Sexual Healing himself. When a fractured Marvin Gaye arrived by ferry in the sleepy coastal town of Ostend one winter day in , the soul legend was battling a cocaine addiction and teetering on the edge of financial ruin. It was the beginning of a more than year-long sojourn that would sprout the final, albeit short-lived, revival of man and music. The performance was a far cry from the hollowed-out, drugged-up Gaye that had first set foot on the Ostend sand a year ago. Two years before that, the Motown hero had attempted suicide by ingesting an ounce of pure cocaine during an out-of-control period in Hawaii. A safety net behind the scenes was Freddy Cousaert, an Ostend club owner and concert promoter that Gaye had met in London after that particular low point.

While in Ostend, Gaye began to curb his drug use and recover from his depression, partaking in Ostend's beaches. He declared that he would never record with the label ever again after he accused the label of betraying his creativity. CBS would spend a year negotiating the contract.

He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of hits, earning him the nicknames "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul". During the s, Gaye recorded the albums What's Going On and Let's Get It On and became one of the first artists in Motown to break away from the reins of a production company. Gaye was born Marvin Pentz Gay Jr. His first home was in a public housing project, [10] the Fairfax Apartments [11] now demolished at 1st Street SW in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood. Most buildings were small, in extensive disrepair, and lacked both electricity and running water.