After the Dance: My Life With Marvin Gaye

by Jan Gaye

  When the long interview was over and the Rolling Stone people were gone, I considered all that had been said. I was particularly intrigued by Marvin’s remarks about sex. The sex between us, while always exciting, had started to take a different turn. Marvin had become more oral, which, of course, pleased me. Even though I began our physical relationship in his lap, he had increasingly become more willing to reciprocate the favor—a breakthrough for him. At the same time, he had introduced into the mix a certain kinkiness that, although not exactly my style, was something I was willing to entertain. Not to do so would only anger Marvin. I went along with his program, which, from time to time, involved fantasies of me with other women.

  These variations did, in fact, bring me new pleasures. The omnipresence of pot and the increasing use of cocaine facilitated my willingness and widened my enjoyment. At times I feared that I was falling down a slippery slope but quickly dismissed such anxieties.

  “No need to be uptight,” Marvin urged. “If it feels good, that means it is good.”

  I didn’t have to justify my willingness to be led down the path. I felt privileged to be on the path. I still couldn’t believe that somehow this extraordinary man had chosen to live his life with me by his side.

  Nestled inside a woodsy canyon, looking down from the mountain, I watched time move slowly. An entire day might be devoted to nothing more than an unhurried walk along the beach to watch the sun slip into the ocean. We sat on the sand and stayed silent as the waves crashed to the shore. Flocks of birds staged whirling formations and flew off into the distance. I took his hand; he kissed my face.

  Back up at the house, I was not surprised to see that Frankie Gaye, Marvin’s brother, had arrived. Family members were always showing up. Three years younger than Marvin, Frankie bore a striking resemblance to his older sibling. Frankie had Marvin’s quiet demeanor. Like Marvin, he spoke in a whisper. Like Marvin, he was a gentle soul. He harbored ambitions to sing but, unlike Marvin, lacked the drive to break into show business. He was also a Vietnam vet—the returning soldier at the center of What’s Going On—and a man who had been deeply traumatized by the war. On the surface, though, Frankie was an easygoing character. Only his heavy drinking habit bothered Marvin, who had little taste for alcohol.

  “He’ll be hanging out with us for only a few days,” Marvin told me. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you, dear?”

  “Of course not. He’s family.” I loved Frankie, who had the same lighthearted sense of humor as Marvin.

  I soon learned, though, that family—especially the Gaye family—could be as much a burden as a blessing. When Frankie’s stay extended beyond a few days to a few weeks and then months, I despaired. The love nest was crowded.

  On another front, another invasion threatened our domesticity. Motown never stopped calling with the same messages: Your album’s a smash; you’re more popular than ever; your fans are dying to see you, hear you, show you their devotion. How can you resist their love? How can you resist their money? How long can you hide out?

  Promoters found their way through the canyon to Marvin’s door with extravagant offers.

  “You’ll be returning to the stage a conquering hero,” they promised him.

  He lit a joint, he smiled, he pondered, and then he refused. But they refused his refusals and ultimately came back with more money, more perks, more ways to flatter his ego. Finally he succumbed. He set a date for one concert and one concert only. During the late summer of 1973, he committed to playing the Oakland Coliseum in November. The decision came after weeks of mental turmoil.

  “At least you’ve made up your mind,” I offered in the way of comfort. “Maybe you’ll even like getting back in the ring.”

  “If you really knew me,” he snapped, “you wouldn’t say that. I’m just not ready.”

  “Then why did you agree?”

  “To make you happy.”

  “To make me happy? What!”

  “Yes, dear. Don’t you want to watch me onstage being adored by thousands of women and then come home with me?”

  “Of course. And your show will be great.”

  “It’ll be a nightmare. I’ve screwed up.”

  “Then cancel.”

  “I’ve given my word.”

  “It’ll be fine, Marvin.”

  “Roll a jay, dear. I need a smoke.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  The smoke only increased his apprehension. When the first rehearsals came around, he skipped them. The promoter began to panic. Marvin hadn’t appeared in public in over a year. He didn’t have a regular band or a set show. There was an enormous amount of work to do. He needed to get started, yet he kept procrastinating.

  Tickets were printed. Ads were placed. The Coliseum sold out within minutes. Orchestrations were written, musicians hired. If he didn’t start rehearsing now, he’d be in deep trouble. Marvin was courting disaster.

  “Marvin loves to cut it close,” Frankie told me.

  “Why?”

  “He loves the drama.”

  “Drama or not, he’s going to have to start rehearsing. He can’t cancel now.”

  “Tell the promoter that it’s off,” Marvin said. “November is too soon. I’m not ready.”

  “But . . .”

  “No buts about it. It’s off.”

  A month later, it was on again. Marvin had rediscovered his courage. He was also motivated by a need for cash. Although Let’s Get It On was a hit, royalties would not be forthcoming for a while. In the time since What’s Going On and Trouble Man, Marvin had spent all the money he had made. When it came to finances and, for that matter, all practicalities, Marvin was defiantly irresponsible. He spent what he wanted to spend when he wanted to spend it. He never heeded the advice of accountants or managers.

  “I’m simply unmanageable,” he was quick to say.

