Stevie Wonder Appreciation Thread

I happened to stumble upon the Grammy Stevie Wonder Tribute, and really enjoyed it. I think the new, young artists (that I have never really been into) did great jobs with the music.

I was really into his LPs in the 70s, but had not listened to them in a long time, and didn't have them any more. It inspired me to get Innervisions, Fullfillingness' First Finale, Songs in the Key of Life, and Talking Book.

Man, I have spent the last week really enjoying playing these, and forgot about some of the great deeper cuts that were never released as singles. This guy really was/is a genius.

Was anybosy else inspired to rediscover Stevie?

 

No, I already knew how great he is/was. I wish more people dug his 1987 album Characters, though.

 

His string of amazing 70's albums is something to behold and will likely never be matched.

 

i guess re-discovery is good. i thought "a time to love" was brilliant too.
was in a second spin up in los angeles several years ago before "a time to love" came out and they had a classic stevie on their system playing. so i am shopping and singing along (probably way too loud) and this lady comes up and says "oh, you love stevie?" and being grateful she wasn't insulting my singing i started talking with her and she worked for him and in a nut shell said that he was in a funk (though never was short on funk), ready to release a new album and hoping that it would be accepted and that he would love to hear someone was singing his songs still.
struck me as strange being he imho is the genius of our time. far superior to any other artist. his body of work is equal to anyone and his chops are legendary.
just amazes me that someone that strong can drift out of flavor while still maintaining the skill set he has. i guess when you are judged by marketplace which makes you a deity for a period of time and then moves on to the new flavor of the month if you use that as the benchmark
he is being re-discovered. hopefully we are on the dawn of a Wonder-ful new era of his work.

 

I had owned "Innervisions" for donkey's years and listened to the 'hits' from it, up until an argument on here about Beyoncé's performance on that very same Grammy tribute thread and I went and sat down and listened to it from start to finish. Three times in a row. Over the following days I listened to it so much I've decided to take a break from it, but it's set me off to discover so much more about Stevie and his music.

Genius isn't too overblown a word here.

 

He really should release a compilation devoted to all of his funky stuff for those of us who wish they could boogie on with Sir Duke on higher ground without pausing to hear how lovely his baby and cherie amour are. Or maybe a 2 discer with one devoted to each style. When I'm in a mood for one I'm rarely in the mood for the other (and more often I'm in the mood for funk).

 

only saw him twice. he was support for the stones in 1972. pretty good for 6.50 a ticket.

 

One could argue that Prince's '80s catalog is somewhere in the vicinity of Stevie's. However, as much as I enjoy Prince's body of work, as a whole, over Stevie's, the more I think about it, the absolute sublimity of Stevie Wonder's work from 1971's Where I'm Coming From to 1984's The Woman in Red trumps just about anyone's consecutive albums, as far as consistency.

Not only that, but every single one of those albums are audiophile grade, by any standard of measurement.

Rediscovering? I just got the DSD files for Innvervisions, so yeah, I've been rocking some Wonder

 

Great idea (especially the 2-disc set) but it wouldn't sell.

 

I never actually saw Stevie perform live, but I did see him in the studio for Songs In The Key Of Life and Secret Life Of Plants.

During the later, we had a great night playing his electronic game for hours and hours. Of course he is blind, but he was beating me as much as I was beating him .

He had a custom built game with a little phone keypad and a speaker mounted in a project box. An electronic voice would say a number and then you would have to push the right button on the keyboard. You got points for speed and lost points for errors.

I was using both hands and trying to pounce as fast as possible. Stevie used just one hand, and hovered over the keyboard, moving his hand back and forth as if he could see it. He would just jab at the buttons, but he was very accurate. I was pretty blown away.

We played this game for hours and he kept saying, 'Just one more time' over and over again. It was a night I'll never forget.

Regarding his music, I absolutely loved just about all of it until the 80s when he started to record digitally. I still remember Fingertips was one of the top songs of the summer in 1963, when I was going to camp in Spring Valley, NY. Each and every one of his 60s hits has it's own set of associated memories for me. IMO, his early and mid 70s albums were as good a string of albums as anybody has ever made.

 

A popular music true genius. I admire him deeply.

 

Talking Book is always hovering in the background, but the Grammy tribute did inspire me to break out the box set. I think the Jungle Fever soundtrack is surprisingly strong, although I wish Spike Lee had managed to convince him to use acoustic-based instruments. -E

 

Been really enjoying the recent mofi reissues of Talking Book and Fullfillingness'. That CBS special had some great performances and of course Stevie killed it!

 

Fingertips Part 2 was my intro to Stevie back in 1963 - and I was sold. Saw him a few times with the Motown Revue in the 1964-1966 time frame and he was fantastic live, even at a young age.

 

I've always been a casual fan of some of his songs but recently have been listening to some of his 60's & 70's hits and a couple of deeper cuts. "My Cherie Amour" is a beautiful song and no one does la la la's like Stevie. Hadn't heard "You Haven't Done Nothin'" - man that song is funky. Genius.

 

I, too, enjoyed this tribute...my wife and I both watched it. I bought the LP Songs In the Key of Life in '76, which was probably the only R&B album in my collection at the time! I was impressed by not only (most of) the tribute cover versions but Stevie himself, his medley song choice was superb and his voice sounds the same as it did all those years ago (even the "ha, ha, HA!" in his "Sir Duke" performance sounded like the original recording!). Stevie, for me, is like the Paul McCartney of R&B. I wish Paul's 70's output had been as substantive.

 

Going to see him tonight. Will leave only one more musical act on my bucket list (one that also sports a Stevie).

 

Just heard "Happier Than The Morning Sun" for the first time. Blown away. Such a beautiful love song.

 

Kind of saddens me that we're unlikely to see deluxe editions of his 70s landmark albums with outtakes (although "Where I'm Coming From" precedes his Motown contract renegotiation so could be expanded with unreleased versions/tracks). Some of the unreleased stuff I've heard from that era is INCREDIBLE.

 

I have about 6 or so of his albums, plus a few 12" singles, but the one that is played more often is the Original Musiquarium 1 compilation. After that it's Talking Book and Songs In The Key of Life.

 

The large set that is on iTunes has a few rare tracks on it, that you can now finally download separately and one that I found that I really enjoyed was this one …

 

Stevie is doing Summerstage (Central Park, NYC) for free at 7:30 tonight.
Also playing free in Dilworth Plaza in Philly right now

 

Just last night I pulled out my vinyl copy of Fulfillingness' First Finale for a headphone listen.
For some reason, it's the least fulfilling release of the Music Of My Mind through Songs In The Key of Life run for me but still chock full of great stuff.
I'll just mention that original vinyl mastered by Kendun is the way to go for this era of his music - the original Motown CDs and especially the remastered CDs pale in comparison to the full sound of the vinyl.
He was/is a master of music making, but his delight in his musical discovery and advancement during this period is palpable in the grooves - he was on fire!

 

He's one of the alltime greats, a big question remains about why Superwoman was not a huge hit, it could be his greatest song.

 

The 70s run was insane. I also really like Hotter Than July and even Secret Life of Plants

Another Stevie collection that gets a lot of turntable time is the 3LP "Looking Back" Motown retrospective release. Mine is worn out but I can't seen to find another one in good shape.