5. Marvin GayeWhat’s Going On

EXPANDED EDITION

Soundtrack your reading with a specially curated playlist for this article.
Available to all our Subscriber Plus members or as part of our free 30-day trial offer

I was becoming a fully grown adult when this album came out, an adult in all kinds of ways and this album really spoke to my political thoughts at the time. I was on the move. The counterculture was almost over and a track like ‘Inner City Blues’ really spoke to me. Of course, as a bass-player, a track like that immediately gives you ideas. We’d play around a lot with the music on this album. And really, through music like this and Sly Stone a lot of us became hugely aware of what was really going on in America at that time.