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by Bob Stanley

One day in 1970, listening back to the Originals' four voices blending, Marvin - not the world's most modest man - thought he could have sung all four parts by himself.

- Bob Stanley

Here's a confession - I was a teenage quantity surveyor. The job was in Beckenham, it was 1983, and most lunch hours were spent in the local record shop. For some reason lost to the mists of time, Motown had re-issued Marvin Gaye's as a 12" single - though it's hard to believe now, the single had never been a hit in Britain and so this was the first time I'd ever heard it. The super-spacious production, the overlapping vocals, the sweet but keening string arrangement, and the astonishing lead vocal knocked me for six. The job didn't last more than a few months (I left when the Councillor Duxbury-like boss asked me to wash his car), but my love of 's music never ended.

What's Going On had originally come out in 1971, beyond the SOTS remit, and it marked the start of the second half of Marvin's career. In the sixties he had pretty much all of his songs written for him by crack writers like Norman Whitfield and Holland-Dozier-Holland, and had racked up 27 American Top 40 entries by the end of the decade. By contrast, Marvin had only scored one UK Top 40 hit (It Takes Two with Kim Weston, a no.16 in 1967) before I Heard It Through The Grapevine went all the way to number one in 1969, quickly followed by Too Busy Thinking About My Baby (no.5) and The Onion Song (no.9).

was credited as a duet with Tammi Terrell, though there were rumours that Tammi didn't sing on it at all and Valerie Simpson had taken her place. It certainly sounds like Tammi Terrell. The reason for the confusion was that she had collapsed on stage, into Marvin Gaye's arms, in late 1967 and been diagnosed with a brain tumour. By 1969 she was seriously ill, and apparently recorded The Onion Song in a wheelchair; she died a few months after it was a hit.

Marvin Gaye was devastated by her death - "I felt that I had somehow died with her" he told biographer David Ritz - and stopped recording. He decided he'd like to become a professional American footballer instead, and trained with the East Michigan University squad. He was already 30 - if he'd started training a decade earlier he might have got somewhere, but after a few months the coach had to break it to Marvin that he'd never play for a pro team. He was throwing himself into other projects, one of which was producing a Motown group called the Originals, and together they cut one of my favourite soul ballads of all time, The Bells. One day in 1970, listening back to the Originals' four voices blending, Marvin - not the world's most modest man - thought he could have sung all four parts by himself. Freshly inspired, he began to write again; another year later, What's Going On was in the shops.