Berry Gordy denies the Marvin Gaye/"What's Going On" stories

[daddyacey]

I can understand some peoples feelings regarding the Marvin material prior to WGO. But we are talking about 2 time periods ,important to understanding why at one point the music had changed. There is a bigger picture that must be taken into account. The World changed drastically in mid 60's to 1970. In the 70's the social events that began in the late 50's through the 60's ,such as the civil rights issues ,the 3 pivoting assassination events that happened in that time period [[no assassination had impact since LINCOLN ,for the same issue) ,Kent State , Nam , the 68 Convention, landing on the moon, WOODSTOCK and a whole lot of other events that happend. I'm 56 years old this coming Thursday ,and I can say that I have lived and survived through half of a century plus of some mind boggling sh!t , technology wise ,political and social. The music of the late 60's early 70's reflect those changes and effects on society. The music of the early 60's ,in the R&B genre reflected ,lets have a good time ,lets party ,I love you etc. The late 60's reflected additional issues ,political and social in the R&B idiom ,there was a message all of a sudden in the music. Something you had to confront ,not only from the beat and musical point of view ,but from the intullectual point of view. Curtis ,Stevie ,Marvin and The Isleys made the first pivital message recordings in the R&B genre. You can't deny that the albums W.G.O. ,Curtis , Where I'm Coming From and Brother Brother Brother , were LANDMARK recordings of the era. A era of change. One may find comfort in the recordings prior to those ,but from those recordings and the direction that R&B music took forward from them should IMO be given merit for what they represent, and that is change ,an evolution ,a revolution ,as important as The Renascence in European Art and music, effect here in the U.S. and also in Black Culture.

[Jimi LaLumia]

I'm 59 and lived through the same things, but those things had little impact on the pop market place in the early 70's;
can we say JACKSON 5?..and a few years later, Hues Corp.,Barry white and the birth of disco?
everything changes,and everything stays the same

[bankhousedave]

Come with me out into left field, just for a moment. I was at the fiftieth anniversary of The Avengers last weekend - that's the John Steed/Cathy Gale/Mrs Peel/Tara King/Purdey type Avengers - to my mind one of the most stylish and entertaining TV shows ever made. Benny Hill used to do a wonderrful parody of it in which every time there was an action or fight sequence, somebody with no resemblance to the star took over as a 'double'. This was a great comedy statement, but the fact is that the show is still brilliant when you have seen that. The end result was more important than its various parts. Motown was the same. I talked for many hours with Dave Van De Pitte, much to my surprise because he had announced that he would never talk to anyone again following an interview wit the BBC, and I know the elements that ring true about WGO.

I haven't talked with Berry, but I know what he believed in, what he achieved and what he had in mind. Without him this discussion would be irrelevent. Marvin was a great talent, but BG made him a star, whether he liked it or not. Nobody thought he was Nat King Cole except Marvin himself. Berry is to be forgiven for taking some convincing that one of the acts he had used his own reliable formula to build wanted to do something in direct contradiction. I don't think there is anything untrue in this interview just because it contradicts the simpleminded story we have had to swallow all these years. I have never met a Motown artists who didn't contradict the popular perception of their time there.