12. Marvin GayeWhat’s Going On
This is one of the last ‘snake pit’ albums, where the Funk Brothers are playing on it before Motown moved to LA. I think it was, well, I use Sgt. Pepper’s… as a standard for when an artist just goes off and does something totally incredible, but this was Marvin’s. Motown didn’t even want to release the record because it was so different, but I think it was his biggest record ever! It’s funny how you have to go against the grain and go against the rules in order to become unique. You have to stick to what your gut tells you to do, and this is what Marvin wanted to do at this point and thank God he did it. He was a wonderful musician as well as an incredible singer. So a lot of this was him on piano and you’ve got James Jamerson on bass again and all these great players, but he was taking them in a different directions; it was almost non-Motown in the way it sounded. But I think that’s why they played so well on it too, because it was so different. Again, if you want to create a mood. And it’s late at night, and you’re with a really good-looking woman, this will probably do it for you. This will seal the deal.
