What's Going On: A tribute to a Misunderstood Legend

What’s Going On: A Tribute to a Misunderstood Legend
Like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra before him, Marvin Gaye’s death has given him new life. Since his premature demise, interest in his art has only blossomed. “He’s our John Lennon. The longer he’s gone, the more young people appreciate his contribution. He changed our musical world,” says Steve Turner, author of Trouble Man: the Life and Death of Marvin Gaye(Turner, Introduction). Billboard magazine reports that since 1983, Marvin’s name has been mentioned, in reverential tones, on no less than seven top-ten hit records(Ritz, preface). This only proves how much of an influence he was not only in the world of popular music, but in the world of pop culture.
However, Marvin was not always the show stopper that he became. Frankie Gaye, younger brother and author of Marvin Gaye, my brother, tells us, “Marvin liked to sing, but he never had the nerve to sing in front of people”(Gaye, pg. 8). As a c...