Marvin Gaye songs found in Belgium

Fans of Marvin Gaye could soon get two new posthumous albums from the singer after a cache of cassettes was uncovered in Belgium.

Marvin Gaye performs at De Doelen, Rotterdam in The Netherlands, in 1980. Picture: Rob Verhorst/Redferns

Fans of Marvin Gaye mourning the 40th anniversary of his death on Monday could soon get two new posthumous albums from the singer after a cache of cassettes was uncovered in Belgium.

The American spent about 18 months in the country at the invitation of a local music producer.

The stay, beginning in February 1981, came at a tumultuous time in his life, coinciding with a cocaine addiction, debt trouble and the breakdown of his second marriage.

However, his time in the ­Belgian seaside resort of Ostend was happy and, after getting fit by jogging on the flat North Sea beaches, he returned to the studio reinvigorated to record Sexual Healing.

Forced to leave Belgium ­abruptly in August 1982 after visa problems, the singer left boxes of letters, stage costumes and 30 ­cassettes with 13 hours of music behind with the family in whose house he was staying. The collection was described as an “unlikely treasure” by Alex Trappeniers, the lawyer for descendants of Charles Dumolin, a Belgian musician who befriended Gaye.

Dumolin, who died in 2019, ­bequeathed tapes containing 66 pieces of complete music by Gaye.

Trappeniers was scheduled to hold talks with a lawyer representing the singer’s three children on Monday.

Under Belgian law, any property a person acquires automatically becomes theirs after 30 years, but that does not apply to intellectual property.

This means it is unclear which family might have the right to publish the tracks – Dumolin’s or Gaye’s.

“Some of them are really full-fledged songs,” Trappeniers told the broadcaster VRT.

“I think one song on the cassettes is even as strong as (Sexual Healing).

If we work together – and I ­assume we will – we could release one or two new albums.”

The Times