'What's Going On': Gaye gets 'Masters' treatment

PBS' "American Masters" strays far afield from its usual high-tone artists to examine the life of soul singer Marvin Gaye at 9 p.m. Wednesday on WTTW Channel 11. It's a welcome foray into pop culture as the excellent series continues to expand its range, but it also gets a little lost.

"Marvin Gaye: What's Going On" bogs down in the more tawdry elements of Gaye's life and forgets to really examine what made his music unique. That said, it's still a very fine profile, and it gives Gaye some long-overdue props as an artist.

Yet let's be clear about that art. "American Masters" points out that Gaye was a maverick in the assembly-line production of Motown Records. He preferred to dip his soul in jazz-standard crooning rather than steep it in a propulsive beat. Married to the boss' sister, Anna Gordy, a woman 15 years older than he was, even he admits in an old interview, "I was a bit spoiled. I was a prima donna." He was also intensely competitive, however, and as Motown churned out the hits in the '60s Gaye rose to the occasion, most prominently in a series of orgiastic duets with Tammi Terrell and the definitive version of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine."

"He could sing any kind of music you put in front of him, and I mean sing it," says an admiring Smokey Robinson, no slouch himself. "He would Marvinize it."

It wasn't until 1971's "What's Going On" that the Marvinization process was complete, with a musical vibe uniquely his that set off his soulful timbre and jazz phrasing. That album crossed the Motown beat with the relaxed groove of Ramsey Lewis' "In Crowd" and used it to carry a message far beyond the usual pop platitudes.

Motown owner Berry Gordy only reluctantly released it, but it became one of the label's top-selling albums. He goes too far, however, in calling it "probably the greatest piece of work that Motown has ever put out."

Uh, no. "What's Going On" has a unique feel and a definite mood to it, but it's also larded with Gaye's usual excess. For all his artistic ambition, he was more direct as a lover man, on the ensuing "Let's Get it On" (inspired by his romance with a 16-year-old who would only later become his wife) and, of course, his great 1982 comeback album, "Midnight Love," with its classic single, "Sexual Healing."

Give "American Masters" credit for pointing that out, also for finding the art in his excessive-by-definition 1978 "Here My Dear," in which he recorded a throwaway album as part of a divorce settlement and in the process revealed more of himself than ever before. Critic Nelson George calls it "the dark side of 'Let's Get it On.'"

Yet the hourlong documentary doesn't spend enough time on the processes of Gaye's music. "What's Going On" comes out of nowhere; there was nothing that sounded like it beforehand, and almost all soul was influenced by it afterward. Certainly, he spent the rest of his own career trying to recapture its natural magic in one form or another. "American Masters" gives only a cursory explanation for its origins. (Soul + jazz = genius.)

Instead, it spends more time on Gaye's personal demons -- and he admittedly had them by the dozens after growing up the son of a cross-dressing disciplinarian Pentecostal minister.

"His father was a strange man by any measure," says Michael Eric Dyson in the understatement of the hour.

Gaye's pained relationship with his father poisoned his own personal relations and no doubt contributed to his later drug addiction. If it also fueled his art, in the end that didn't give him the tools he needed to survive.

"Marvin was loved by many people," Robinson says. "I think he knew that. He needed to be loved by Marvin."

Spiraling deeper into cocaine addiction after the success of "Sexual Healing," and living with his parents in the Southern California house he'd bought them, Gaye made the perhaps quite intentional mistake of confronting his father on his mistreatment of his mother and beating him. His father responded by shooting him dead.

In that, Gaye comes off as a tortured artist every bit as compelling as, say, a Jackson Pollock. I just wish this "American Masters" had devoted more time to showing what exactly made him so masterful.

In the air

Remotely interesting: NBC has chased Tom Fontana off his promising new show "Philanthropist," about a quirky Manhattan billionaire who helps people in need. According to the Hollywood Reporter, NBC felt his vision was too dark and wanted something more feel-good. The show is still planned for midseason next winter. Fontana will concentrate instead on a new AMC series set during the Civil War called "Copper."

The Fox network has updated and streamlined its fox.com Web site. … BBC America has joined the networks offering shows on iTunes.

End of the dial: John Gallagher has left all-talk WLS 890-AM as president and general manager. Mike Fowler, president and general manager of oldies WZZN 94.7-FM, will oversee both Citadel Broadcasting sibling stations.

WLTL Radio, the Lyons Township High School station, was named best high school radio station in the nation in the John Drury Awards held at North Central College in Naperville.