Frankie Gaye - What's Going On

This is Frankie Gaye, brother of the legendary Marvin Gaye, performing his brother's classic "What's Going On". This is a part of the huge Motorcity Reunion that I put together between 1987 and 1992, recording 108 former artists of Motown across a massive eight hundred and fifty songs. When we all first went to Los Angeles, in April 1989, to have a second public reunion there of all the California based former Motown artists, immediately following the one we'd just done in Detroit, Frankie came along, and we were all shocked and numbed by how much he looked like his late brother Marvin. So I had the brilliant idea of teaming him up with Kim Weston for them to re-do "It Takes Two", which of course Kim had originally sung with Marvin. Frankie was Marvin's younger brother , and had been the inspiration for "What's Going On", and indeed Frankie sang on that, alongside Marvin, and if you listen closely you can hear both voices on there on the original version. Frankie and his wife Irene were actually in the house when Frankie's father shot Marvin dead, in 1984. Anyway, Frankie seemed such an obvious and necessary addition to Motorcity. After recording an album's worth of solo material with him, I decided I wanted a tribute song to his brother, one with a true, jazzy, lazy, dreamy, finger snapping Motorcity flavour. I co-wrote "My Brother" with Ronnie McNeir and Renaldo (Obie) Benson, of the Four Tops. This was particularly historic because Obie was one of the writers of "What's Going On" for Marvin, therefore lending an amazing amount of credibility to this song. And in fact, Ronnie and Obie are singing the backing vocals, and you can also see the video of that song here on YouTube. Later that year, in 1990, Frankie got to perform both "What's Going On" and "My Brother" to a huge crowd on the rooftop of the enormous Pontchartrain Hotel in Detroit, on a hot humid summer Saturday night, after it had poured down all day. I was sitting next to Berry Gordy's sister, Esther Edwards, and she gasped in shock when Frankie appeared, and said it was like seeing a ghost. I am so glad we can now look at this amazing performance. Sadly Frankie, just like his brother Marvin, has now passed on to that soul concert in the sky, but I shall always be so proud of these wonderful performances.