Norman's Rockwell

This appreciation originally appeared on Facebook in the King Tut Vintage Album and Cassette Museum of Jacksonville blog, curated by David Roberts. I have known Mr. Roberts for going on 30 years and he was kind enough to tab me to pen this retrospective of Marvin Gaye's LET'S GET IT ON. The concept of his blog is that the "Museum" houses only LPs released from about 1964 to 1986 and each "delivery" to the Museum gets a reflection by the Curator, King Tut, or in my case, a guest curator. Delivery 536, Sunday, May 3, 2015 (Note: today's delivery was written by Guest Curator Norman Kelsey) MARVIN GAYE - LET’S GET IT ON. Released on Tamla Records, August 28 1973. Produced by Marvin Gaye & Ed Townsend.     Imagine Berry Gordy is in his Motown office 1971 and he receives a telephone call from his biggest male vocal star, Marvin Gaye calling to pitch an idea for his next album. I think the conversation might have gone something like this. “Hello...? Yes.....

Thirty years ago, on April 22, 1985, Prince and the Revolution took us AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY. Hidden between Prince's breakthrough album (1999 in 1982), his global triumph (PURPLE RAIN in 1984), his reassessed masterwork (PARADE in 1986) and his acknowledged masterpiece (SIGN 'O' THE TIMES in 1987) is the little technicolor waif AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY (ATWIAD). I swear ATWIAD arrived completely unannounced. In the Spring of 1985, my friends and I were still in thrall to the purple madness. The real paisley peak hadn't arrived. Prince was about to separate the fans from the rabble and find out who was really along for the ride. This was a polarizing record that confounded critics and fans alike who wanted PURPLE RAIN 2. Instead of 9 super bona fide hits, we got 9 wide ranging tracks that went from wide-eyed psychedelic pop to melodrama to a tight all-percussion percolator to an overwrought religious story-song and back. Well, you could say most of the album is...