of the Soul.
I guess yeah, it's always like a silver lining to it.
And it's like at least you got to see I
guess that would be like Terry Bradshaw and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

(40:39):
You know, it's probably a great Super Bowl. So things
are going to you know, a mixed bag in Marvin's
personal life. But he doesn't have a lot of money.
So his lawyer has a really interesting solution for divorce settlement.
He says Marvin can pay six hundred thousand dollars to
Anna Gorty, half of which would come from the advance
from his next album, and the other half would come
from the album's royalties. So basically would make an album

(41:00):
and all the proceeds to it would go to Anna.
So you know, all you had to do is going
to the studio and just bang out a piece of
garbage quickly, just anything, and you know, and that that
was part of the beauty of the deal was that
if you know, if it tanked, it didn't matter. He
lived up to his part of the of the of
the bargain by by making this album. Uh. But he's
an artist and as soon as he gets in there,

(41:22):
he's so inspired by you know. I think he's definitely
one of those artists that works best in a state
of like emotional uh turmoil, and obviously that was where
he was at with this album. And he records his
only double album called Here My Dear. Yeah, and I
have to say, you know, going back to the What's
going On? Is that the greatest album of all time?
I have to say that for me, Here My Dear
is my favorite Marvin Gay record. And maybe this has

(41:45):
to do with my personal bias in favor of like
personal songwriting versus political songwriting. You know, as much as
I love the political anthems on what's going on, just
the turmoil that was going on in Marvin Gay's life
at this time and how he was able to transform
it into this absolutely gorgeous music. I mean, this is
like prog soul, like just epic songs that go on

(42:06):
for like seven eight minutes and have all these different
movements and just like the gooeyest harmonies you've ever heard,
and this music being set to lyrics that are like
the most brutal breakup song looks I think I've ever heard.
I mean, if we talk about like the greatest breakup
albums of all time, you know Dylan's Blow on the Tracks,
Joni Mitchell's Blue or you know Springsteen's Tunnel of Love.

(42:28):
You know, those songwriters they're usually dealing like in metaphors,
you know, or they're being like vague about the connections
between the art that they're making in their personal lives.
Marvin Gay doesn't have any use for metaphors at all
on this record. When he writes a song about Anna,
it's called Anna's Song. When he's writing a song about
how this record is being made because he has to

(42:50):
pay off his wife's alimony. He calls it, you can lead,
but it's going to cost you, you know. Like that
is how upfront he is on this album. And it
is one of those things like where you listen to
it and it is kind of embarrassing sometimes to listen
to it because it is so again unadorned and lyrically,
but I think that's where a lot of the power
of the album comes from. And again combining it with

(43:11):
this this beautiful music. It's such a bizarre, beautiful, singular
piece of work. It just compels me to no end,
you know, every time I put it on. It has
my favorite single note in Marmy Gay's entire discography on
Anna song when he just screams Anna, he hits this
whale that it sends shivers down my spine every time
I hear it. It's just pain and angst. But it's

(43:34):
also Marvin Gay's voice, so you have it. It's it's
so beautiful an airy. Yeah that that whole album is unbelievable.
As you said, I mean, the lyrics are are so
personal that I guess Anna threatened the file five million
dollar invasion of privacy suit against him for these lyrics,
which I don't know if there's a precedent for that,

(43:54):
for suing someone over song lyrics like that. Uh, it is.
It is brutal, and of course the comes out and
it's a failure commercially and also critically. I think critics
at the time were just repulsed by this album. You know,
they gave it really poor reviews. I think in retrospect
people have come around to appreciating it as a masterpiece.
I think people now are really into this record. Um,

(44:15):
obviously Barry Gordy was not going to promote this record.
I mean, you know this is his sister again, you know,
Marvin Gaye and his family. He's making this album about
his sister, and uh, all these songs that are again like,
this album is really angry. There's a lot of anger
on it. There's a lot of hurt on it. But
it is in a way like character assassination for Anna Gordy.

