07/14/2026
In 1970, Marvin Gaye's brother Frankie came home from Vietnam. He described to Marvin what he had seen there — the dehumanisation, the violence, the profound dissonance between the war and the country that had sent him to fight it.
Marvin had already been struggling with Motown's restrictions. His duet partner Tammi Terrell had died of a brain tumour in 1970, after years of illness. He was in a depression and had stopped recording. When he finally agreed to begin again, it would be on his own terms.
He wrote and recorded "What's Going On" — a Vietnam veteran returning to America and finding poverty, racism, and environmental destruction. He called Berry Gordy to play it to him over the phone. Gordy was in the Bahamas.
Gordy told him: the song was too jazzy, too old. He said: "That Dizzy Gillespie stuff in the middle, that scatting — it's old." He called it "the worst thing I ever heard in my life."
Gaye went on strike. He refused to record anything else until the song was released.
While Gordy was distracted with other business, Motown's sales vice president Barney Ales and executive Harry Balk released it anyway — pressing 100,000 copies on 17 January 1971 without Gordy's knowledge.
It sold over 200,000 copies in a week. It became the fastest-selling single in Motown history. It reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on the R&B chart.
Gordy, faced with the evidence of his error, agreed to let Gaye produce a full album. The result was What's Going On — one of the most celebrated albums in the history of popular music.
The man who called it the worst thing he'd ever heard made it possible by getting out of the way.
&B
