Nothing ‘Going On’
HOW BRITISH INDIFFERENCE MET MARVIN’S MASTERWORK
What on earth is there left to say about the album which today (May 21) celebrates the 50th anniversary of its original release?
In just the last few weeks alone, thousands of words have been reverently written about What’s Going On, and many more spoken. On May 9, for example, television’s CNN network aired a new, one-hour documentary on the subject, with Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson among those interviewed. This Sunday (23), there’s a ticketed, online “conversation” about the album organised by New York cultural institution 92nd Street Y, which includes the participation of Marvin Gaye’s widow, Janis, and his biographer, David Ritz.
Marvin, working at home with ‘What’s Going On’ arranger David Van DePitte
In the U.K., there’s a BBC radio documentary hosted by singer Emeli Sandé, exploring the subject with archive interviews. Lamont Dozier is one who offered insightful comments, as did former Motown musicians Joe Messina (he played on the album) and Bob Babbitt. Naturally, the May edition of Mojo magazine has a substantial feature about What’s Going On. Also, there’s a thorough account by cultural critic Martin Chilton in The Independent, while British-American playwright/novelist Bonnie Greer has written for The New European about the music’s impact on her, growing up in Chicago.
Yet hardly anyone has pointed out that in Britain – a country whose ongoing love for classic Motown, its stars and its music is arguably greater than that in the United States – What’s Going On had no discernible impact upon first arrival. “Superb subtlety,” wrote Record Mirror editor Peter Jones in reviewing the title track, “hopefully not too subtle for British clods.”
The album was released in September 1971 by Motown’s long-standing U.K. licensee, EMI Records. That’s right: September, four months later than in America. The title track appeared as a British single at the end of May, also four months after the American 45. In the less-connected world of a half-century ago, the rationale for waiting was often that it would allow a record’s U.S. chart success (assuming there was any) to be used to excite British broadcasters, particularly the BBC’s dominant Radio 1.
“Also,” says John Marshall, Motown’s London-based deputy international director at the time, “such a delay would let imports come in from the U.S., which we hoped would cause a buzz and demand. This sometimes happened.”
AHEAD OF ITS TIME
In the event, regardless of the music’s immediate acceptance and popularity in America, neither the first single nor the album generated significant airplay or sales in Britain, and there was no chart action whatsoever. The same indifference greeted subsequent – and equally delayed – U.K. single releases, namely, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” issued in February 1972, and “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” in May of ’72.
“It was a bitter disappointment, as you can imagine, that the singles and the album made little impact in the U.K. on first release,” says Marshall. “The country just didn’t seem to be ready for a political concept album from Marvin and from Motown.”
That memorable backyard on Outer Drive
To Alan Davison, one of EMI Records’ top salesmen during that period, What’s Going On didn’t seem to be much of a priority for the company, either – at least in retrospect. “It was,” he told me recently, “never one of those albums where anyone at headquarters in Manchester Square said, ‘We’ve got to break it.’ ”
Davison certainly knew the music: he had picked up a pre-release copy in Detroit in May 1971 while accompanying 45 of Britain’s top record retailers on a multi-city U.S. visit. “When I came home with that album,” he recalls, “I was the dog’s bollocks.” (That cachet only increased in 1973, when Davison became EMI’s Tamla Motown label manager.)
An obstacle to British acceptance of What’s Going On was the fact that for the previous couple of years, record buyers had been snapping up reissues of Tamla Motown singles which were mostly ignored the first time around. Among those in ’69 were Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing In The Street,” which went Top 5 in February; the Temptations’ “Get Ready,” Top 10 in April; and the Miracles’ “The Tracks Of My Tears,” Top 10 in June. In 1970, the trend continued with reissues of the Four Tops’ “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch),” which made the Top 10 in April, and Jimmy Ruffin’s “I’ll Say Forever My Love,” Top 10 in August. The practice faded the following year, but not before the Elgins’ “Heaven Must Have Sent You” ascended to the Top 3 in June.
‘QUICK AND CATCHY’ PREFERRED
“What’s Going On” (the single) did gain some U.K. airplay on original release, according to John Marshall, “but no great enthusiasm from the BBC. In the main, they liked a quick, catchy tune that they could easily fade in order to get onto their chat and the next record. The DJs and programme directors – ‘producers’ as the BBC called them then – did like to keep their shows moving, with some exceptions: Mike Raven, John Peel, Kenny Everett.”
