Ruth Leon recommends… I Heard it Through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye

I Heard it Through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye

 Marin Gaye personified soul music. Every song he sang was imbued with extreme emotional intensity, nothing held back, nothing hidden.

A upbringing full of personal turmoil caused him to be something of a nomad, living in many places, often depressed and, for a while, settling in Belgium. Violence and disunity haunted him and thoughts of suicide rarely left him.  His life was ended senselessly in 1984 on the day before his 45th birthday when, trying to intervene in a fight between his parents, he was shot by his father with whom he had always had a troubled relationship.

So what made me open my personal Marvin Gaye archive to remember what made him great? What brings him to mind now is that this week a reported treasure trove of recordings, papers, compositions, and other hitherto unknown archive material generated by Marvin Gaye, has surfaced in the house he lived in in Ostend. So far, we know nothing about the contents as the tapes belong to the current owners but the music on them belongs to Gaye’s estate.

This is his biggest hit, I Heard it Through the Grapevine, in a live performance from 1968. Other Motown artists recorded this song but this is the one that really captures how a true artist can express deep emotion musically using simple words and chord sequences, in this case the grief that a love has ended. 

Marvin Gaye was cool. And real. You’ll see.

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