We're back after an all-nighter pounding another classic bootleg into tiptop shape, all in honor of yet another avatar's milestone birthday today.
There ain't much to be said about today's big guy that ain't already been said.
He died one day shy of his 45th birthday, under well-documented and tragic circumstances.
If you added up all the babies ever conceived to his music, you could populate a medium sized planet.
His songs are so sumptuously timeless, there's likely several children being made to them right now, as I'm typing this.
To many, he is The King, the undisputed heavyweight champion of Soul.
Heck, his lost record -- the planned follow-up to What's Going On and an even more political platter, made during the 1972 election season -- just dropped this week and is currently storming up the charts.
They're called "legacy artists" because their output guarantees that subsequent generations will know them as a household name even though they may be decades departed.
And there's no single performer you could name that fits that description better than Marvin Gaye, born this day in 1939.
There aren't an awful lot of unreleased jams and concerts of him -- that You're The Man thing that just came out was the main missing piece in his extensive discography -- but there are a few.
Maybe the best one is this one, taped during his aborted 1979 tour in Japan.
Like I said I was up all night getting it right, as it ran a tad fast and had numerous dropouts that needed attention. I didn't really do much to it, but what I did do was necessary.
Marvin Gaye
Budokan
Tokyo, Japan
11.13.1979
01 Got to Give It Up
02 After the Dance
03 What's Going On
04 Save the Children
05 Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
06 A Funky Space Reincarnation
07 How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
08 Trouble Man
09 Ain't That Peculiar/You're a Wonderful One
10 Stubborn Kind of Fellow
11 Pride and Joy
12 Little Darlin' (I Need You)
13 I Heard It Through the Grapevine
14 Hitch Hike
15 You
16 Too Busy Thinking About My Baby
17 Distant Lover
18 Got to Give It Up (reprise)/FM outro
Total time: 1:04:58
Marvin Gaye - vocals & piano
band not entirely specified; likely:
Nolan Andrew Smith – trumpet
Ray Brown - trumpet
Kenny Mason – trumpet
Sidney Muldrew – French horn
Fostina Dixon - saxophones
Fernando Harkness – saxophones, flute
Elmira Collins – vibraphone
Eddie Brown - congas & percussion
Preston "Bugsy" Wilcox - drums
Odell Brown - keyboards & synthesizers
Frank Blair - bass
Gordon Banks - guitar
Wali Ali – guitar
Odell George - MC
sounds like a master off-air NHK-FM cassette
speed corrected, repaired, retracked and volume balanced by EN, April 2019
439 MB FLAC/April 2019 archive link
The band is so tight in this show, you could set the Atomic Clock by their precision. I did my best to identify who's playing, as Marvin only names a few of them during the set.
I'll be back in 24 hours with yet another in the April litany of superstars. Shucks, based on the birthday list alone I could blog twice a day for the whole month and not run out of honorees.
Today is the day of Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr., though, and trust me this Tokyo show from 40 years ago is not a performance you'll be comfortable missing.... kinda like we're all missing the man on this, what should have been his 80th birthday.--J.
4.2.1939 - 4.1.1984
Many thanks
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