Marvin Gaye’s Motown Minute

Our “Motown Minute” is designed to put the spotlight on a deserving Motown singer or legend, as the Motown sound was one of the best. Let’s look at the late Marvin Gaye.

Marvin sold millions of records, but didn’t win a Grammy until his “Sexual Healing” phase in the mid-80s, and struggles with depression and addition up to the day he died. On April 1, 1984 in his Los Angeles, he got into a fight with his father (his parents were living in the estate with Marvin). While talking to his mother his dad ambushed him with a few gun shots, mortally wounding the icon.

The paramedics had to wait for nearly 45 minutes to be sure they themselves would not be harmed before they could reach Marvin, but the initial shot to the heart proved to be instantly fatal.

While Marvin Gaye died at the age of 44, his father was given a six-year suspended sentence. Marvin senior died in a nursing home in 1998 at the age of 84.


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