(44:36):
So uh yeah, this just puts his relationship with Barry
Gordy like in another level of disrepair. But it really
it says a lot about barring as you said, about
his sort of cold, business minded heart where he by
all accounts didn't blow up at Marvin over this at all,
and whereas he very easily could have. I mean, he
may not have promoted this as much as as it

(44:57):
could have been. But yeah, in terms of you know,
friends and family relationships, I mean, this could have been
a very easily a deal breaker. But you know, at
the end of the day, Barry Gordon was a businessman
and Marvin was his most valuable asset at that time,
so he let it go. Yeah. It really wasn't until
the next record in Our Lifetime where they finally separated,

(45:18):
and even that it was Marvin's decision. That album not
one of my favorite albums, and by all accounts, not
one of Marvin's favorite albums either. Um, he spent a
number of years working on it, and he was really
in rough shape at this time with drugs and very
little money. I mean, this is really sort of when
he was bottoming out, and uh, he spent I think
three years working on this album. Motown was saying, you know, okay,

(45:41):
we we need this, please turn this in, and they
ended up releasing it when it was unfinished, to Marvin's satisfaction.
He says that they He claims that somebody actually promote Town.
Actually stole the tapes from the studios recording in and
I think in London, and um went and put some
overdubs on it and just mixed it in a different
way that he wasn't happy with and and released it.

(46:03):
And Marvin was absolutely furious. And he would say an interviews,
Motown shafted me. How could they embarrass me like that?
You know, he compared it to to somebody going to
Picasso and saying, all right, because he's been working on
this long enough, it's like sticking arm here on a
leg there and all right, we're done. If you don't
like it too bad. He was absolutely heartbroken and he said,
you know what, I'm not going to work at Montown anymore.

(46:23):
And he didn't. That was the last album he ever
did for him. And you know there have been other instances,
of course where Marvin Gay was refusing to work and
you know that's where what's going on comes out of there.
You know, there was another kind of work stoppage. I
guess around the time off hear my dear, and this
is another work stoppage, but this time Barry Gordy is
actually like pretty cooperative and says Okay, you want this

(46:44):
to be your last record. If we can come to
an agreement, you know, I want to make this as
painless basically as we could make it, so very basically
let Marvin Gay go, even though Marvin Gay was still
like a pretty big star and like one of his
biggest earners. And I think from Berry Gordy's perspective, I
wonder if you just had enough at that point where
he felt like, Okay, I am going to take a
financial hit for this, but on some level, my life

(47:05):
is also going to be a little bit easier because
I don't have to deal with this guy's problems anymore.
I mean, do you think that's a fair assessment. Oh,
totally yeah. And I also I have to wonder about
Barry's state of mind in that period too, because not
only did Marvin leave, but Diana Ross also left him
at this time too for our c A, and his
relationship with Diana was probably just as complicated, if not
more than his relationship with Marvin Gay, because they think

(47:27):
they were together for a while romantically, and and and
she was equal. She was kind of like the Queen
of Motown to Marvin's kingham Motown. Uh, And so at
that point he must have really just been like just hurting,
not only from a financial standpoint of what's going on
with my company right now, because the eighties weren't all
that great for Motown, but also just these these people

(47:48):
that I put so much of myself into and and
and worked with and was a mentor two and and
and Family two are both gone. I almost wonder if
at that point he just he was I don't want
to say two weak, but just saying, you know what, fine, fine,
I can't I've been holding on so tightly to this
massive empire and trying to control people for twenty plus years.
I don't have it in ma anymore. Just go. You know.

(48:11):
There's this interesting PostScript to Marvin Gay's tenure on Motown,
which is the Motown Anniversary Special that aired in nineteen
eight three. I don't know if you've seen this performance,
but like, like Marvin Gay, Yeah, it's very weird. He's
in this special, and I guess like Barry Gordy like
reached out to him personally and asked him to be
a part of the show. And when we talk about
the anniversary special now everyone just talks about Michael Jackson

(48:33):
because I was the first time he did the Moonwalk,
and it is just considered like an iconic Michael Jackson performance.
But Marvin Gate comes out and he spends about three
minutes like sitting at the piano and like giving this
history lesson and he's talking about like he's talking about
the history of Motown. He's talking about slavery. There's like
a little bit about like New Orleans rent parties. Yeah,

(48:55):
just talking about sex. And he looks super high in
this video, but he's playing the piano beautifully even as
he's giving this rambling monologue. And then all of a sudden,
like the backing band just like charges in and they
started playing What's going On? And he performs like a
short version of What's going On and it's pretty good,
but like he doesn't look like he's in great shape

(49:17):
at that time. No, Yeah, that was kind of when
when he was really on the final decline. I think
it was after Sexual Healing had come out. He cleaned
up his act a little bit, but I think that
was when things started getting in really bad form. It's
it's a very strange performance. You're right, uh, because you
have a band. It's almost like the band was waiting
for him to actually play an intro and then by
minute three they're like, okay, we're making a TV special here,