  He ignored all admonishments about saving money and, most alarmingly, paying taxes. Only when he was forced by dire consequences—like losing the house in Topanga—was he moved to action. Yet even then, action was not immediate.

  The Oakland concert, canceled in November, was now rescheduled for the first week of the new year. The mechanism was set back in motion. He was due for the first rehearsal in Hollywood for a show that was only three weeks away.

  When he missed the rehearsal everyone panicked—everyone except Marvin. Though anxiety was building up on the inside, on the outside Marvin was cool as a cucumber.

  “I want to get an RV,” he said. “I hate flying. I’d much rather drive up to Oakland in a big van.”

  He got the van.

  “You’re my copilot,” he told me. “Are you ready for our big adventure?”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the city. To ride out,” he said, using his favorite term for cruising.

  It was late when we arrived on Sunset Boulevard. During the trip down the coast into the city, Marvin mused about the mysteries of shamans and sorcerers.

  The Hollywood night was abuzz. The neon was screaming. Marvin directed his attention to the working ladies who displayed their wares under the streetlamps and on the corners that he had obviously visited before.

  At the same time, passing by a homeless man living out of a cardboard box, he said, “How I envy him! He’s truly free. No responsibilities, no ties to the hellish conformity of this world.”

  He hungrily surveyed the women—the more salacious the better. The ones with outsize backsides interested him most.

  “Stop here,” said Marvin, spotting a hooker. “Please go out and get me that newspaper, dear.”

  “Sure,” I replied. I was torn, but I went.

  The newspaper rack held copies of the LA Free Press with its semi-pornographic ads for sexual assignations.

  “Find anything interesting?” he asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Would you be nice enough, dear, to go back out there and ask that lady if she’d like to join us for a smoke?”
/>
  I hesitated.

  “Nothing to be afraid of, dear,” he said.

  I realized that there was no going back now. On this trip to the forbidden planet of illicit sex, I had become his partner. If I had been stronger—more sure of myself, less afraid of losing Marvin—I might have resisted, but I didn’t.

  I approached the working woman who, as Marvin anticipated, eagerly accepted the invitation. When the visitor stepped into the van, Marvin switched on the overhead light that illuminated his face. Expecting to be recognized, he was geared up to relish the moment.

  The young lady, however, did not recognize him. Marvin was crestfallen. His interest waned. He gave her twenty dollars and sent her on her way.

  On other neon nights there were times when Marvin wanted me to watch another woman service him. Conversely, Marvin began to speak of fantasies in which he watched me with other men. Over the next years, a few of these fantasies were realized.

  I was led into a world that was entirely about him. I was lost in my obsession with making Marvin happy.

  As I approached my eighteenth birthday, I’d been with Marvin for twelve months. More than ever, I felt lucky that he still wanted me around. I realized that a million other women would jump at the chance that I had been given.

  It didn’t matter that he was using me to fulfill his fantasies. I was willing to be led and fed whatever stimulants he offered.

  I felt compelled to give him whatever he needed. If I didn’t, another woman would. Maybe that woman would be his wife Anna.

  I loved him and was willing to let him mold me.

  Our love was growing. Every day we grew closer. As he slept, I watched him breathe. I imagined that, even in his dreams, we were together. When he awoke, he saw me by his side. He held me. He sang me a morning song. He said, “I love you, dear.”

  He was all I needed. He was all that mattered.

  “Jan”

  The weeks leading up to the concert in Oakland were pure chaos. Marvin’s normally mellow manner was undercut by his nervousness about the upcoming performance. He was a wreck.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he told me on our way to rehearsal.

  “But you are doing it,” I said.

  “I was cajoled, I was manipulated, I was talked into going against my own good instincts. My fans will be let down.”

  “Your fans will be thrilled. You’ll be fine.”

  Marvin’s fear of performing—his vulnerability—made me love him more. It made him more human, more endearing.

  “The music isn’t right,” he said. “The arrangements are off.”

  “You’re the boss, dear. You’ll change them and make them right.”

  “The clothes aren’t right. I don’t want to wear some ridiculous stage costume.”

  “Let me worry about the clothes,” I said.

  “Will you? Can you?”

  “I think I can. I think I know what will make you happy.”

  He took my hand and brought it to his lips. “Bless you, dear. Bless you for keeping me sane.”

  My vision came to me quickly: I took the basic outfit Marvin wore in Topanga—the clothes that best suited his relaxed nature—and brought them to a clothier who tricked them out. His favorite super-comfy denim shirt was studded with rhinestones. His red watch cap was adorned with sequins. He wore his own worn-down work boots, but they were studded, painted silver, and customized with high platform heels.

  “It’s rural funk,” said Marvin when I presented him with the clothes. “I love them! I love you!”

  For the moment, his anxieties were chilled. But they returned after he missed the third straight rehearsal. His absence was alarming both the promoters and Motown, who had a great deal at stake. Nearly three years after the triumph of What’s Going On, this was being hailed as Marvin’s second coming. They wanted to know why he was avoiding rehearsals. Why was he cutting it so close? And now, days before the actual concert, he was threatening to once again cancel the whole thing.

