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Product Description ------------------- This is it the songs and the footage fans have been waiting for. For the first time ever the definitive DVD collection of one of America's greatest stars! Issued with the full cooperation of the Marvin Gaye estate, this is the first official DVD anthology of classic archival television performances by a Motown artist. Features Marvin Gaye performing his biggest Motown hits, from 'Hitch Hike' to 'Let's Get It On' and more, in original classic clips from television and film. Among the many highlights: Footage TV clips from Hollywood a Go-Go, the Dinah Shore Show, Hollywood Palace and American Bandstand, rarely seen since first aired. The stunning, long-lost live concert footage from the documentary film, Save the Children, now on home video for the first time anywhere, featuring Marvin with several Funk Brothers including James Jamerson now with restored stereo audio from the Motown vault. Recently unearthed footage from Marvin's hardly-seen Belgium concert, aired only on local Belgian TV in 1981 Clips are interspersed with fascinating sound bites and interview clips Marvin's music video (lip-sync) performances have been audio remastered from the original Motown stereo tapes (no tinny TV sound) MORE THAN 70 MINUTES! Includes a 24-page booklet with an extensive essay by Grammy Award winning writer, Rob Bowman, including rare photographs and memorabilia. Produced by the accled Grammy-nominated team from Reelin' in the Years productions. .com ---- The city of any Marvin Gaye on DVD is reason enough to welcome The Real Thing: In Performance 1964-1981, but the fact that this 16-track compilation is superb in nearly every respect is cause for genuine celebration. What we get is not just a collection of songs but a career trajectory, tracing Gaye's evolution from a cog in the wheel that was Berry Gordy's Motown into a mature artist with his own matchless vision. The early (i.e., from the 1960s) stuff includes songs like "Hitch Hike," "Can I Get a Witness," and "Ain't That Peculiar"; watching Gaye mime these hits on American Bandstand and elsewhere in front of all-white studio audiences and perky go-go girls is sometimes a little silly, but the sound is terrific, thanks to the DVD producers' decision to replace the TV tracks with audio remastered from the original stereo s. It isn't until the eighth track, a version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" from 1969, that we get any actual live performances, but the wait proves well worth it. With "What's Going On," Gaye proved that he could defy Gordy's formulaic approach and prosper both financially and creatively while heeding the dual voices of his conscience and his muse, and the 1972 performance of that song is quite simply transcendent, with the great James Jamerson on bass and a middle section, featuring just Gaye's voice and piano with conga backing, that liner notes writer Rob Bowman rightly calls "perhaps the high point of this whole DVD." A steamy "Let's Get it On," recorded in Belgium in '81, is nearly as good. Those two clips alone justify buying this collection, but overall, despite a couple of minor missteps (the promo film for "A Funky Space Reincarnation" is pretty hokey), The Real Thing: In Performance 1964-1981, which also includes several interview segments between tunes and a section that features only the vocal tracks from the first seven numbers, is an invaluable confirmation of a truly great musician. --Sam Graham