(49:39):
this is gonna be time pretty weuch, let's just come
in all right, here we go, and then he leaps
up and starts singing. But that was about a year
almost exactly before his death. Yeah, and again his death
is it the worst musician death ever. I can't think
of a more disturbing way to die. Terrific. Yeah, I mean,
especially when I guess his brother stood over his body

(50:00):
after he'd been shot, and and supposedly Marvin's last words were,
you know, I wanted this. I didn't want to do
it myself. I knew what I was doing. Apparently his
last words are about how he provoked his father to
do this, which is just adds even more disturbing element.
It's it's really horrendous. Well, and we should probably just
say for people to know the story that, like Marvin
Gay was staying at his father's house at the end

(50:23):
of his life because he again was dealing with with
drug addiction. He was not in a good way financially,
and there was some sort of altercation with his father
where I guess his dad felt threatened by his son,
and he like shot his own son and killed him.
Like that's the story there, Yeah, yeah, I mean it
is really And then they they took Marvin Gay Senior
to prison, and somebody asked him on the police station

(50:45):
but his relationship. Did you love your son? I think
was the question? And he said was quote was, well,
let's just say I didn't not like him. Yeah. And
of course Barry Gorey hears this news and he's devastated
as as he would be. But it does see him
like Barry Gordy in a way almost felt like he
lost his own son in this thing. Because as much
as Marvin looked at Barry Gordy as a father figure,

(51:07):
it seems like there was a reciprocal feeling there, don't
you think, Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean he he took
up full page ads and entertainment newspapers calling Marvin the
greatest singer of all time. And I guess Barry had
a longstanding um policy of not really dealing with the press,
but in this case he he talked to everybody saying
that how Marvin was was the best of all time,
the closest person I could relate him to his Billy Holiday,

(51:29):
and I think Marvin's even better. Barry said, so, yeah,
he eulogized them every chance that that he could. But
I don't think I don't think it's something he ever
got over. We're gonna take a quick break and get
a word from our sponsor before we get to more rivals.

(51:51):
I know, we've now reached the part of the episode
where we look at the pro side of each side
of the rivalry. Let's start with Barry Gordy. You know,
I think the term gene gets over used a lot
in music, but like with Barry Gordy, I think he's
like one of the few people like where the term
really applies. I mean, just as a songwriter. He wrote
so many classic songs. I mean, we didn't really even

(52:11):
delve into his songwriting career, like all the hits that
he wrote for Jackie Wilson before he really got rolling
with motown, you know, like Repetite and all those wonderful
Jackie Wilson hits. But his most profound talent really was
for creating this assembly line for pop music that was
both commercially successful and like creatively viable and excellent. You know,
like he wasn't just turning up pop songs. He was

(52:31):
turning out like some of the greatest pop songs of
all time throughout the sixties and seventies. To me, he
truly is like the Henry Ford of pop music, or
I guess like the Daniel plain View of soul. As
I said earlier too. Uh, even if he overstepped his
boundaries sometimes with artists by being overly controlling. I mean,
you can't argue with his track record. I mean, Motown
is I think the great American record label of the

(52:53):
rock era, and Barry Gordy is responsible for that. Oh yeah,
I mean even if he if Barry was just responsible
for a Marvin Gay in his place in music history,
would be as sure. But to think that Marvin was
just one of dozens of threads that all go back
to to Barry, it's just it's just absolutely mind boggling
um and and Marvin recognized that in the last months

(53:14):
of his life. You know, long after he left Motown,
he said, say what you want about Barry. If it
wasn't for him, you wouldn't have heard of any of us.
B G had the vision they would call him b G.
And yeah, you know, you really got to wonder if
what would have happened with Marvin Gay if he hadn't
come across uh Barry Gordy, And you wonder if he
just would have been, you know, one of many backing
singers with Harvey Fuquall and other sort of like doo

(53:35):
wop groups, or if he would have tried to make
a go of it as sort of a Nat King
Cole style crooner, which I don't think would have cut
through in the sixties. I don't think that was I
think maybe Marvin in the early sixties was thinking that
the music scene was going to progress as it had
in the fifties, and there was sort of a more
of a middle of the lane, uh place for him
to do those kind of songs. But I think that

(53:57):
it really didn't work out that way, and he needed
someone like Barry to push a and that that more
commercial R and B direction. And you know, also, for
all the people who say that Marvin is this incredible
audio alturn, and he is, he had had a decade
of working with some of the best musicians and songwriters
and producers in the business. So you know, before he
broke all the rules with what's going on, he learned

