He made *Let’s Get It On*, one of the most explicitly sensual albums in the R&B tradition—a frank declaration of Black male sexuality that crossed over to enormous commercial success without sacrificing a word of its directness.
He made *Here, My Dear*, one of the strangest and most personal albums in any tradition—a man singing to his ex-wife about their failed marriage while the royalties went to her as part of the divorce settlement, an act that is simultaneously self-defeating, generously artistic, and completely unclassifiable.
He survived financial ruin and retreated to Belgium and came back with “Sexual Healing,” which may be the most commercially successful comeback single in the history of soul music.
He had, at the time of his death, placed 40 songs in the top 40 of the Hot 100. He had made 26 albums. He had won two Grammy Awards—the first, it should be noted, were the only two of his career, and he won them for “Sexual Healing” in 1983, when he was 43 years old.
He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, in the Hall’s second class of inductees. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990.
In 2003, *Rolling Stone* ranked him the sixth greatest singer of all time. In subsequent years, as the critical reassessment of his work has continued, that estimate has only grown more secure.
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PART TWENTY: THE “BLURRED LINES” CASE AND HIS LEGAL AFTERLIFE