Marvin Gaye is shot and killed by his own father
At the peak of his career Marvin Gaye was the Prince of Motownthe soulful voice behind hits as wide-ranging as How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) and Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).Like his label-mate Stevie Wonder Gaye both epitomized and outgrew the crowd-pleasing sound that made Motown famous.Over the course of his roughly 25-year recording career he moved successfully from upbeat pop to message music to satin-sheet soul combining elements of Smokey Robinson Bob Dylan and Barry White into one complicated and sometimes contradictory package.
But as the critic Michael Eric Dyson put it the man who chased away the demons of millionswith his heavenly sound and divine art was chased by demons of his own throughout his life.That life came to a tragic end on this day 1984 when Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his own father one day short of his 45th birthday.If the physical cause of Marvin Gayes death was straightforwardGunshot wound to chest perforating heart lung and liver according to the Los Angeles County Coronerthe events that led to it were much more tangled.On the one hand there was the longstanding conflict with his father dating back to childhood.
Marvin Gay Sr.(the e was added by his son for his stage name) was a preacher in the Hebrew Pentecostal Church and a proponent of a strict moral code he enforced brutally with his four children.He was also by all accounts a hard-drinking cross-dresser who personally embodied a rather complicated model of morality.
By some reports Marvin Sr.harbored significant envy over his sons tremendous success and Marvin Jr.clearly harbored unresolved feelings toward his abusive father.Those feelings spilled out for the final time in the Los Angeles home of Marvin Gay Sr.
and his wife Alberta.Their son the international recording star had moved into his parents home in late 1983 at a low point in his struggle with depression debt and cocaine abuse.Only one year removed from his first Grammy win and from a triumphant return to the pop charts with Sexual Healing Marvin Gaye was in horrible physical psychological and financial shape and now he found himself living in the same house as the man who must have been at the root of many of his struggles.After an argument between father and son escalated into a physical fight on the morning of April 1 1984 Alberta Gay was trying to calm her son in his bedroom when Marvin Sr.
took a revolver given to him by Marvin Jr.and shot him three times in his chest.Marvin Gayes brother Frankie who lived next door and who held the legendary singer during his final minutes later wrote in his memoir that Marvin Gayes final disturbing statement was I got what I wanted.I couldnt do it myself so I made him do it.
