According to testimony from multiple family members—including Jeanne Gaye and Alberta Gay herself—Marvin was beaten regularly beginning around age seven and continuing into his teens. He later told biographer David Ritz that by age twelve, no part of his body was unmarked. He said his father prolonged punishments and seemed to enjoy them. He compared living with his father to living under a cruel, all-powerful king.
His siblings suffered as well. Bedwetting, which several of the children struggled with, was met with additional beatings rather than patience or care.
Alberta later told biographers that her husband “never wanted Marvin” and “did not love him”—and that Gay Sr. had discouraged her from loving the boy either. This was a remarkable thing to say about one’s husband and one’s son. It was a statement that, if accurate, speaks to a level of cruelty so foundational it becomes almost incomprehensible.
Marvin, as a child, did what many children in such households do. He found somewhere to put his pain. And for him, that place was music.
He began singing in church at age four, accompanying his father—who played piano—in services. His mother encouraged this. At age eleven, a school performance in which he sang Mario Lanza’s “Be My Love” convinced him he had something. He became obsessed with music. He listened to everything—gospel, pop, doo-wop, the big band sounds coming out of his radio at night.
He formed his first doo-wop groups while attending Cardozo High School. He sang with a group called the Dippers and then the D.C. Tones, learning the craft and coordination of vocal harmony from his friends on street corners and in school hallways. Music was freedom. Music was the one place his father couldn’t reach him.