Stevie's Wonder Years

Friday is Fun because it's Music Day. And Playlists Galore!

“Stevie Wonder is a musical genius”  – when Eddie Murphy said that I finally had the confirmation. I’d grown up with Stevie Wonder’s music and loved what I knew at that time. But also, when Murphy said it (as part of his influential Delirious) Stevie wasn’t making the greatest music. It was all radio pap, pop songs for movies and cliché-ridden duets. Delirious taught me about so many things and sent me back to the comedy of Richard Pryor. But it also got me going through the ‘classic’ Stevie Wonder years.

I’ve written about this before. And so has just about any music writer. But across the first half of the 1970s nobody was better than Stevie Wonder.

Maybe no one has had a better run of pure quality music – album on album packed with hits and deep-cut gems. Okay, there’s Joni Mitchell. And I’d argue her run was slightly longer even. And of course there’s always Miles Davis, even though he never seems to quite figure in these conversations. Then there’s people like Quincy Jones. Describing his contributions to music ends always ends up seeming a bit like when you say that a mountain is, you know, ‘big’.

But Stevie’s true wonder years are 1972-1976. Across five years and as many albums he took unprecedented control of his career and became a superstar.

He had been the boy wonder, the prodigy that was signed to Motown at 11 years of age and recorded most of his debut by 12. Across the 1960s he pumped out the albums, a tribute to Ray Charles, a set of instrumentals, he even – briefly – went kinda surf-rock, kinda. Then to covering The Beatles and Dylan, all the while gathering steam as a writer himself. Signed, Sealed, Delivered. It doesn’t get much better than that. Well, remember, Stevie also had a hand in writing that Spinners classic, It’s A Shame. So, maybe it does get a little better than Signed, Sealed, Delivered…

Anyway, by 1970, Wonder had dozens of singles, and over a dozen full-length albums.

By the time of his 21st birthday he negotiated complete control, had the label buy him the latest, and greatest equipment – and basically leave him to experiment, to create, to make himself over.

If you’ve seen Questlove’s documentary, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) – which streams on Disney+ by the way – you’ll have some insight into the 1969 Stevie Wonder: not quite the funk-soul visionary, but wanting to be more than a Motown Early Years Jukebox. He dutifully sings some of the hits, but he is starting to reach further out…

The missing-link album in all of this is 1971’s Where I’m Coming From – which is not to say that there aren’t some great albums across the 1960s, and a couple that arrived in 1970 (I’m a big fan of 1968’s For Once In My Life and 1969’s My Cherie Armour) – but this is the real beginning of the stretch.

From here, Wonder would go out and create sinewy grooves to rival Sly & The Family Stone, he would match Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye for socially conscious lyrics, and he would have a bigger influence on pure pop music than any of them.

Last week I sold some records. As I mentioned, it’s good to move on some of these things in your life, let someone else have a chance with them.

Someone bought my copy of Stevie Wonder’s Music Of My Mind. I hadn’t actually owned it for all that long, but I knew the music very well long before I bought it.

We had a chat about how that is the record at the start of the golden run and it’s easy for it to get overlooked given that Talking Book contains monster hits like Superstition, Innervisions has even more giant bangers (Living For The City, Golden Lady, Higher Ground, Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing) and Fulfillingness’ First Finale has that incredible track You Haven’t Done Nothin’ (oh, and Boogie On Reggae Woman). Then Songs In The Key of Life is a swollen double (bonus EP too!) and it’s just a near-perfect record. It really is just a phenomenal run.

But there at the start is Music Of My Mind. And in some ways, it’s the most complete ‘listening experience’ of all of them. Particularly now. Because it’s the real starting point.

My absolute favourite is Songs in The Key of Life – because I still have the copy my parents used to put on to help get me to sleep. That record is as old as I am, that record is the one I think of most often as being the key to my life, in terms of songs I connect with and through.

But really, this golden period served up five can’t-go-wrong albums.

In this time, Stevie went on tour with The Rolling Stones – which introduced him more broadly to a white audience. He also appeared on Sesame Street. He nearly died in a plane crash! Oh, and he got married, wrote, recorded, and produced two albums for his wife. And then they were divorced.

It really is a time.

So, I’ve been thinking again about all of this in the week after selling a couple of my Wonder records. I don’t regret selling them. And if I do, I’ll buy them again. I can access the music. I carry a lot of it in my heart and so much of it in my head already.

The person that bought my copy of Music For My Mind casually mentioned that it was the 50th Anniversary year for both that record, and its follow-up: Talking Book. I guess I knew that already, but sometimes when you hear something at the right time – just like with the actual music – it truly sticks. Of course it’s 50 years. This music is older than me, has been with me my entire life and I’m not yet 50. So, it makes sense. But as you listen to it you still marvel at how fresh it sounds; how the very best of it is utterly, gob-smackingly transcendent.

I’m sharing all of the albums with you here and recommending that you check them all out individually of course, particularly if you haven’t; especially if you’ve only ever done the Greatest Hits thing with Stevie. But, for a bit of fun, I’ve made a playlist of my favourites from the period. I’ve included most of the big hits, in some cases it’ll look like I’ve damn-near included the full album. But I’ve tried to give a shape to 40 of the very best tracks from this fertile period. This includes songs from the Syreeta Wright records as well as Stevie’s solo albums. It’s three hours of classic music from his mind.

Stevie Wonder really is A Musical Genius. And here – right here – is the proof!

But, it’s Friday, so that means I’ve made another playlist for you all too. We’re at Vol. 65 of A Little Something For The Weekend…Sounds Good!

And, as always, I hope you enjoy this one.

Sorry, bit of a ramble about Stevie. But he’s one of my forever-favourites. Do you have key songs from this period, or a favourite album from the wonder that is Stevie?

I still can’t believe my luck that I got to see him play, Christchurch 2008. What a gig!

Happy weekend to you all…