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Sexual Healing

Gaye, Marvin

Listen to Marvin Gaye:

Sexual Healing Marvin Gaye moved from the social to the sensual when he released the blatantly erotic "Let's Get It On". By Motown standards, this song was X-rated, but it only scratched the surface of Gaye's later exploration into all things sexual. When he separated from his wife, Anna, who was seventeen years his senior, to live with Janis Hunter, a girl seventeen years his junior, Gaye's obsession with sexuality became compulsive enough to influence, no, dominate his art. His album I Want You features more labored breathing than a convention of asthmatics. After Hunter gave birth to Gaye's daughter, Anna Gordy figured that she had stood as much as she could and began divorce proceedings. The resultant settlement stated that Gordy would receive the advance and all of the royalties from Gaye's next album release. Gaye gave the double album the rather sardonic title of Here, My Dear and then sat back and watched the critics pick it apart like so many carrion crows. Gaye did eventually marry Hunter but his philandering soon destroyed his second marriage as well. Nonetheless, he was shocked and hurt when he discovered his wife was having an affair with his friend Teddy Pendergrass. A serious drug dependency and financial problems compounded the difficulty of this time and Gaye's grip on reality became very tenuous. His relationship with Motown soured irreparably and in 1981 he signed with CBS Records.

Work began on a new album, but Gaye lacked material and direction. Fortuitously, he was reunited with his old friend, Harvey Fuqua. Fuqua helped to produce the album, provided artistic direction and generally put Gaye's life back in to some semblance of order. "Sexual Healing" is the simply structured, gently erotic first single from the resultant record, Midnight Love. The album, particularly "Sexual Healing", further explores Gaye's sexual obsession and celebrates the sanctified element of sex. Eroticism is expressed as liberation of the soul. Prince would later popularize a seamless combination of the sacred and the profane, but it was Gaye who spent a decade developing the theme.

Both the album and the single became hits and finally, Marvin Gaye's career was properly revived. "Sexual Healing" generated two Grammy awards, the first time that Gaye was officially recognized by this institution. Unfortunately, his newfound happiness and mental stability were short-lived. He allegedly started taking drugs again and his darker moods occurred more frequently. On April Fool's Day, 1984, while staying at his parent's house in California, an argument ensued between Gaye and his father, Marvin Gay Sr. Their relationship had always been strained and confrontational, but on this morning it came to a head, with Gaye’s father shooting him in the chest. In one quick stroke, the maddeningly unpredictable and artistically fruitful life of a truly creative superstar had ended.