“I’m not BITTER”
AFTER nearly two hours, Lydia finally gave up. By any standards she’d waited long enough for her Marvin Gaye interview – a month she now reckoned – and it was becoming obvious that once again she had missed the boat.
Sitting on a stool in Marvin’s small hotel bedroom, she tried to shrug off her disappointment philosophically, cracking jokes to cover her pride. “OK, well, obviously yours is more important, so you can go first,” she said to me, making me feel surprisingly glad and guilty in one sweeping moment.
As usual Marvin Gaye’s time was being sought, and as usual nobody knew who was going to get there first. My particular meeting had been arranged for two that afternoon and it was now 3.30, while Lydia hadn’t even been given a time.
Marvin himself was next door in the living room having important meetings, so Gloria, his publicist, said. A guy had just flown in from the States on account of the success of his new album, In Our Lifetime, which had shot into the US charts at 17. This unprecedented success meant that Marvin was now running two hours late in his day, and that all visitors were shown into his tiny bedroom to wait.
Which is where Lydia (from magazine) and I waited nervously among Marvin’s clothes and books, full ashtrays, unmade bed, empty yoghurt cans
