Stevie Wonder: Under Review

As anyone with an interest in music knows, Stevie Wonder is one of soul music's greats.  Stevie had a string of hits in the early 60's as "Little Stevie Wonder", and a few very solid albums in the mid 60's such as "Down to Earth" and "For Once In My Life".  Here's a track off of "Down to Earth" called "Hey Love", which is actually one of my favorite Stevie Wonder tracks, and probably my favorite of his earlier period.

It was around 1971 when he began an amazing string of five consecutive albums from 1971-76 that are all arguably considered masterpieces to many individuals.  The first great Stevie album is "Music of My Mind".

It's amazing to think that by this time Stevie was in the music business for over 10 years, as he was still only 21 years old.  By this time, Stevie was largely writing/recording all of his own music, and for the most part, he played every instrument on this album.  "Music of My Mind" is an extremely funky album, and is one of my favorite of Stevie's albums (though that opinion changes by the month, depending what mood I am in). 

One of my favorite tracks off this album is "Happier than the Morning Sun".

Next came Stevie's second masterpiece, the 1972 album "Talking Book", which contained hits like "Superstition", "You are the Sunshine of My Life", among others.  This is an amazing album that probably had more commercial appeal than his previous album.   Actually, if I had to take one Stevie Wonder album to a desert island, it would probably be this one.  "Talking Book" is a sentimental favorite of mine, as a child this was an album that my family spun quite frequently, so it was the one I was most familiar with for many years.  Check out Stevie playing "Superstition" live on Sesame Street!

"Innervisions", "Fulfillingness First Finale" (try saying that three times fast) and "Songs in the Key of Life" are the final three albums that complete Stevie's brilliant five year run of masterpiece albums.  As with many double albums, "Songs in the Key of Life" is a little over-indulgent, but so is "The White Album", and they are both brilliant albums, warts and all.  "Innervisions" is brilliant, as his "FFF", and "FFF" could be considered Stevie's most underrated album.

I've been thinking about Stevie Wonder's career a lot recently, mainly in that I was trying to think of another singer-songwriter that had as creative and successful of a five year period that Stevie had in the early to mid-70's, and could only think of a few:   1962-67 Dylan, 1970's Bowie (although that's debatable--"Aladdin Sane", and "Young Americans" are spotty albums through I enjoy both of them), and Miles Davis (the 50's period with Coltrane, through Gil Evans and even his group with Herbie Hancock) are the only three who could touch that creative of a five year period as Stevie Wonder in the 70's

After 1976, Stevie's career is more spotty.  He still had some good songs here and there, but could certainly get cheesy lyrically ("I Just Called to Say I Love You"), but so could Dylan in the 70's and Bowie in the 80's, and Miles in the 80's--but that's a whole other topic.  Nevertheless, considering Stevie's body of work--I mean, even if you took out this brilliant 1971-76 time period, he still would've been considered as a great Motown singer, but once Stevie reached his creative peak in the early 1970's, he went from being a great singer and musician to a great songwriter and artist--certainly one of the best in soul music history, and also in the history of great American singer-songwriters.  

                                                      STEVIE WONDER!