Piano Learning System

Marvin Gaye on piano in Belgium – Come Get To This, Distant Lover


Born in 1939 in DC to a father from Kentucky and a mother from North Carolina, Marvin Gaye blazed the trail for the continued evolution of popular black music. But by the winter of 1981, Marvin Gaye was in a personal and professional doldrums. Weakened by a debilitating drug problem, an increasing debt to the IRS, two failed marriages and losing his homes, cars and recording studio, Marvin had moved away from the continental United States by 1979 first settling in a bread van in Hawaii. In 1980, he settled in London and fortook on a European tour with British promoter Jeffrey Kruger. Settling in Oostende, Belgium thanks to an offer by boxing promoter Freddy Couseart, the singer began sobering up from years of drug abuse cutting usage of marijuana and cocaine while working out in an ancient gym and jogging daily at the beaches in Ostend. By the summer of 1981, the 42-year-old Gaye decided to launch a tour of Europe again around areas of London – where he was received more favorably than the previous year’s embarrassing no-show for Princess Margaret – and areas of Belgium. Afterwards, Marvin was inspired to get back in the studio to record his final album in Belgium “Come Get to This” is a 1973 hit for American soul singer Marvin Gaye, released on the Tamla (Motown) label. The song, released a few months after his seminal anthem of seduction, “Let’s Get It On”, was built among a fast-paced doo-wop-like recording. This record was one of few recordings Gaye began recording …