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The Villages
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Show proves Marvin Gaye’s music remains relevant in turbulent times

Marvin Gaye’s life – and death – was marked by love, protest, sex, drugs and gun violence. The legacy of Marvin Gaye, however, was his musical genius.
He was a man and victim of his times, but his music is timeless — as it was Thursday in Brian Owens’ exhilarating and emotionally-charged performance in Savannah Center. It was called “The Marvin Gaye Experience.”

Gaye was one of the creators of the Motown Sound.
“Marvin Gaye was a once in a lifetime songwriter and singer – he taps into the common humanity of all people,” Owens, 37, said after the show. “Marvin Gaye goes way beyond the 1960s and he is as relevant today as he was then.

Brian Owens sings as Marvin Gaye at Savannah Center.


“As long as people deal with hope, love, despair and violence, Marvin Gaye’s music will matter,” Gaye, 44, died in 1984, after he was shot to death by his father.
Near the end of the concert, Owens and his powerfully innovative band – the Deacons of Soul – sadly proved his point. The singer talked about the shooting at a Parkland Florida high school as Owens prepared to sing “What’s Going On.”
“We’re here in Florida and we dedicate this song to all the students and staff who lost their lives, and all those left behind asking the question: What’s going on?”
Owens sat behind the piano and he sang as the band played Gaye’s masterpiece “What’s Going On,” in a kind of melancholy blend of jazz and funk. The lyric, “only love can conquer hate,” still hits home to anyone who listens. Owens was equally dynamic on “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” and “Mercy Mercy Me.”

Brian Owens plays piano as Alvin Quinn on bass looks on.

In addition to Owens’ soulful and jazz-tinged vocals, the band offered improvisational arrangements of Gaye’s music in a remarkably original style.
This wasn’t a note for note tribute, but, rather, taking Gaye’s work and recreating it in a fresh way.  The band includes Alvin Quinn, bass; Rob Woodie, drums; Carlos Brown, Jr. on saxophone and Shaun Robinson, lead guitar.

It didn’t take them long to get into a Motown groove. Owens — tall and angular wearing Gaye’s trademark knit cap and large-frame glasses — came on stage and started making Motown moves with the opening number, “Ain’t That Peculiar.” That song morphed into “Pride and Joy.”
Then Owens sat at the piano and joined the band in a cool and thumping “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

Brian Owens rips into a Marvin Gaye love song.

Gaye had a series of hits in the mid-‘60s with Tammi Terrell.  Owens joked with the audience, asking them to sing Terrell’s part, but he actually displayed wide vocal range in hitting the high notes. The hit list included: “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” “You’re All I Need To Get By” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
After that it was time for, “the love section, and Marvin wrote so many love songs,” Owens said. “Marvin Gaye actually wanted to be Nat King Cole,” Owens said with a wink as he sang a number Gaye once recorded, “My Funny Valentine.”

Then Owens got down to Gaye’s nitty-gritty with the self-reflective, “Trouble Man.” Next was a kind of slow-motion version of “How Sweet It Is.”

The set the stage for what Gaye might call sexual healing as Owens threw himself into a sultry and suggestive, “Let’s Get It On.”
By this time, the nearly full Savannah Center audience was nearing the boiling point. Owens and the band really turned up the funk on “Got To Give It Up.”

Owens acted like a Motown conductor, jumping, jiving and leading the audience in a sing-a-long. This went on for about 10 minutes.
The band kept improvising riffs while bassman Alvin Quinn took off and kept bringing the beat home as saxman Carlos Brown Jr. kept blowing smoke while Owens ripped into the tenacious, silky-funk vocals.
Critic confession time: “Got To Give It Up” is one my all-time favorite songs (as is “What’s Going On”). I take those songs seriously and I used to think it sacrilegious to listen to anyone but Marvin Gaye sing them.
Well, Owens and his band changed my mind. And I wasn’t alone.

Villagers and Marvin Gaye fans from left Lynn Miller, Donna Rees, Cheryl Witte and Lois Welch.

“This music is something else when it’s done this way,” Villager Lynn Miller said.
“It’s the music we grew up with, but it’s the music now,” added Villager Donna Rees. “Marvin Gaye was more than a singer, he was an artist.”
“It’s just great music; it lasts,” said Villager Lois Welch. “It says a lot, but it makes you want to get up and dance.”
And so the music of Marvin Gaye lives on. Sometimes it’s hard to rationalize that the musical genius who created it was such a flawed human being.
“Marvin Gaye created and left behind a body of music that overshadows his life,” Owens said.
Guitarist Shaun Robinson put it another way: “The music is well beyond the man.”   

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