Kerri Powers
Shemekia Copeland
Ida O’Keefe “Ozark Lime Kiln,” 1931
“Marvin Gaye
July 12th, 1983
Boston Common
My list of favorite male soul singers would include: Otis Redding, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson, Al Green, David Ruffin, Levi Stubbs, Curtis Mayfield and, of course, Marvin Gaye.
I attended this outdoor concert just nine months before Marvin Gaye was shot and killed the day before his 45th birthday by his father, Marvin Gay Sr., on April 1, 1984, at their house in Los Angeles.
After a long career with Motown records, he signed a contract with CBS Records (Columbia) in 1982. Later in that same year he released what would be his final studio album, Midnight Love. Village Voice critic, Robert Christgau said of the record, that the album’s “concentration on the carnal is one reason it’s his best ever”. Four singles were released from the album, “Sexual Healing,” “My Love Is Waiting,” “Til Tomorrow,” and “Joy.” Those songs were among the hit laden set list that was performed.
While I am glad I attended the show, it was not the Marvin I wanted to see. Sure there were songs from the monumental 1971 release, What’s Going On and many of the gems he recorded for Motown as well as the sexually charged songs from Let’s Get It On, but during the latter part of the show he seductively stripped down to his boxer shorts to the howls and screams from the many fans in attendance. The carnal was on full display.
Ben Ratliff, author of Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty said, “Many of us listen through our own memories-not a historical memory, attaching a piece of music to its own time, but a personal memory, attaching it to ours. Sometimes the maintenance of the memory becomes the important thing: we listen or we don’t, according to what we think the memory wants.”
I think my memory wanted 1971 and prior Marvin, but many, if not most of the crowd seemed more than happy and open to the 1983 version.”
“The World Is Full of Angry Young Men
XTC
Gone are the days
When hate filled my heart
I feel now I am a happy man
I laugh now at values that I had
All through my youth
I was shouting and no one would hear
Blind to the ways
Of the people who now I hold dear
It’s loud and clear
The world is full of angry young men
Chip on the shoulder,
An ideal in their head
The world is full of angry young men
Who think life owes them something
But you only get out what goes in
There was a time
When I fought the world
I see now
It was just an act to stage
I see clear
The colors through the haze
As time goes on
Your opinion will change like the weather
Things that you said
Now seem small
They just don’t seem to matter
I look for the better
The world is full of angry young men
Chip on the shoulder,
An ideal in their head
The world is full of angry young men
Who think life owes them something
But you only get out what goes in
There was a time I was lost in the dark
I ran a race I didn’t know where to start
Now I’ve changed my ways
Seeing better days
I’m turning my world upside down
The world is full of angry young men
Chip on the shoulder,
An ideal in their head
The world is full of angry young men
Who think life owes them something
But you only get out what goes in
Angry young men
What you put in is what you get out”
Recent project from the XTC popster