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“Nobody bothered Marvin while he was here,” Hens
says. “Here was this huge superstar, whose career was
at an absolute low, who needed somewhere to regroup.
It’s not an obvious choice, but he was very happy here.
It was only by getting away from the drug scene, and the
pressures of LA and London, that he had any chance of
being able to write again and plan a comeback.”
BY THE EARLY 80S, GAYE’S LIFE
WAS IN DISARRAY.
Forty-one years old, with
two messy divorces behind him, a rampant cocaine
addiction and a debt of around $4 million (€2.92m), owed
to the IRS back in America, the singer was living in a
rented flat in the Kensington area of London.
What’s
Goin’ On
, his innovative paean to social consciousness
and spiritual love, was now a decade old and his album
releases since then had seen sales steadily decline.
Having snubbed none other than Princess Margaret
by failing to show up for a concert while she was in the
audience, he was fast running out of friends in London.
Then the most unlikely escape route presented itself, in
the form of Belgian concert promoter Freddy Cousaert.
The soul fanatic invited Gaye, along with his young
son Bubby, to come and get himself clean in this most
unlikely of places.
“I’m an orphan at the moment and Ostend is my
orphanage,” declared Gaye in some of the sparse archive
footage that survives from his time there. “There’s
WHAT’S GOIN’ ON
01
Ostend’s seafront
02
Gaye and concert
promoter Freddy
Cousaert in Ostend
03
Marvin Gaye
performing in
London’s Albert Hall,
September 1976
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02
03
01
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M A R V I N G A Y E
O S T E N D
