Marvin Gaye "heard it through the grapevine" hit No. 1 on the charts 43 years ago today::::::How Marvin changed the music biz

By Jack Brummet, Music History Editor

43 years ago today, in 1968, Marvin Gaye hit No. 1 on the charts with "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," one of the great R&B songs of all time, and the biggest selling Motown single up to then.

MG also changed the way that corner of the music business worked.  He controlled the recording and arrangements of the song, and along with Buddy Holly, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, and other makers and creators, broke the crooked--and stifling--music business system where artists ("talent") were robots, answering to the producers and A&R men.  MG's album "What's Goin' On?" with its sweet melange of of funk, jazz, and Latin soul was a strident departure from the Motown Sound, and was Motown's first really autonomous work, made without the "help" of Motown's staff producers, A&R men, or Barry Gordy himself.

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