The very first song I learned to sing as a child was Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.” It would be years and years later that I’d figure out just how funny that must have been to my family – my mother in particular. His music filled the air in each and every household of each and every elder in my clan.
I was only five when he died but I would grow to fall in love with the sound of his voice and the weight of his message just as my mother and her mother and all the other Robinson’s had. I’d one day understand the troubles and joys of the world as he sang them and eventually I’d come to understand the pain the world felt the day he died at the hand of his own father just a day before his 45th birthday on April 1, 1984.
He had an unbelievable voice, remarkable style and a love for the world and the women of it that only song could express.
Thank you Marvin for sharing your magic with the world. You are missed but far from forgotten.
Marvin Gaye – I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1968)
The TAMI Show: Marvin Gaye – “Can I Get a Witness”
Marvin LIVE in Paris (part 1)
Marvin LIVE in Paris 1976 (part 2)
Marvin Gaye LIVE in Paris (part 3)
Marvin Gaye LIVE in Paris (part 4)
