Stevie Wonder

At the start of the 1970s, Stevie Wonder's career was marked by an imposing, ever-building crescendo. In the space of just four years (from 1972 to 1976) and four albums ("Music Of My Mind", "Talking Book", "Innervisions" and "Fulfillingness' First Finale"), the genius from Saginaw shed his image as a black-music child prodigy to become a dominant figure and an absolute star on the international music scene. Tired of Motown's excessive control over his output, Wonder decided he'd had enough. "I don't think you know where I'm coming from," he proudly told his label's executives in 1971. "I don't think you can understand."

He demanded, and won, total creative autonomy along with a bigger cut of royalties. The result was four albums that dominated the charts and pointed the way forward for a whole generation of musicians. Gone were the cover versions and easy, catchy tunes; in their place came a new kind of music, full of love, mysticism, social awareness and political consciousness, paired with rhythmic and melodic ideas never heard before, a mastery of instruments and studio technique unlike anything seen up to that point, and a voice sounding more crystalline and powerful than ever.

The peak of this artistic and personal journey is the majestic double album (complete with a bonus EP titled "A Something's Extra" and a 24-page booklet with lyrics and credits) "Songs In The Key Of Life", released in September 1976. Costing a full year of work across three different studios - Record Plant in Hollywood, Music Factory in Sausalito and The Hit Factory in New York - the record drained Wonder almost entirely, both physically and mentally. According to those who worked with him, the American singer would stay in the studio for up to 48 hours straight, without eating or sleeping, just to satisfy his obsessive perfectionism ("If I feel inspired, I keep going until I get the best out of it," he said of those grueling sessions). A total of 130 people were involved in making the record, including guest stars of the caliber of Herbie Hancock, George Benson, and "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow. Musicians worked "on call", summoned at the strangest hours of the day and night to keep pace with Stevie's creative trance.

It was worth the effort. The results were staggering. Twenty-one songs of timeless, cross-generational beauty, in which the demiurge Wonder skillfully blended different sensations and sounds to create a masterpiece that transcends genre and race: from a baby's cry evoking the joys of fatherhood, to joyous tributes to his childhood idols, to the anger and dismay over the plight of Black America.

It's all in here. Listening to this record is a bit like opening Pandora's box. Wonder managed to bring together all his musical and cultural influences - gospel, jazz, doo-wop, soul, funk, pop - and transform them, modernize them, making them accessible to future generations. Every musical current, strand and style of Black music over the past thirty years traces back to this record. From the radio-friendly, chart-topping pop of Michael Jackson to the tormented R&B of Mary J. Blige, from the party hip-hop of Will Smith to the gangsta sound of Coolio, they all owe a debt of honor to this extraordinary work.

The first record opens with a clearly gospel-rooted choir introducing "Love's In Need Of Love Today", in which Wonder sings, in a silvery voice, of the urgent need for love, accompanying himself on his trusty clavinet while Eddie "Bongo" Brown's soft percussion provides a delicate bed of sound. A sobbing harmonica riff opens "Have A Talk With God", a religiously themed track dominated by the swollen tone of the Fender Rhodes. The American artist's genius shines fully on the third track, the Black minuet "Village Ghetto Land". Behind the aristocratic accompaniment of a string quartet (recreated using keyboards), a worthy successor to the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", lies one of the most socially engaged songs on the album. Wonder's anger reaches its peak, even if he doesn't let it show, when he sings: "Would you like to go with me, down my dead end street; Would you like to come with me, to Village Ghetto Land", inviting the listener to become aware of the intolerable conditions in which his Black brothers live.

The instrumental "Contusion", with its driving, distinctly fusion sound (surely making the ears of Weather Report, but also our own Pino Daniele, perk up), works the listener over before the knockout one-two punch that follows! Two songs that make anyone listening jump out of their seat and move frantically, almost justifying the price of the album on their own. Raymond Pounds' syncopated hi-hat drumming opens the exhilarating "Sir Duke", a joyous and heartfelt tribute from the singer to his childhood idol Duke Ellington, a giant of jazz. This time it's the horns that steal the show. Tight, punchy, perfectly blended, they create one of the most famous riffs of all time (second, perhaps, only to that of "Superstition"), while Wonder's high, crystalline voice sings of the joy he felt discovering the great jazz of Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and, of course, Duke Ellington. The universality of musical language is the pivot around which the whole song turns (“Music is a world within itself/ With a language we all understand/ With an equal opportunità/ for all to sing, dance and clap their hands”), with its inherent democracy and equality. The central bridge, played in unison by horns, bass and keyboard, is stunning, reinforcing - though it hardly needs it - the song's structure, making it downright dangerous for your heart.