(54:17):
the rules from the Motown team, and they're the best
in the business. I think that was really invaluable. So
I think as much as he would disparage his sixties
pop output, I think that all the timeless seventies work
was really built on that. So if we switch over
to the pro Marvin Gay side, I mean, look, it's
Marvin Gay. You know, he'd we say more. I mean,
I think Smokey Robinson once called Marvin Gay the most
talented singer that he ever knew, you know, And that's

(54:38):
Smokey Robinson saying that. So that says a lot. And
as first troubled as he was, especially later in his life,
I mean, he's still like one of the greatest singers
and songwriters and arrangers and record makers of all time.
And he made what many people consider to be the
greatest album ever with What's going On. And even if
you don't think that's the greatest album ever, he also
made Let's Get It On, he made I Want You,

(54:59):
and he made Here My Dear. I mean again, Here
My Dear, one of the strangest and most beautiful and
and most fearless albums. I feel like to come out
of the nineteen seventies. So I look at Marvin Gaye
and I just see this great combination of both a
pop star and a genuine artist who was willing to
put everything on the line to pursue his vision. And
you know, here we are decades after his death and

(55:22):
his music still sounds as good as it ever did. Yeah,
I mean, I think that that his work uh gave
Motown sort of was a social conscious of motown, and
I think that they needed that in that era. It
really gave I think to that point in the early
and mid sixties, in fact the Motown existed at all
was the statement he was a black run business, run
by black people, for black people, and in the world.

(55:43):
And I think that by actually speaking out on what
was happening in the world was sort of the next
step for that. Also, I feel like Marvin's actual musical
chops are commented on enough. He's an amazing musician. There's
an amazing clip of him just playing at a Grand
p Anno. I think it was in a documentary from
one when he's touring in Belgium, I think, and he's

(56:05):
just ripping on come get to This and and Distant Lover,
and it is unbelievable. It's absolutely worth checking out. You
really need to see it. So on top of you know,
incredible groundbreaking pop, visionary, amazing singer, I just want to
give props to his musical skills too as a as
an instrumentalist. So if we look at these two guys together,
I think it's pretty clear the father's son dynamic as

(56:28):
messed up as it was psychologically, I think, especially for
Marvin gay, it did work for them. I mean, I
think Marvin gay needed a father figure in his life
to give him guidance and also just as something to
play off of, something that he could rebel against. And
when you look at an album like What's going On,
it clearly caused him to do great things when he
felt like he could sort of strike out against some

(56:49):
person that was trying to control him too much. And
then when you look at Barry Gordy, you know, he
has this rebellious son figured that he's trying to put
in his place, and yet the sun ends up I
think help ing out the father a lot by rebelling
against him. You know, like the fact that Marvin Gaye
made What's going On really changed the face of Motown
and it allowed I think Motown to move into the
seventies and to continue to prosper. I think without Marvin Gay,

(57:12):
for instance, I think it would have been a lot
harder for Stevie Wonder to do what he eventually did,
you know. And if Barry Gordy had continued to control
these artists and not allow them to really spread their
wings and to make these incredible, ambitious records, I think
they would have faded a lot faster. I think they
would have been looked at as sort of an old
fashioned record label instead of what they became in the seventies,
which was, you know, sort of staying on the cutting

(57:33):
edge of what pop music could be. So yeah, I
think it's clear that these guys, as much as they
had a poisonous relationship at times, it does seem like
they brought the best out of each other in many instances. Yeah,
And I think that that's really complicated, almost familiar relationship
that we were talking about between Barry and Marvin ended
up working in um in Barry's favor too, because I

(57:55):
think he treated Marvin like a favorite, if you know,
somewhat spoiled child. I think that he let Marvin get
away with a lot more than he would any other
of his artists. You know, I think if if any
other artist on the label trying to pull a kind
of stuff that Marvin was pulling, I have no doubt
that they would have gotten the boots so much sooner.
But I think that Barry recognized Marvin's brilliance and let
him get away with the stuff that, as you said,

(58:17):
really ended up transforming Modetown for the new decade. So
it's it fair to say that we now know what's
going on with these two guys. Oh Stephen, how sweet
it is to do this show with you, Stephen oh Man.
My favorite part of the episode, the terrible joke, the
pun on the artist song title. I hope you guys
enjoyed as much as we do. We have not reached

(58:38):
the end of another episode of Rivals. Thank you for
joining us, and we'll be back with more beefs and
feuds and long serving resentments next week. Rivals is a
production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn
Titone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are Taylor Chicoin
and Tristan McNeil. The producers Joel hat Stat, I'm Jordan

(58:59):
run Talk I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard,
please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts
for My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
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