No one has been a greater advocate for the power of love in this world than I, both in my life and in music.” – Stevie Wonder.
All Stevie Wonder wanted to do in his career was make music that expressed himself and change the world. The 70s, 80s, and 90s are when he truly gets to fulfill that spirit. From his classical period to the end of the 90s, Wonder has put his stamp on history in the music world and very much outside of it.
Classical Times
When Wonder left Motown in the early 70s, he knew he would be back under his conditions. While producing Music On My Mind at Electric Lady Studios, he attended a recording session of Richie Havens. Long story short, they formed a friendship through the relationship he acquainted with Haven’s contract attorney, Johanan Vigoda.
Vigoda is the one who helped Wonder gain complete creative control, ownership of publishing rights, and a generous percentage of profits from his records. Also, Stevie was allowed to choose his promotional team and augment them with Motown’s in his new contract.
It is fair to say that Cecil and Margouleff had yet to learn about Stevie signing back with Motown until after Innerversions was released. Both were close to Stevie and didn’t see it as them being ripped off from the promise to be a part of his empire; however, it was the first sign that things were going down in their relationship. The second sign is when Stevie hired Ira Tucker Jr. Cecil quotes in Signed, Sealed, and Delivered:
“… Stevie was bringing in people like Ira Tucker, who sort of became Stevie’s right-hand man. That was really the beginning of the end when Ira got involved because they (Stevie’s posse) were very, very black-oriented and just disliked Bob and I because we weren’t black… That’s not a hunch; it was something Ira made no secret of. One time he said to us, ‘You motherf*****s ain’t gonna get sh** from us.’ Oh, wait, that’s not quite correct. He said, ‘You honky motherf*****s ain’t gonna get sh** from us.'”
After they sealed the contract deal, Motown released Music On My Mind. It placed number six on the R&B chart and 21 on the pop- which is good for experimenting without the help of Motown. Now that he was back with the family, it was time to return to the drawing board, but first, Stevie wanted to expand his audience.
The Rolling Stones Tour
In 1972 he went on tour with the Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones was the most popular and influential rock band at its time. Stevie claims,
“It wasn’t a money-making thing, that wasn’t the idea- exposure was the idea,” Stevie later admits, “I want to reach the people. I feel there is so much through music that can be said, and there’s so many people you can reach by (having them listen) to another kind of music besides what is considered your only kind of music … I say as long as it’s change to widen your horizons, it’s cool.”
As well as the tour the Rolling Stones Tour went, Stevie still dealt with the complications and drama that came with it. It was smooth sailing until unintentional competition began. The Stones realized just how difficult it was to follow him.
- In the strict 15 minutes he had, Wonder lit the crowd on fire, exhausting them in the end. The Stones then had to either make them burn brighter or keep the flame just as hot, but how difficult was it to do when Stevie took all the oxygen?
- Wonder’s team was having some problems themselves. Cecil has said, “The spotlights were being saved for the Stones; Stevie couldn’t be illuminated. Then I found taped on the board a note telling me I couldn’t turn the volume up over a certain level because only the Stones could be that loud (laugh). I just ripped up that note and mixed it all the way up. So there was a running feud between me and the Stone’s sound guy the whole time.
- Racism was still abroad. Newspapers and the radio “simply refused to cover a black act.” The Stones did nothing to aid Stevie.
- Name-calling and rumors. After Stevie’s drummer, Greg Copeland, quit after a tiff they had, Stevie told the tour manager he wouldn’t be able to perform until a new drummer was found. Another was; however, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were livid that he even contemplated it. Richards told Britsh magazine that Stevie was a “stupid c***,” and Jagger claimed that Stevie’s troupe couldn’t “keep up” with the Stone’s onstage, but at the hotels, “they spent the night f*****g and sucking.” Nobody took the latter seriously; nonetheless, it still profoundly wounded Stevie. As a result, Stevie casts them as liars, claiming that it had been cool with them that he might have to miss a show because there’d be no drummer, but “the next thing was I read all this shit.”
In the end, the 2-month battle paid off. A New York Times review read, “Spectacular as the Stones were, (the) most vivid musical memories are of the changed-up playing and swinging of the blind soul singer/musician Stevie Wonder and his crisp band, Wonderlove.”
To aid in his dilemma of connecting to other audiences, Wonder’s promotional team placed him on Tv shows like I Got a Secret and What’s My Line? All of this was vital; however, what really did the job was his second album under his new contract: Talking Book.
October 24, 1972, the first single off Talking Book was released: Superstition. It was such a success that it shot to number one on both the Billboard charts and pushed the album to number one on the R&B chart and three on the pop. The first song on the album, You Are the Sunshine of My Life, peaked at number one. It was Talking Book that began Wonder’s classic period. After that came a string of top chart albums:
- Innervisions (1973)
- Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974)
- Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
Success was in Wonder’s favor; however, events took a disastrous turn three days after Innervisions was released. August 6, 1973, on his way to Greenville, South Carolina, for a promotional tour, his cousin, John Harris, plowed straight into the back of a logging truck. One of the logs smashed through the windshield and smacked Wonder square in the forehead. Surprisingly, he wasn’t dead… It sent him into a coma for four days, and when he woke up, he had temporarily lost some more of his senses, like taste and smell. To no one’s surprise, it wasn’t death Wonder was worried about. No, it was if he was still capable of making music. There’s no need to say if he was; after all, he was still in the early phases of his classic period.
Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life would wrap up Stevie’s classic times. He used the four albums not only to shape who he was as an artist but also the music of the upcoming generations. His music was about innovation, emotion, and self-consciousness, all captured in his song Living For the City. October 30, 1979, Journey through the Secret Life of Plants was released. It was this album that ended Wonder’s classical period… How scary that it was right before Halloween…
Reinvention
“What I’m not confused about is the world needing much more love, no more hate, no prejudice, no bigotry, and more unity, peace, and understanding. Period.”- Stevie Wonder.
The 80s was a time when Stevie Wonder was reinventing himself. Politics and race equality were his primary goals. This was when he started participating in charities more, collaborating with even more highly profiled artists, and making a more significant political impact. He had more tv appearances on shows such as the Cosby Show and Saturday Night Live. Still, Wonder’s work was released at slower frequencies. He did work with other artists, such as Jermaine Jackson’s song Lets Get Serious. Some other artists he worked with were Dionne Warwick, Barbara Streisand, the Beach Boys, Michael Jackson, Melle Mel, Chaka Khan, and the Eurythmics.
In 1980, some people believed he returned to his classical form when he released his album Hotter than July. On it was his song Happy Birthday, which was his way of trying to encourage Dr. King’s birthday as a national holiday. He continued the campaign with Coretta Scott King during most of ’81, except it would be another couple of years until it was signed into law by President Reagan and not observed until ’86.
Wonder’s political work in his music didn’t stop there. In ’82, he did a duet called Ebony and Ivory with Paul McCartney. The song was written to solve racial tensions, yet the audience had mixed feelings about it. Lucky for them, the song hit the Top 10 of Billboard’s R&B chart and debuted on the Hot 100 at No. 29.
Still, he continued to reinvent himself as ’82 rolled on. He collaborated with the jazz artist Dizzy Gilespie on the single Do I Do and on it did some rapping. The same year he released a single called Front Line (a story of a soldier in the Vietnam war.) However, Stevie was still not busting out albums like in the 70s. At this time, he would independently open up his label and call it Wondirection.
By 1984 Wonder had said in a Washington Post interview that,
“It’s not easy going years without putting an album out,” he said, ” Especially when you hear other people’s records on the radio. But you have to decide: do you want to do something just to hear yourself on the radio, or do you want to do something that you feel comfortable hearing on the radio, no matter how long it takes? That’s the kind of gamble that I’ve had to take in my life.”
With that said, his political works continued. February 14, 1985, cupid turned against him. While protesting for love and equality (he was protesting Apartheid) in front of a South African embassy in Washington, D.C, he was arrested. Stevie never spent time in a jail cell and was set free with a warning from a clement judge. He called himself a “conscientious criminal for world equality.”He also insisted after getting arrested that “I wasn’t disturbing peace; I was singing.”
Not too long later, he accepted an Oscar award for the song I Just Called to Say I Love You for the film Woman in Red (which he dedicated to Nelson Mandela while the man was imprisoned.) America didn’t ignore Stevie’s attempt. Soon after his Oscar win, he was honored by the United Nations special committee against Apartheid and performed “It’s Wrong (Apartheid).” This act is what got him banned from South Africa.
Amid Wonder’s political activism in the 1980s, he also accomplished something that was taken from him years later. In 1989 he became the youngest inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Josh Klinghoffer, a 32-year-old guitarist, abducted the title in 2012.
Lights… Camera… Action!
The 90s was when Wonder messed with movies and released music at an even slower rate than in the 80s. In 1990, he ended up working with the grand balladeer Whitney Houston. Together they worked on her third album; I’m Your Baby Tonight. A year later, A year later, for the last time, Stevie and Malcolm (from TONTO) would pair up and create the soundtrack for Spike Lee’s movie Jungle Fever. The film was released in early June but ended up being a disaster. Only a few people really knew Stevie composed the music for it.
So far, the early 90s are popping off for Wonder; however, 1995 was a year of celebration and defeat. Stevie Wonder finally released his next full album, Conversation Peace. Critics and fans say it wasn’t his best, and it was no Songs in the Key of Life, but he did receive 2 Grammy’s for the single For Your Love. Although this wasn’t an ultimate victory, one of his songs was revived and became one of the biggest hits that year! Coolio turned Pastime Paradise into Gansta’s Paradise.
Again Wonder slowed down in the 90s and was less prosperous than in the 70s or even the 80s. He did one thing that kids in the 90s and 2000s should remember. Does anybody remember True to Your Heart?
Yes, in 1998, he sang on Disney Mulan’s soundtrack.
The End?
The 90s is not the end for Stevie Wonder. He has contributed much politically and to the music world throughout the 20th century. He continues to do so in the next. Wonder isn’t done with us yet, and he shows that through the years to come.
References
Love, D., & Brown, S. (2007). Blind faith: The miraculous journey of Lula Hardaway, Stevie Wonder’s mother: An authorized biography of Lula Hardaway. Simon & Schuster.
Powell, N. (2021, November 24). The great musical wondorous life of stevie. Black Music Scholar. https://blackmusicscholar.com/the-wondrous-life-of-stevie-wonder/
Ribowsky, M. (2010). Signed, sealed, and delivered: The soulful journey of stevie wonder. John Wiley & Sons.
Sanneh, K. (2022). Major labels: A history of popular music in seven genres. Penguin Books.
Stevie Wonder Biography, Songs, & Albums. AllMusic. (n.d.). https://www.allmusic.com/artist/stevie-wonder-mn0000622805/biography