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Album review: Marvin Gaye
By Adam Goldstein
goldstea@mscd.edu

Marvin Gaye Can I Get a Witness (Universal Music Enterprises, 2006)

Real soul music can’t be homogenized.

Over 40 years after the first sides were cut in the tiny Detroit studio called Motown and aspiring artists like Otis Redding, Ray Charles and Wilson Pickett built Atlantic Record’s reputation, soul’s contribution to popular music remains revolutionary. The raw sentiment, the stirring emotion and the brute honesty of the genre remain primal.

Real Music’s new Marvin Gaye compilation, Can I Get a Witness, defies the label’s attempts to neatly package, simplify and condense the legend’s contributions. Though the record company, a subsidiary of Starbucks, condenses Gaye’s 20-plus year career into 16 tracks, the depth and intensity of his style suffuses the limited format.

Yes, this is a truncated version of Marvin Gaye. Sure, the CD presents only a rough aural sketch, a superficial sound sampling destined for casual listeners as they sip their caramel macchiatos.

Nevertheless, Marvin shines through. Gaye’s intensity, emotion and integrity breathe life into the abbreviated and corporate package.

From early tracks like “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” and “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” that established Gaye as an early ambassador for the Motown sound, to sultry, seductive anthems like “Distant Lover” and “Come Get to This,” this single CD neatly covers the pop star’s evolution as a sex symbol. In Real Music’s defense, the record company avoids “Let’s Get It On,” one of the most commercialized and ubiquitous modern pop tunes.

In its samples of Gaye’s love songs, the album documents one of the singer’s most successful musical partnerships. “You’re All I Need to Get By” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” feature Tami Terrell’s steady and sizzling harmonies. Her vocals served as Gaye’s ultimate compliment – Terrell was the object of his amorous entreaties, a musically realized recipient and reciprocator.

Just as Gaye’s progress from bubble gum euphemisms to unabashed solicitations mirrored the country’s shifting sexual mores, songs like “What’s Going On?” and “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” reflected a blooming social consciousness in popular music. These are songs borne of conscience, and their urgent tone has not been diminished by the decades. These are the tunes that made Gaye a social crusader as well as a sex symbol, and this integral part of his personality is only hinted at by these two tracks.

The timeless beauty of the songs on this collection remains poignant and Gaye’s artistic vision and social message persists.

Still, Can I Get A Witness represents a bittersweet experience, like a series of 16 Van Gogh paintings hanging in a McDonald’s. If you can stomach the saccharine atmosphere and dismiss the pervading sense of corporate evil, you might be able to appreciate the artwork.