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Marvin Gaye: Never-before heard music resurfaces in Belgium

www.bbc.co.uk Marvin Gaye: Never-before heard music resurfaces in Belgium

The tapes have lain hidden in Ostend for 40 years. But a legal fight is brewing over who owns them.

The story of Marvin's Belgian connection has been told before.

He was living in London and becoming a heavy user of cocaine when he met a Belgian concert promoter in a nightclub. He took the promoter's business card and a week later called and arranged to move to the coastal city of Ostend.

It's not an exaggeration to say the move may have saved the singer's life.

He got fit again, jogging and cycling on the flat North Sea landscape, and he returned to the studio, recording one of his greatest hits, Sexual Healing.

For a time he lived in the home of a Belgian musician, Charles Dumolin. The collection of stage costumes, notebooks and tape cassettes is now in the hands of Charles' family.

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