Nike rediscovers Marvin.

Sigh. Can’t wait for CA’s new award category: YouTube clips with logos thrown on them. After catching the Nike spot today with Marvin Gaye singing the National Anthem, I went back and dug up part of an old post with the original clip, sans team, shown above. Players during practice and scrimmages? I need real game footage please. If the team can be superimposed in front of him, then a montage of past and current Dream Teamers in actual games is cake. (Sorry, Marvin doesn’t ‘do’ pick-up games.) Hey Nike, don’t worry, there’s still time to chop this up for next year’s Super Bowl.

For those who didn’t see it, there was also a story from Thomas Dolby surrounding the clip that involving Stevie Wonder. It was the night before the 1985 Grammy awards where they both were to play with Howard Jones and Herbie Hancock. Dolby had suggested they do a slow version of the National Anthem, to which Stevie replied:

“...‘uh-uh. Marvin tried that one time man. He sang it that way at an NBA all-star game, and you know what? he never got on TV again until the day he died. Because all the network executives couldn’t handle a black man singing a sexy soul version of the National Anthem.”

The rest here.

Tags: Marvin Gaye, Dream Team, Nike