Record of the Day: Marvin Gaye, “Live at the London Palladium”

Marvin Gaye
Live at the London Palladium (Cd Tamla 314549518-2)

The industrial quantity of cocaine that Marvin Gaye consumed in 1976 (due to the depression he had been brought into by
his divorce and the resulting financial turmoil) had, among other unpleasant effects, that of making him paranoid.
When an English promoter managed to convince his management to bring him to England for a series of concerts, also given the huge success in the charts of his album “I Want You”, Marvin went into a panic as soon as he was told the news.
He said he was afraid of flying, and was terrified of performing in public as his only appearances in England had been on television twelve years earlier; Gaye cancelled the trip, and the fact that this magnificent record exists today is only thanks to the perseverance of his manager who laboriously persuaded him to go.

The tour obviously went very well and Marvin was very surprised by the warmth and affection that the public reserved for him, given that in America his fortunes in those years (even from the critics) were very different. At the last minute it was decided to record the date of October 3rd at the famous London Palladium, and the singer gave one of the best concerts of his career, singing wonderfully classics of his repertoire such as “Let’s Get It On”, “Trouble Man”, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”, looking even further back with the first successes recorded for Motown including “Little Darling I Need You”, “Pride And Joy”, “Hitch Hike” and duetting with Florence Lyles in “Distant Lover” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, which he had performed with the unforgettable Tammi Terrell.

Marvin was desperate to make a double album, but when the tapes were assembled it was discovered that the concert was too short to cover four LP sides. Producer Art Stewart had a stroke of genius in convincing Gaye to develop a song (“Got to Give It Up”) that had been drafted and put in a drawer, extending it to over twelve minutes and completing the album.

The result was a true soul/funk classic that exploded in every discotheque, becoming one of the most famous songs of his career thanks to a rhythm that immediately grabs you and forces you to move to the sound of Marvin’s wonderful voice, which seems to be able to go on forever, superimposing multiple vocal parts with great virtuosity.

Carlo Boccadoro, composer and conductor, was born in Macerata in 1963. He lives and works in Milan. He collaborates with soloists and orchestras in different parts of the world. He is the author of numerous books on musical subjects.

This text is taken from “Lunario della musica: Un disco per ogni giorno dell’anno” published by Einaudi, courtesy of the author and the publisher.