Marvin Gaye's 1971 masterpiece What's Going On was recently voted by Rolling Stone magazine the greatest album of all time. But one person who was not a fan of that record initially was the head of Gaye's label, Berry Gordy, the visionary founder of Motown. Gordy believed that alienating white audiences and deviating from a proven pop-R&B formula was commercial poison. But even before What's Going On, Gaye and Gordy were at odds, playing out a twisted father-son dynamic that Gaye instilled from his own deeply troubled childhood. Over time, Gaye and Gordy's professional squabbles would spill into their personal lives, as Gaye married (and acrimoniously divorced) Gordy's sister Anna.

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