
Stevie Wonder’s “classic period” - shawkinaw
https://redux.slate.com/cover_story/2016/12/the-greatest-creative-run-in-the-history-of-pop-music.html
======
Lio
I remember "discovering" a second hand copy of Innervisions whilst at
university in the early 90s.

Up to that point I knew Stevie Wonder as the guy who recorded "I Just Called
to Say I Love You", a song I hated as a kid. Well that opinion changed pretty
sharpish I can tell you.

I've bought so many albums and singles since that I really, really like but I
don't think Innervisions has ever been bettered. Just my humble opinion of
course.

~~~
donretag
My first rule of music is that any artist that became popular before the '80s,
was terrible in the '80s. Look at Aretha Franklin. Who's Zoomin' who? What?
Aretha darling, what were you thinking? There are a few exceptions to the
rule, like Michael Jackson.

~~~
Lio
Oh that works really well, I'm going to add that to my own first rule of
music: Any "band" completely made up of singers is _probably_ rubbish[1][2].

[1] there may be a few exceptions but they're Higgs-Boson rare.

[2] feel free to take it with a pinch of salt if you actually like that kind
of "music". :P

------
aczerepinski
That five year stretch is indeed stunning. So many songs that are harmonically
sophisticated and yet singable/relatable to non-musicians. Without any doubt
one of the best song writers of all time.

~~~
dharma1
This +100. I don't think there has been anyone in recent years who has
combined those qualities as well, consistently.

Earth, Wind & Fire is in the same category for me but yeah going back decades

~~~
agumonkey
Similarly I was very very surprised by Phil Collins - Hello I must be going.
The overall big band funk groove in a pop album (and a successful one at
that). And then his drumming. It's a bit like The Police, you don't hear the
sophistication at first; but it's there.

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metaxy2
Stevie is amazing, but for "greatest creative run in popular music history," I
feel like we still have to give that to The Beatles, no? In 5 years they
released Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour, Sgt. Pepper's, The
White Album, Abbey Road and Let it Be.

~~~
fil_a_del_fee_a
Beatles had Lennon, McCartney writing, and George Martin composing, also the
engineering of EMI.

Stevie did everything himself, writing & playing ALL instruments. Beatles had
several session players.

------
pcsanwald
I love the linked article on Stevie's drumming prowess: he is indeed a
fantastic drummer, one of the best.

Stevie also had the great bassist James Jamerson on many of these tunes: check
out Jamerson's amazing lines on "For once in my life"!

~~~
midgetjones
Absolutely!

There's a great visualisation of his line here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At3OP5CvIRY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At3OP5CvIRY)

~~~
pcsanwald
I forgot about this! So cool! also forgot that Joe Dart from Vulfpeck put this
together. very, very cool.

~~~
midgetjones
I think it's Jack playing on this one. He's still pretty handy, even if he
isn't Joe Dart :)

------
frankosaurus
On Talking Book's album opener (and #1 hit), You Are the Sunshine of my Life,
Stevie let background vocalists sing the opening lines. That always seemed
incredibly cool and selfless to me.

~~~
justinator
To amazing effect too. The two singers style take you off your guard (this...
isn't... Stevie?) and then he comes in, singing slightly louder, and stressing
the start of each word - the song changes from something super cool and easy,
to something a lot more funky.

By the end of the verse, you realize how great Stevie's singing is, even
though he's holding so much back.

------
midgetjones
> Wonder negotiated a new contract with Motown that would grant him full
> artistic control over his music, his own publishing company, and an
> unprecedented royalty rate

I wonder if this could ever happen again, given the state of the music
industry now.

------
rmason
Did you know that Stevie got a street named after him in Detroit today? Just
off Woodward near the Motown museum.

[http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/detroit/city-of-detroit-
to-u...](http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/detroit/city-of-detroit-to-unveil-
stevie-wonder-avenue-today)

------
leoc
TFA appears to be following the conventional wisdom when it describes "Higher
Ground" as a "reincarnation meditation". But while it seems Stevie Wonder did
himself connect the song with ideas about reincarnation, at least tentatively
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Higher_Ground_(St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Higher_Ground_\(Stevie_Wonder_song\)&oldid=754320225#Subject)
, the one thing which the lyrics really plainly make reference to is
Apocalypse 22:10-12
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+22%3...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+22%3A10-12)
:

> And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for
> the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he
> which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him
> be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

> And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man
> according as his work shall be.

Which admittedly is an slightly odd fit with the sense of having himself been
given a second chance and a change of life which SW expresses in the song (and
apparently in the NYT interview), but so it goes apparently.

------
ilamont
_Synth whizzes Bob Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil co-produced the album with
Stevie and would continue to work with him through Fulfillingness’ First
Finale_

The involvement of Margouleff and Cecil needs to be further highlighted. They
were not only talented musicians, they were also engineers, producers, and
pioneers in early synthesizer experimentation. They patched together a massive
electronic synthesizer dubbed TONTO that consisted of various components
including a Moog, which Stevie Wonder heard on their avant-garde 1971 synth
album Zero Time. He literally showed up at their studio with the album under
his arm and asked how TONTO worked. The story is told here (1):

 _So he takes my elbow and I escort him to the studio. We went down to the
studio and I showed him the instrument. I put his hands over it and he
realized that it wasn’t something that he could easily play. He tried to play
it, but he couldn’t get it to sound like a normal keyboard, because in those
days you could only get one note at a time. He asked me, “What is wrong with
this keyboard?” I told him, “That’s how it works. It only plays one note at a
time.” And then he got it. He asked me if we could record. I went upstairs and
got my test tape and we put it on the two-inch machine. At this time, the Moog
had been moved to Studio B in the basement. We ended up recording the entire
weekend. I had to break into the tape store, and I had no authority to do it,
but I did it anyway. I told Stevie, “Someone is going to have to pay for this
tape at least.” He said, “Oh, don’t worry. I just got money put into my trust
fund from Motown because I just turned twenty-one. I don’t have any
contracts.” He explained the whole thing. He told Bob and me that he wanted us
to be musical directors for his company and to help him get his music out
there. He liked working with us, and we liked working with him. We got
seventeen songs done that first weekend. And that’s how it all started._

In films from that era, you can see Wonder performing with TONTO in the
background, with Cecil or Margouleff patching together components on the fly.

I saw an interview with one of them (see Soundbreaking, below) who says that
they recorded something like 250 songs with Wonder, and they picked the best
ones to go on the albums. I would love to hear some of the stuff that didn't
make it onto vinyl!

PBS recently released an eight-part series on music production called
Soundbreaking that includes clips and interviews with Cecil and Margouleff. It
was co-produced by the late George Martin, and includes so many stories about
the production of pop music from the 1950s to the present, including early
multitrack recording with Les Paul, The Beach Boys and The Beatles, the synth
era, disco, sampling, rap, the impact of music videos, EDM, laptop-based
production, and more. It's amazing. Some short clips are here (2) but I urge
readers to seek out the full program!

1\. [http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/malcolm-
cec...](http://www.waxpoetics.com/blog/features/articles/malcolm-cecil-stevie-
wonder-classic-innervisions/)

2\.
[http://www.pbs.org/show/soundbreaking/](http://www.pbs.org/show/soundbreaking/)

------
apercu
I couldn't agree more. Those albums are some of my favourites.

------
dominotw
I learnt the other day that Stevie Wonder inspired Kurzweil to create one of
the first synthesizer .

"In 1982 Stevie Wonder invited Raymond Kurzweil to his new studio in Los
Angeles, and asked if "we could use the extraordinarily flexible computer
control methods on the beautiful sounds of acoustic instruments?"[2] In
response to this query, Raymond Kurzweil founded Kurzweil Music Systems, with
Stevie Wonder as musical advisor.[1] A prototype of the Kurzweil K250 was
manufactured for Stevie Wonder in 1983." [1]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurzweil_K250](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurzweil_K250)

