Thomas Dolby on Marvin Gaye and fear of a sexy national anthem:

I announced my presence, and reminded him we had an anthem to record. He asked if I had any ideas for it. I said, what about a really slow sexy groove on a drum machine, and really spread it out? Stevie thought for a moment, then said ‘uh-uh. Marvin tried that one time man. He sang it that way at an NBA all-star game, and you know what? he never got on TV again until the day he died. Because all the network executives couldn’t handle a black man singing a sexy soul version of the National Anthem.’

Ok, I thought, that wasn’t such a good idea. But the image of Marvin, one of my all time favorite singers, shocking televisionland in his own inimitable style, was too much. So I said ‘wow, that must have sounded pretty great! How did he sing it?’

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http://blog.thomasdolby.com/?p=381

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A

Thanks for posting.

Who knew the national anthem sound so good?

And I loved how nicely he was dressed!

Hyperactive is still one of my favorite songs from the 80's.I've got a bunch of his stuff saved on my YouTube account.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zelVvrgcK_g

Thanks.

:thumbsup:

the phone book, I'd buy it.

Thomas Dolby. Wow.

I thought he became an accountant or something.

high tech company and is very, very comfortable financially from that alone. Saw it on one of those "Whatever Happened to..." shows. They're good for something.

I've loved Gaye's version of our National Anthem ever since I heard it on TV all those years ago. There's audio of it on one of Marvin's boxed sets called "The Collection" here's a link

http://www.amazon.com/Marvin-Gaye-Collection/dp/B000008FY2

this boxed set's somewhat obscure...a slew of hard to find tracks on it..for Marvin Gaye fans it's a must!

I so miss Marvin Gaye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KC7uhMY9s