© Photo material Toerisme Oostende vzw // with thanks to Cousaert Pascale + Richard Olivier
Forty years after his death, Marvin Gaye remains extremely popular with no less than 20 million streams per month. The new music material found in our country could therefore be extremely valuable.
© IMAGEGLOBE
He was shot by his father in Los Angeles forty years ago, on April 1, 1984, during a violent argument. Since then, Marvin Gaye, together with the Beatles and Elvis Presley, is part of the small group of artists who remain extremely popular after their death. They started their career with records on vinyl, lived on through the days of cassette tapes and CDs and still have millions of streams today. The classic ‘Ain’t No Mountain’ was even streamed more than a billion times. The fact that new material is now emerging from the artist is important, to say the least.
And the fact that it appears in our country makes it all the more impressive. Although it is not illogical. Gaye lived in Ostend for a long time, to escape his bad lifestyle in London. He lived in the house of the Belgian musician Charles Dumolin, where he also left behind some stage costumes, notebooks and cassette tapes. Because after some cycling, jogging and breathing fresh North Sea air, Gaye crawled back into the studio to record one of his biggest hits, Sexual Healing.
But now it turns out that the world-famous singer also left behind music that he once recorded but no one had ever heard. “They belong to the family because they were left in Belgium 42 years ago,” Alex Trappeniers, the family’s lawyer, told the BBC. “Marvin gave it to them and said, ‘Do what you want with it’ and he never came back. This is important.”
“I can’t play this again”
The British newspaper was shown a piece in which Gaye can be heard: “Was the recording in progress? Because I don’t know if I can play this again.” In total, the musician is said to have recorded 30 tapes, good for 66 new songs. “Some of them are complete and some of them are just as good as Sexual Healing because they were made around the same time.”
“We can open a time capsule here and share Marvin’s music with the world,” says Trappeniers. “It is very clear. He is very present.”
But when the music will be heard by the general public is still a big question mark. Because first we will have to look at what the law says about the publication of those tapes. Whoever has them in their hands could be the owner of the tapes under Belgian law, without being allowed to publish them. And Gaye’s family in the United States would theoretically be allowed to publish the music, but does not have the tapes.
Although Trappeniers thinks that there can be a solution and a new album can follow if both join forces.