Marvin Gaye started singing early in his life while attending church. He continued to seek musical outlets until Motown signed him early in the 1960’s for his singing and piano skills. He included many different genres in his work including Soul, Jazz, R&B, and funk. In most of his work, Marvin sang about love, romance, relationships, and heartbreak. He also covered many jazz tunes, mostly in the beginning of his career.

When Marvin finally released What’s Going On in 1971, it would end up being one of the most memorable albums of all time. Ronaldo “Obie” Benson from the Four Tops wrote the title song in San Francisco two years earlier with the help of Al Cleveland. While on tour Benson witnessed police officers beating protestors in a park. Since the protests were about the Vietnam War, that issue had passed through his mind as well. Benson offered it to his group but they saw it as a protest song. He tried to convince them that it was a love song but they did not see it the same way. Benson continued to search for someone that could sing the song until he found Marvin Gaye. Marvin sat in the studio and sang it with Benson when he offered the song, after a few changes he agreed to record it. While recording, Marvin devoted a lot of emotion to the album. He seemed to gather all his feelings about his brother’s stories from being in Vietnam, his singing partner Tammi Terrell’s death, the shooting of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and all the violence that was happening in the streets and he put it all into this album.

After the recording, Marvin presented it to the record company. The owner Berry Gordy said it was horrible so they turned it down. Marvin decided that until Motown released the album, he would not write anything else for the company. The waiting game had finally paid off when the company got very desperate for another Marvin Gaye record. The executive vice-president Barney Ales decided to release the What’s Going On single without Berry’s knowledge. The company did not have a problem with the album after they realized how popular it was just after the first day. The recorded the rest of the album and it would shoot up the charts with three top ten singles.

This album was completely different from anything that Motown had released before. Motown produced mostly R&B, Soul, and pop albums that were just about all love themed songs. What’s Going On had very strong social and political themes though, which the Motown executives did not approve of. They disapproved of anything they saw as controversial but Marvin would not take no for an answer, he knew the world needed to hear this album. He was even prepared to end his career over it. Another reason this album stands out is that the session musicians were actually happy with what they were playing. Normally they would be playing the usual Motown material, which they did not like at all. They were mostly all jazz musicians and that was what they enjoyed playing. Once they recorded What’s Going On they felt good about what they were doing which naturally allowed them to sound their best.

I had not been too familiar with most of the tracks on this album until this research. A few covers had been quite influential in my life however. The two I can think of are A Perfect Circle’s version of What’s Going On and Sevendust’s version of Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler). This backwards procedure of learning about the original after the cover gives me a greater sense of how influential this album really was to so many artists across so many genres. I can actually trace many artists’ styles and influences back to this album now that I know more about it.