Free Thinking

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Matthew Sweet and guests discuss what inspired Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On?

Kevin Le Gendre, Gary Crosby, Roy McFarlane and Dr Althea Legal-Miller discuss the politics that inspired the lyrics and music of Marvin Gaye's seminal 1971 album What's Going On.

Vietnam, ecological worries and poverty and suffering inspired the lyrics in Marvin Gaye's 1971 album What's Going On. Written as a song cycle from the point of view of a war vet returning home, it was inspired in part by the letters he was receiving from his brother from Vietnam and from his own questions following the 1965 Watts riots. The Nu Civilization Orchestra is performing their version of the album at the London Jazz Festival tomorrow.  Matthew Sweet is joined by jazz journalist Kevin Le Gendre, musician Gary Crosby, Dr Althea Legal-Miller - Senior Lecturer in American History and Culture at Canterbury Christ Church university and poet Roy McFarlane

The Nu Civilization Orchestra, founded by Gary Crosby, perform their version of the album at the London Jazz Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre 18th November @7.30pm, with subsequent dates in Birmingham, Liverpool and Canterbury.  

You can hear a host of programmes featuring performers from the London Jazz Festival on BBC Radio 3 including a special Jazz All Night.
Free Thinking has a playlist of discussions devoted to influential artworks, books, films, music and plays called Landmarks of Culture with everything from the plays of Lorraine Hansberry to the film Jaws.   https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44 

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Free Thinking

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3