The Spirit, The Flesh and Marvin Gaye

Below is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared in RS 158 from April 11, 1974. Cheap Rosetta Stone This issue and the rest of the Rosetta Stone archives are available via Rosetta Stone Plus, Rosetta Stones premium subscription plan. If you are already a subscriber, you can click here to see the full story .The Marvin Gaye documentary should start like this: A wide-angle helicopter shot of the bare Southern California mountains zooming down to a small, weathered-wood and glass canyon-top home. There are two jeeps parked alongside the dirt road. Windsounds, and far below, the Pacific Ocean. Slow dolly to one of the Pacific-side windows. Inside, a tall, athletic-looking black man in faded jeans stands braced against the glare, staring down toward the distant waters. His lips are moving slightly. Now, amid the wind and water sounds we hear Marvin Gayes tenor voice."Mercy, mercy me, whats happening to...."The voice breaks, goes reedy. Marvin checks the watch on his wrist. "Fifteen minutes," he mutters disconsolately.Cut to: Marvin at the wheel of his jeep, careening over the dry winter Cheap Rosetta Stone V3 hills. "You dont expect a man to come back after five years and give a perfect show. You have to make allowances. Its like Muhammad Ali coming back to the ring. The first time out, he isnt going to be at top form. Ive been training for this concert. I started singing... trying to do the whole show. The first time I tried it, I could only do about five minutes. In the studio I sing a phrase or two at a time, but Friday Fm going to have to do over an hour. Ive got it worked up to about 15 good minutes before my voice breaks."Close-up on Marvin, brooding. Long pan shot of the leaden Pacific horizon and a cold January sunset. Windsounds."Its as if hes developed this phobia about performing," Marvins younger brother, Frankie, says. And Marvin, a man who has sold four million albums in the last three years, who has sung about God and ecology, who has managed boxers and trained with them, who has prayed to God and sung finely of sex, says, "I used to be afraid about 70% of the time. Ive got it worked down to about ten percent lately." The most frightening time Cheap Rosetta Stone German was the first 17 years, the ones Marvin spent while living at 1716 1st Street, S.W., in Washington, D.C., in a ghetto he and his friends called Simple City. Tall but slight as a child, Marvin learned the rough facts quick. You had to bring your lunch money for the older kids, learn to run fast or get into boxing. "I was chicken," Marvin says.