"Pride & Joy" aims to tell a true account of Marvin and Anna Gordy Gaye

When it comes to the relationship between his late father and mother, Marvin Gaye III has long felt the world really didn't know what was going on.

That's why the adopted son of Motown's legendary Marvin Gaye and Anna Gordy Gaye wanted to tell what he calls the "100 percent true" story of the couple on stage in "Pride & Joy: The Marvin Gaye Musical" — which opened in Washington, D.C., earlier this month and comes to Motown this week at Detroit’s Fisher Theatre.

Marvin Gaye with his first wife, Anna Gordy Gaye, and their son in an undated photo. 

"I always wanted to change the tide on the perception of their relationship," the Detroit-born Gaye says by phone. "My dad and mom loved very deeply and intensely, but at the same time, they were two individuals that were headstrong in their own ways. My mom was a real go-getter and businesswoman, and my dad was a real artist. And then when you mix that with outside forces like a record label and fans and just being in the entertainment industry....

"There's a lot of things that came up that ordinary people don't go through. People sometimes go through trials and tribulations, no matter how much they love each other — that's true for everybody, and that's what my parents went through and what I wanted to show."

"Pride & Joy: The Marvin Gaye Musical"

"Pride & Joy" has been more than two years in the making, with plenty of "hoops to jump through" along the way, says Gaye, who resides in Los Angeles. His first idea was to make a stage musical out of "Here, My Dear," his father's controversial 1979 double album that chronicled the end of the Gayes' marriage and the beginning of Marvin Gaye's relationship with Janis Hunter.

Chae Stephen as Gaye

"'Here, My Dear' was one of my dad's greatest albums of all time," Gaye contends. "It was right up there with 'What's Going On.' If you really listen to it you can understand the genius that was put into it, but it had such a bad connotation to it as a divorce album. And it was so much more than that. It was really about their love story."

"Pride & Joy: The Marvin Gaye Musical," tells the story of Marvin Gaye’s romance with Anna Gordy Gaye May 22-June 2 at the Fisher Theatre, Detroit. (newdayentertainmentlive.com)

And, Gaye notes, it was one that was nearing a happy ending. "Before my dad died" — fatally shot by his own father on April 1, 1984, just a day shy of his 45th birthday — "he and my mom were getting back together," says Gaye. The two had, in fact, reconciled somewhat and Anna would often accompany Marvin to events and award shows, including the 1983 Grammy Awards, where his "Midnight Love" album was among the nominees. "At the time I was happening I wasn't really for that. I was like, 'This is ridiculous! What are you guys doing?!'" recalls Gaye, who was 17 when his father died. "But as I got older I really got to understand the whole picture, and how beautiful it was."

Working up the proposed musical, Gaye recognized that his parents' marriage, which lasted from 1963-77, though Anna filed for divorce two years earlier, "was so much bigger than what I could show just focusing on 'Here, My Dear.'" He reached out to New Day Entertainment, a Detroit production company run by entertainment veterans Quentin Perry and his daughter, Keia Perry-Farr, to help him realize his vision.

"We love Marvin Gaye, love his music, love everything about him, so we were definitely interested," says Perry-Farr,  co-producer of "Pride & Joy." "We loved everything about it. Once everybody met and heard about their amazing story, it was a no-brainer that we wanted to be part of this."

"Pride & Joy: The Marvin Gaye Musical" tells the story of Marvin Gaye’s romance with Anna Gordy Gaye May 22-June 2 at the Fisher Theatre, Detroit. (newdayentertainmentlive.com)

New Day built a creative team, charging the script to veteran playwright Angela Barrow-Dunlap, a Southfield native who now lives in Farmington Hills. Barrow-Dunlap had coincidentally spent five years working on another Gaye musical, with his sister Leona, that never panned out. But she was definitely open to telling the story Gaye had in mind.

"He wanted to tell a nice, beautiful love story," says Barrow-Dunlap, who had access to some of Anna's personal papers for the script. "He wanted the world to know how his mother was instrumental in the building of Motown and the inspiration behind his father's early hits. We were initially (skeptical), but the more we listened, we fell in love with the idea of telling a beautiful love story. Of course, they had their ups and downs, but ultimately their love, their bond brings them back together."

Anna Gordy Gaye, an older sister of Berry Gordy Jr., was already working in the record industry when her brother founded Motown. She co-founded the Anna Records label that was part of the Motown empire, and she was a songwriter, who wrote several for her husband. She met him when Gaye was part of Harvey & the New Moonglows and they began dating in 1960, though she was 17 years older than him. His songs "Pride & Joy" and "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" were written about her.

But theirs was a tumultuous relationship, which sometimes spilled into public view, and "Pride & Joy" doesn't hide that.

"We can't avoid dealing with some of the darker moments," Barrow-Dunlap says. "As we know in life there are layers. We take the natural humor of life and interweave that with the turmoil and tell a story that will make you laugh, make you cry, make you sing, make you dance. The music always comes along and lifts the audience right up."

The real coupe of the musical is that it was able to obtain rights to 28 songs — mostly Gaye's, but also other Motown acts — from Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which owns and administrates the catalog. It was no easy feat.

"It was like pushing an elephant behind a truck," Gaye says, "but it got done. Where there's a will, there's a way." He did enlist help from uncle Berry Gordy Jr., who eventually came on board after reviewing and making a few revisions to the script.

"He's been very helpful in the way that he could be," Gaye says. "But he's got so many deals in the air, and everything had to go through his counsel. The hurdles came from outside sources. That's where some of the struggle of making it work was."

Nevertheless, "Pride & Joy" now has a three-year worldwide licensing deal for the music, which includes the rights to make a cast album.

Beyond its Detroit run, "Pride & Joy" is booked in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago and Chicago. More is coming, and producer Perry-Farr says New Day is looking at international plays as well. Gaye, who still refers to his late father as his "best friend," would like to see "Pride & Joy" settle into a Las Vegas residency and says he has no interest in following the Broadway steps of "The Motown Musical" or the Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."

"I'd much rather have a Vegas residency because it reaches a lot more people, and different demographics," he explains. "I didn't do it because I wanted a Broadway musical. I did it more for the people so I could give them a different insight about (his parents). This is an emotional roller coaster but it has a real positive vibe on it at the end, something to make you walk away and feel good. I'm all about that."