Divided Soul

"I grew up listening to a lot of Marvin Gaye – my father was a huge fan. The day that Marvin Gaye was killed, my dad was affected so strongly he could barely speak. I didn’t understand why until I read the book. It gives you a sense of the struggles Marvin Gaye went through, as an artist and as a man – his struggle with the spotlight, his struggle with spirituality, his struggle with family and his struggle with drugs. It’s so wonderfully written and really riveting. His story is amazing. His father was a minister and Marvin started singing for the congregation. He was signed to his first label by Bo Diddley but didn’t really hit it big until the sixties. His first wife was about 17 years older than him. His second wife was about 17 when he met her – while recording “Let’s Get It On”. He was, like, 34 at the time. So he’s got one wife 17 years older, another wife 17 years younger. To get a divorce from wife number one, he promised her the income from his next record. That record, “Here My Dear”, was about the dissolution of their relationship. So that’s some serious drama. Oh, and of course, his father was a cross-dresser who murdered him. I read Divided Soul at a time when I couldn’t even conceive of being on stage. Looking back, there are some aspects of his biography that I can identify with, not the drugs or drama, just the struggle of being a self-conscious and at times insecure person who has to project the image of having it all together on stage and off. I think that a great artist can sustain a lasting career. He started out doing doo-wop and some of his earliest songs were duets with the wonderful [R&B singer-songwriter] Tammi Terrell. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Heard It Through the Grapevine” were huge. Then in the seventies he became more of a conscience artist. He decided: I don’t want to sing happy love songs. He wanted to talk about what was really going on in our culture, with the war in Vietnam and continued civil rights struggles, which he did in “What’s Goin’ On”. It was a huge album and established him as a different kind of artist. Then he went on to “Sexual Healing” in the eighties, another huge success that made him a sex symbol. He went through three completely different images in his career. All worked because his music was consistently great. It’s a continuation of my musical journey, blending different styles and different elements. Some of the songs are a bit bigger than those on my last record; some are songs for the club, but from an unexpected angle. I grew so much in making this record. I learned how to produce my music my way. The title is really what the process was all about for me. It’s called Master of My Make Believe ."