Still Seeking Winds of Change

What's Going On
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
(Shout! Factory)
Release date: Aug. 29

Thirty-five years ago, Marvin Gaye molded the Motown sound into his classic protest album, "What's Going On." The title was as much a question as a statement. Gaye reported his findings in the streets, from the point of view of a soldier returning home from Vietnam. Here's what was going on: Americans dying on foreign soil, for starters. Pollution. Poverty. Unemployment. Concern about children falling through the cracks of bureaucracy.

Sound at all familiar?

It's a testament to the timelessness of Gaye's masterpiece that it still is so relevant after three-plus decades. It's also an unfortunate commentary on how little life in America has changed in the interim.

After three years of war in Iraq and a year after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast and left the wake of receding flood waters questions about U.S. domestic policy, national preparedness, class and race, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band has revisited Gaye's album with a track-by-track restyling of "What's Going On." The resulting disc does nothing to tarnish Gaye's vision while changing it in such a way that it becomes an even stronger statement about post-Katrina New Orleans and beyond.

Gaye's "What's Going On" was steeped in the R&B of Detroit. DDBB's reworking, featuring guest vocals from Chuck D, Ivan Neville, G. Love, Guru and Bettye LaVette, is soaked in the gritty, horn-driven spirit of the band's native New Orleans.

Otherwise, the differences are few. A handful of the nine tunes – "Flyin' High (In the Friendly Sky)," "Save the Children," "Right On" and "Wholy Holy" – are given primarily instrumental rather than vocal treatments. Some of the social commentary is lost from the original, but the beefy horn arrangements make sure none of the power is lost.

The most significant departure is what makes DDBB's reinterpretation of "What's Going On" such a vivid statement on American life in 2006. Chuck D and Guru rap new lyrics for the opening title track and the closer, "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," respectively.

From the start, Chuck D makes in clear that the same problems Gaye pointed out in 1971 are still here, but the populace is getting less patient in waiting for solutions;

"What's going on / When all them guns is drawn / Here's a memo / Remember? There's a few wars goin' on / A couple overseas / And on my front lawn / When common sense was common / And now it's all gone ...

No child left behind / What? You think we all blind? / Well even the blind coulda seen the / Aftermath of Katrina ...

What's goin' on? / That's goin' on."

In 1971, "What's Going On" merged popular music and social commentary in a plea for peace and understanding that has been largely unmatched since. Thirty-five years later, beefed up by a righteous brass band still standing after their homes were not, it's still a gripping piece of reportage from street level.

And unlike The New York Times, you can dance to it.