when Marvin Gaye sang
whole world changed nothing nothing
was ever the same
What can I say.
What can I say but that I got chills.
What can I say but that I got chills this when I READ Marvin Gaye’s iconic NBA All-Star Game national anthem: ‘He turned that thing into his own’ (click headline for PDF) in today’s Athletic.
According to the article by David Aldridge and Marcus Thompson II, it was 30 years ago that Marvin Gaye sang his three minute version of the Star Spangled Banner.
In February 1984, I was a college student in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a city often described by people who haven’t lived there as a suburb of Detroit.
While it may not have been a suburb, it Ann Arbor did have a Detroit edge to it and Motown was the home team.
Come to think of it, growing up in Michigan, Motown was the home team.
It seems like a lot of the sound track music to my life is Motown.
And Marvin Gaye was going to start off the NBA All Star game, and please understand that in 1984, the NBA All Star game was nothing like it is today.
First of all, it was a real game and both teams wanted to win.
Second of all, that is all it was, just this one game.
No All Star week.
And Marvin Gaye was going to start it off with the National Anthem.
The story told in this article is wonderful in capturing this moment and what led up to it, how it came off, and the legacy of it all.
(Spoiler Alert – the play by play of the people in LA waiting waiting waiting for Marvin to show up and he walks into the arena with his drum track on a cassette in his hand MINUTES before he went on national TV is … well, read it for yourself)
One of the best things written in the article is the line, “No one remembers what happened in the game. No one. Including the players. “If you ask anybody about the L.A. All-Star Game, they say, ‘That’s the Marvin Gaye national anthem game,’” [Isiah] Thomas said.”
I remember watching it as it happened.
“So Marvin walks out,” Thomas said. “They got his music, he grabs the mic … just as cool as ever. But the anthem music doesn’t come on. It’s another beat. The first thing you notice is, ‘Wait a minute; this ain’t the national anthem soundtrack.’”
I remember as I watched and listened, that I had to stand up.
Then I remember thinking how long can this go?
This is INCEDIBLE.
When Marvin got the sell out crowd clapping IN TIME to the National Anthem, I think I had tears in my eyes.
When the players, looking at each in disbelief, joined the crowd, I know I had tears.
In the article, Marquis Johnson said, “The first thought was something to the effect of, like, the uber-patriots, Marvin’s kind of messing with the national anthem. ‘Boy, he’s going to get some blowback for this.’ But then as he went on, and it was so iconic and funky and soulful, all that good stuff, that wasn’t the thought. I was just standing there and enjoying the moment, realizing that this is a unique, special experience that we were all a part of.”
Never forgot it.
But when I talked with other people about it, so few seemed to have any knowledge of it.
People who see other good renditions of the National Anthem and ask me about it.
Oh that Whitney …
Did you see Carrie … or Lady Gaga ..
Well, I would say, they weren’t at all like Marvin were they …
And I would get blank stares.
Staying local, I love Anita Baker (okay I love anything by Anita Baker) and Karen Newman and their renditions of the Anthem but the gold standard, heck the ONLY standard is Marvin.
As Mr. Aldridge and Mr. Thompson II write, Gaye bent the song to his will and tempo.
Working 20 years in television news, I had a standard for sports reporters based on whether on not they remembered this moment
One feller, I think in Atlanta, and I had a long email exchange over it.
I had to send him the link to YouTube.
10 minutes later, he was up in my office to thank me.
He had never even HEARD of it.
Just have to shake my head.
Can something be a defining moment if few people remember.
This song was for me at least.
It somehow made the National Anthem, well, National.
When I die, I hope someone plays this as my ashes are poured out on the beach.
What’s left of Me, the beach and Marvin Gaye singing the National Anthem.
And I know there are comments and concerns about our National Anthem.
It isn’t the greatest song in the book but it is the national song.
Andy Rooney once said something like, say what you will about the Star Spangled Banner, it sure sounds good when you hear it when you are in another country.
One song.
Lots of renditions.
But none better than one sang on February 13, 1983, in Los Angeles California by Marvin Pentz Gay Jr.
Marvelous Marvin.
And I’ll never forget it.
I hope you take the time to listen.
According to the article this 3 minute version is cut down from the 6 minute version at rehearsal.
I got chills watching this too.
No Haiku For You 