~~~
stonogo
That is not even close to being 'one of the first synthesizers'. It's probably
the first digital piano anyone took seriously, in addition to introducing
sampling keyboards into the world, but synths had been around for more-or-less
thirty years by 1983.

~~~
mgkimsal
I first thought of the Abbey Road usage of the Moog (in 1969), and that
certainly couldn't have been the first synth use (although probably one of the
more popularizations of it). (maybe my def of 'synth' is a bit loose though)

~~~
woofyman
Wendy Carlos "Switched On Bach" released in 1968 probably launched
synthesizers into the mainstream consciousness.

[https://youtu.be/o95yZCnGVAw?list=PLD3973AC7BFE489A4](https://youtu.be/o95yZCnGVAw?list=PLD3973AC7BFE489A4)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-
On_Bach](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-On_Bach)

------
501startups
I've always loved Stevie Wonder. It's a show of how far we can go when we
apply ourselves.

------
xyzzy4
I don't think many people actually listen to his music since it's never on the
radio.

~~~
thelock85
It is sampled so much, that people do hear his music even if they don't know
it is from him. [0]

[0] [http://www.whosampled.com/Stevie-
Wonder/](http://www.whosampled.com/Stevie-Wonder/)

------
zwischenzug
This pales in comparison to Prince's outpourings.

~~~
peterbonney
I love Prince. Prince was maddeningly talented, shockingly prolific, and
produced an amazing and wildly underrated (still!) opus over his career.
Prince will be remembered as one of the most important pop musicians in
history.

Yet there is no 5 year stretch in Prince's career that compares to what Stevie
Wonder did from 1972-1976.

~~~
Pigo
I know I will get down-voted for this, but I just never really got the Prince
vibe. I can appreciate his work, and the love a lot of people have for him.
But I can't name one song that struck a chord with me. Sorry

~~~
dharma1
Prince wasn't super high on my list until I saw him live twice 7-8 years ago.
Blew my mind. Almost entirely different repertoire both times. Completely in a
league of his own. Amazing energy, musicianship, really incredible player, and
he wasn't young anymore either but just kept hitting it hard. Played a show
like that every day in London for weeks. Plus afterparties a couple of times a
week where he would play for hours sometimes. It was probably the best live
show I have ever been to.

Stevie has a special place for me as a songwriter but as a performer Prince
was next level. Different artists, love both

~~~
agumonkey
Prince, even today, is still underrated. He carried mountains of music on his
shoulders, while being an overwhelming rock star persona, and a live genius,
and quite an ok human being (goofy and a bit precious at times but well).

After his passing I saw videos of rehearsal, where he would drive sound stage
check calmly with people, dropping jazz classics from his pocket and being
cool with the crew.

A lot of what he did was so brilliant, for so many years, in so many genre.

ps: he also managed to make rock guitarists drop their jaw at the george
harrison celebration, all done unrehearsed (for better surprise effect).