  “By now you have to know that he grooves on this,” Frankie told me one night when Marvin was out of earshot.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I know that. He likes to see everyone worrying to death on his behalf. It gets him off. He loves chaos.”

  “Topanga isn’t chaos. Topanga is calm.”

  “Topanga is beautiful,” Frankie agreed, “but Topanga isn’t real. You’ve already seen that Topanga won’t last for long.”

  While Marvin was dreading the Oakland show, Frankie was looking forward to the date because Marvin had assured him that they’d be able to work together. Frankie, Marvin’s brother, saw this as his big chance.

  When the big day arrived—January 4, 1974, a day before my eighteenth birthday—the chaos had not subsided. If anything, it had grown. Marvin had not only missed the sound check, but the orchestra had not been able to rehearse onstage. The few rehearsals Marvin did attend back in LA were hardly sufficient.

  Gene Page, the veteran musical director who reminded me of Uncle Albert, the ditzy upside-down character played by Ed Wynn in Mary Poppins, was running around in a panic. The Motown delegation, which included members of the Gordy family and Suzanne de Passe, was in a state of high anxiety. There was talk that Marvin might not show.

  But Marvin was in the house. Marvin was in his dressing room. I was with him. I was helping him put on his studded denim attire. I was sharing several preconcert joints with him. I was holding his hand that had turned sweaty and cold. I was assuring him that the world still loved him.

  Due to the presence of the Motown people, I was dealing with my own anxiety. They gave me dirty looks and regarded me as nothing more than a groupie. They had a long history with Marvin. I did not. They felt that he belonged to them, not to me. I feared that they would find a way to undermine my relationship with Marvin and cause him to cut me loose.

  Meanwhile, amid all this emotional chaos, fifteen thousand screaming fans awaited Marvin’s appearance.

  I listened as the overture began. There were hints of Marvin’s trademark motifs, melancholy refrains from past hits. The anticipation was overwhelming. The overture seemed to go on forever.

  I had moved to the wings to watch the moment at which not Marvin, but Frankie—with his uncanny resemblance to his brother—stepped into the spotlight. The crowd went wild. They thought they were seeing Marvin. Frankie simply stood there, relishing the moment, basking in the glory that was not really his.

  “Now the man you’ve really been waiting to see,” Frankie finally said, “Mr. Marvin Gaye!

  Frankie stepped out of the spotlight as Marvin stepped in.

  The crowd went even wilder.

  Now what?

  Would the lack of rehearsals render the show a disaster?

  Would Marvin’s fears undercut his ability to sing?

  He rose to the great occasion. It took a while, but soon he was soaring. Soon he was singing “Trouble Man.” He was Trouble Man—sexy and dangerous, gentle and sweet. He was flying high in a friendly sky, he was whispering “Mercy, mercy me,” warning us of the fate of our ecology, he was walking through the inner-city landscape of the blues. All this was fine. All this was cool. All this was well-mannered and mellow Marvin. But when the romantic Marvin emerged, and he broke into the opening strains of “Distant Lover,” pandemonium broke out. Women lost their minds. Their piercing screams shattered the night.

  Marvin loved being loved—and I loved watching him drink in the adoration. I was thrilled.

  The thrills increased when I heard the first notes of a song that Marvin had written for me, simply titled “Jan.” He had played me the song—a tribute to our enduring love—and hinted that he would perform it, but during several of the rehearsals he chose not to sing it. Until now, I wasn’t certain that he would.

  I listened closely to every word of his spoken introduction:

  “Here’s a new song I wrote,” he said, “a song about a little girl, really a beautiful youn
g lady. She asked me to write it, I promised her I would . . . it goes like this.”

  Suddenly my excitement took a nosedive. I had never asked him to write it. He offered. I was disappointed that he told the audience that I asked him to write it. It took away some of the pleasure and the romance of it all. However, it remains one of my favorite songs to this day.

  I understood that the presence of the Motown execs had affected him. Everyone pretended to like the song and that he wrote it for me, but they typically didn’t like reissues on any albums. They especially hated the fact that he had left Anna and was living with some young chick. So if he was going to write a song about the chick, it was only because the chick asked him to. No big deal.

  But to me it was a huge deal. The fact that he was singing this song at a concert being recorded as a live album was confirmation of his commitment to me. This concert would become a historical document. But now that document would indicate that the song was my idea. I was completely humiliated. Yet the song was out there—and so were his feelings for me. At the same time, I hated being portrayed as an insecure teenage girl who had to beg her man to write a song for her. Of course I had wanted Marvin to compose such a song—what woman wouldn’t?—but I’d never made that request. I knew him well enough to know how he resented such requests.

  Thus it was with heavy equivocation that I heard him sing how Janis was his girl, how there was no one sweeter, how his life would be tragic without her, how she was unique and how he was her greatest fan.

  The words got to me. His performance got to me. Throughout the show, my heart never stopped pounding. The longer he performed, the more confident he grew, the louder the response of his adoring fans. When it finally came time to do his current red-hot hit, just the opening guitar lick of “Let’s Get It On” was enough to drive the fans into a complete frenzy.