Alan Davison agrees that Peel was taken with Gaye’s new music, while seasoned journalist Richard Williams, who was then assistant editor at Melody Maker, recalls Charlie Gillett “liking it a lot, although he had yet to begin his radio career.” Williams continues, “I remember some of us at Melody Maker were interested, particularly Alan Lewis, who reviewed most of the soul albums, and me. But commercially, it didn’t seem to fit into any of the accepted niches. Most people still expected a Motown record to sound like ‘Dancing In The Street’ or ‘This Old Heart Of Mine.’ ”
For Marvin in Blues & Soul, it was *****
Nor did the eventual arrival of What’s Going On feature the gatefold cover of the American package. “It was in a rather flimsy single sleeve,” says Williams, “which suggests a lack of confidence from the [EMI] marketing department at Manchester Square. And the subtle, slow-burn grooves of ‘What’s Going On’ and ‘Inner City Blues’ really had no context in Britain.”
There were other enthusiasts in the music press. Blues & Soul editor John Abbey called it “one of the great albums of 1971,” and gave it a five-star review. “Each song contains a distinct message aimed at today’s society in the States,” he wrote, “some of which applies to this country, too, although much will be alien to the average British listener. In every way this is a classic album and, although it won’t sell nearly as well over here as it did in the States – where it was No. 1 [R&B] album for weeks – it’s one that we heartily recommend.”
In an earlier Blues & Soul issue, Abbey had hedged his bets, referencing “a messy production” which “doesn’t get through the first few times you hear it” – he was hardly alone among Motown followers with that view – while adding that “the irregular beat is clumsy.” Today, Abbey is candid enough to confirm those initial impressions. “I didn’t personally like What’s Going On that much – certainly at first. Later on, a couple of tracks grew on me. Honestly again, I was never a big Marvin Gaye fan anyway.”
At Disc and Music Echo, Phil Symes scored a rare interview with the singer in June 1971. “The album and single show the sort of emotion and personal feelings I have about the situation in America and the world,” the Motown star told the British journalist by phone from Detroit. “I think I’ve got a real love thing going. I love people, I love life and I love nature, and I can’t see why other people can’t be like that.”
When he spoke to Symes, Gaye had only visited the U.K. once, in 1964. “I’d love to come back some day and say ‘hi’ to the people, see the people and groove there. It’s been a long time, and I’m beginning to feel like an old man. I feel that people in Europe are different from Americans – I think your soul is a little deeper. What a helluva thing I’m saying! There you seem to understand my blackness, my forcefulness and my earthiness. I feel you understand, and I get the vibration that you care a little more.”
Ironic words in light of what happened – or what didn’t – when What’s Going On first arrived. In the years which followed, the album gradually grew in stature in Britain. Its sales were steady, and in 1998 there was even a modest chart appearance, albeit below the Top 40. Today, notes Alan Davison, “it’s like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Dark Side Of The Moon or Bridge Over Troubled Water or Bat Out Of Hell or Rumours – every home has to have What’s Going On.”
At last, to borrow Marvin Gaye’s words, the Brits got the vibration.
West Grand Blog is taking a short break. See you on the other side, with luck.
Book notes: the best book (indeed, the only one) devoted solely to Marvin’s masterwork was by the late Ben Edmonds, entitled What’s Going On? Marvin Gaye And The Last Days Of The Motown Sound, published in 2001 by Britain’s Mojo Books. It should be republished, Edmonds’ estate allowing. The vital role played in the album’s making by arranger David Van DePitte is detailed in 1993’s The Billboard Book of Number One Rhythm & Blues Hits by (ahem) Adam White and Fred Bronson, based on an interview with Van DePitte a mere 20 years after the album’s release.
Music notes: there are, of course, a variety of British singers and musicians who have interpreted “What’s Going On,” most of them in the 21st century. These range from Joe Cocker to Seal, from Mica Paris to Paul Weller, and are included in this latest West Grand playlist. The song was also employed in 1994’s Music Relief campaign in the U.K. to raise money for refugees in war-torn Rwanda. There was a new version recorded by an assembly of artists, including Roachford, Yazz and Gabrielle, and it charted briefly at the end of that year.