Marvin Gaye Was at Rock Bottom — Then a Quiet Belgian Seaside Town Gave Him “Sexual Healing”
In 1981, Marvin Gaye was one of the greatest voices in American music.
But his life was falling apart.
The man who had recorded “What’s Going On,” “Let’s Get It On” and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was struggling with financial problems, a broken marriage, drug addiction and an increasingly bitter relationship with Motown.
Eventually, Marvin left America.
After spending time in Europe, he arrived in an unlikely place for a soul superstar searching for a new beginning:
Ostend, Belgium.
Belgian concert promoter Freddy Cousaert had befriended Marvin and invited him to stay near the North Sea.
What was supposed to be a short visit became more than a year.
And slowly, something began to change.
Away from Los Angeles, Marvin could live with a degree of anonymity he had not experienced for years. He walked and ran along the beach, rode a bicycle, exercised and spent time with Cousaert’s family.
For a while, he was not Marvin Gaye the Motown legend.
He was simply Marvin.
And the music began returning.
After more than two decades with Motown, Marvin signed with Columbia Records and started creating his first album for the new label.
He was also experimenting with electronic technology, including drum machines and synthesizers, searching for a sound that felt modern enough for the 1980s without losing the sensual soul that had always defined him.
Out of that period came “Sexual Healing.”
The track sounded unlike the lush Motown records that had made Marvin famous.
Its rhythm was sparse and electronic. The groove was hypnotic. Marvin’s voice floated above it with the same warmth and vulnerability listeners already knew — but everything around him sounded new.
Released in 1982, “Sexual Healing” became a spectacular comeback.
It spent ten weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B chart, reached No. 3 on the Hot 100 and became an international hit.
Then came something almost unbelievable.
After decades of legendary recordings, Marvin Gaye had never actually won a competitive Grammy.
“Sexual Healing” finally changed that.
At the 1983 Grammy Awards, Marvin won two awards connected to the song, including Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.
The man who had arrived in Belgium exhausted and uncertain had returned to America as a major star again.
But the triumph would be painfully brief.
On April 1, 1984, less than two years after “Sexual Healing” revived his career, Marvin Gaye was killed by his father at the family home in Los Angeles.
He was one day short of his 45th birthday.
That makes the story of “Sexual Healing” feel even more remarkable today.
It was more than another Marvin Gaye hit.
It was the sound of a man who had nearly lost everything finding, for one extraordinary moment, his way back.
Barbara Mandrell Retired From Music at 18 — One Night at the Grand Ole Opry Changed Her Mind
Long before Barbara Mandrell became one of the biggest stars in country music, she had already decided her music career was over.
She was only 18.
That decision sounds almost impossible in hindsight.
Because Barbara Mandrell had been preparing for the stage practically since childhood.
Born in Houston on Christmas Day in 1948, she learned accordion and how to read music before entering first grade. After her family moved to California, she began studying steel guitar at about ten years old while also learning saxophone at school.
Then someone important noticed her.
Country guitarist Joe Maphis saw the young Mandrell performing at a music trade convention in 1960.
He was impressed enough to bring her into his Las Vegas act.
Barbara was still a child, yet she was already sharing a musical world populated by professional country performers.
Before long, she appeared on the Los Angeles television program Town Hall Party and joined a national package tour headlined by Johnny Cash.
By 14, she was performing with her family band at military bases in the United States and Asia. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
It looked as though music had already chosen her.
Then Barbara walked away.
She had fallen in love with Ken Dudney, the drummer in the Mandrell family band.
Dudney eventually joined the Navy and trained as a pilot.
The couple married in 1967.
Barbara decided that was enough.
At 18, she retired from music.
For someone who had spent much of her childhood performing, it was an extraordinary choice.
But the retirement did not last.
When Dudney was away with the Navy, Barbara visited her family in Tennessee.
One evening, she attended a taping of The Porter Wagoner Show before the Grand Ole Opry.
As Barbara watched the performers, something came back.
She leaned toward her father, Irby Mandrell.
She told him she could do what she was watching onstage.
More importantly, she wanted to do it again.
She asked whether he would manage her.
Her father believed in her.
The decision made that night changed everything. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Barbara soon signed with Columbia Records.
In 1969, she entered the Billboard country chart with her version of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
More hits followed.
By 1972, she had joined the Grand Ole Opry — the same institution connected to the night that helped convince her to return.
Then the career accelerated.
“Sleeping Single in a Double Bed” reached No. 1.
Her version of “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right)” also topped the country chart.
But Mandrell was becoming more than a recording artist.
She could sing.
She could dance.
She could play multiple instruments.
And onstage, she could move between traditional country, pop, soul, gospel, and show-business spectacle without losing her identity.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Barbara Mandrell was everywhere.
From 1980 to 1982, she starred with her sisters Louise and Irlene on NBC’s Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, bringing country music into millions of American homes every week.
And the industry recognized what was happening.
The Country Music Association named Mandrell Entertainer of the Year in 1980.
Then she won again in 1981.
She became the first artist in CMA history to win the award in consecutive years. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
That same period produced the song that would become inseparable from her name.
“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”
The song looked back at a time when openly loving country music was not always fashionable.
Then country culture exploded into the American mainstream.
George Jones appeared on the recording, and the song became another No. 1 country hit for Mandrell
The title almost seemed to describe Barbara herself.
She had been playing steel guitar as a child long before television superstardom.
She had toured before she was old enough to drive.
She had quit.
She had started again.
And she had reached the top.
Her life would still bring serious challenges.
In 1984, a devastating automobile accident left Mandrell with multiple injuries and required a long recovery.
Yet she returned again, continuing to record, tour, and act before eventually retiring from performing in 1997. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
In 2009, Barbara Mandrell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
It was a remarkable ending to a story that could easily have stopped decades earlier.
At 18, Barbara Mandrell thought she was finished with music.
Then she sat in an audience in Nashville and watched other performers doing what she had once done.
Something inside her changed.
She told her father she wanted another chance.
He believed her.
And the young woman who had retired before her career truly began eventually became one of country music’s defining entertainers.
