“Bad blood between father and son” – that’s how the police described the events at the Marvin Gaye Sr. household on that day in Los Angeles. Marvin Pentz Gaye Sr. shot and killed his son, Marvin Gaye Jr., on April 1, 1984. Marvin Gaye Jr. (1939-1984) was shot twice with a gun that he bought for his father, who used that gift of a gun to end his son’s life.
Y’all ever heard that term the elders say: “I brought you into this world – and I’ll take you out.” That appears to have been the case in this particular father-son story.
It is a very long way from being born in Washington, D.C. in 1939, to being shot twice by your father in a house in Los Angeles in 1984. That, brothers and sisters, is a long and winding road.
Was there undiagnosed mental illness in Marvin Gaye? Brother Marvin is one man in a very long line of brothers who have experienced chronic chemical depression – many of those brothers were experiencing undiagnosed depression.
What lessons can we learn from this tragic turn of events in Brother Marvin’s life?
Likewise, our dearly departed sister, Ms. Phyllis Hyman (1949-1995), was said to have suffered Bipolar Disorder; it is written that she was a manic-depressive, as Brother Marvin Gaye called himself.
What wisdom did she leave behind for us to follow?
Jazz singer and song stylist Nancy Wilson (1937-2018) drops some wisdom about being in show business while at the same time protecting yourself from its harmful effects on the soul.