Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vietnam, ecological worries and poverty and suffering inspired the lyrics in Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On. Written as a song cycle from the point of view of a war Vet returning home, it was inspired in part by the letters he was receiving from his brother from Vietnam and from his own questions following the 1965 Watts riots. The Nu Civilization Orchestra is performing their version of the album at the London Jazz Festival tomorrow. Matthew Sweet is joined by jazz journalist Kevin Le Gendre, musician Gary Crosby, Dr Althea Legal-Miller - Senior Lecturer in American History & Culture at Canterbury Christ Church university and poet Roy McFarlane

The Nu Civilization Orchestra, founded by Gary Crosby, perform their version of the album at the London Jazz Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre 18th November @7.30pm, with subsequent dates in Birmingham, Liverpool & Canterbury.

You can hear a host of programmes featuring performers from the London Jazz Festival on BBC Radio 3 including a special Jazz Through the Night. Free Thinking has a playlist of discussions devoted to influential artworks, books, films, music and plays called Landmarks of Culture with everything from the plays of Lorraine Hansberry to the film Jaws. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say?
0:01.5	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:04.0	It's such a wonderful listen.
0:05.6	So nice.
0:06.5	There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.
0:08.8	Different paces, different heights.
0:10.6	The roof is buckling.
0:11.9	Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.
0:14.2	It's right foot goes for goal.
0:16.7	And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.
0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
0:26.8	So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.
0:29.7	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Sort of expecting that every week now.
0:35.8	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:39.6	What's going on in What's Going On?
0:41.7	50 years after Marvin Gay's album came out, the Arts and Ideas podcast finds out.
0:47.2	Join me, Matthew Sweet, and guests after this message.
0:50.6	Hello, I'm Eleanor Rosamond Barclough, and I'm here to tell you about the Green Thinking podcast. In the run-up to COP26, we're releasing 26 programmes exploring research and ideas about the climate and nature emergency, whether it's looking into the facts and figures.
1:07.7	Humankind are mining 100 billion tonnes of raw materials a year around the world.
1:13.5	To working with people affected by climate change.
	...

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