The devilish interplay between Nathan Watts' bass and Stevie Wonder's Fender Rhodes opens the irresistible "I Wish". The track's scorching funk has, over time, been "cloned" by numerous other artists (Will Smith above all, who lifted the music wholesale to build "his own" "Wild Wild West"), with some building entire careers on "I Wish"'s groove. The original, despite its rhythmic power, is a nostalgic look back at the artist's youth, as he wishes that "the good old days" could come back again (“I wish those days/ could come back once more/ Why did those days ever have to go/ I wish those days/ could come back once more/ Why did those days ever have to go, cause I loved ‘em so”).

After all that outpouring of energy, it's time to relax a little. Enter the slow, seductive "Knocks Me Off My Feet", a classic Wonder-esque love song, all keyboards and vocalizing, in which his dreamy, melodious voice manages to probe the hidden depths of lovers' souls. Social commitment forcefully returns on the hypnotic, muffled "Pastime Paradise". The sound of a marimba opens this masterpiece centered on ghetto life, made up of segregation, isolation and despair - a situation with often no way out, in which the less fortunate find themselves trapped. Wonder's voice turns sad and mournful on this track, while his synthesizer weaves a bed of strings that runs throughout the song. Raymond Maldonado and Bobby Hall's congas effectively stand in for the drums, giving the track an African-American flavor. The final crescendo brings in the Hare Krishna West Angels Church Choir, underscoring the song's dramatic weight. "Pastime Paradise" would come roaring back into vogue about twenty years after its release, when rapper Coolio sampled its melody and chorus (changing the lyrics) to overlay his own typical hip-hop flow, turning it into the bestselling "Gangsta's Paradise". This once again proves the enduring power of the music on this album, utterly immune to the passage of time.

A chorus of chirping crickets opens "Summer Soft", marked by constant tempo changes. The artist's eclecticism is fully realized here, moving from a tender, slow verse to a decidedly jazzy chorus, all through tumultuous drum breaks. The same happens on the following "Ordinary Pain", a genuine musical mosaic containing at least two different genres within it. After a pop-style opening, the track veers sharply toward funk. The star here is Shirley Brewer's voice, which carries much of the song, leaving Wonder to handle the task of playing almost every instrument.

The second LP opens with the cries of newborn Aisha Morris, the singer's daughter, to whom the widely known "Isn't She Lovely" is dedicated. A pop masterpiece marked by a joyous, ringing vocal delivery, it received an outsized amount of radio play despite never charting on Billboard, since Wonder refused to release it as a single. Embellished by Greg Phillinganes' keyboards, the song is a perfect fusion of pop and jazz elements, topped off by a fantastic central harmonica solo. Keyboards again take center stage on "Joy Inside My Tears", a touching ballad centered on the joys of rediscovered love. Recorded with a stripped-down lineup, aided only by the ever-present Greg Phillinganes and Susaye Green on backing vocals, it's without doubt a masterful display of songwriting and performance, with Wonder showing off the full range of his vocal abilities. Funk comes bubbling back on the epic "Black Man". Driven by a thumping bass-synthesizer riff and a tight, powerful horn section, the song returns to the theme of race. After listing the contributions of every race to the building of a great country like America, it looks forward to a future of brotherhood, since the world was made for all people.

A curious blend of African inspiration, Latin rhythms and black music gives life to "Ngiculela- Es Una Historia- I Am Singin". Lyrically structured in three clearly distinct parts — a Zulu one ("Ngiculela"), a Hispanic one ("Es Una Historia") and an American one ("I Am Singing") — the track once again confirms Wonder's versatility, his essential bond with Africa, and the multiethnic nature of his music. The instrumental backing provides the perfect frame for this incredible melting pot. The synthesizer sounds like Paco De Lucia's guitar, while the percussion seems to come straight off a Santana record. If blending and musical complexity define "Ngiculela", simplicity and bare essentials are the trademark of the very next track. Dorothy Ashby's harp is the only instrument accompanying the vocal on the poignant "It's Magic", a true hidden gem among the album's grooves, embellished by the fleeting notes of a harmonica. Herbie Hancock's piano and Dean Parks' guitar lend nobility to "As", one of the artist's signature songs. The wonderful gospel-style chorus and Hancock's jazzy solo are the standout features of a track centered on natural and social themes. While the first part focuses on the splendor of Mother Nature and the various habitats found around the world, the middle section points out that poverty and hardship exist, at times, in nearly every corner of the Earth. A worldwide hit, the song has since been covered by numerous artists, including Jean-Luc Ponty, George Michael and Mary J. Blige. The high-caliber collaborations continue on "Another Star", which features a musician of the stature of George Benson. Brazilian samba meets soul in this spectacular musical fresco. The tempo picks up, the percussion marks out the beat of a full-blown Carnival, while Bobbi Humphrey's flute paints vividly colorful watercolors of notes.

There's still room for four more tracks making up the "A Something's Extra" EP, which, given their quality, could easily have been included on the two main LPs. Opening the set is the utopian "Saturn", in which the ringed planet becomes a symbol of a perfect world, free of hatred and violence, free of death and pain (see John Lennon's "Imagine" or Edoardo Bennato's "L'isola che non c'è"). Piano and synthesizers blend perfectly with Mike Sembello and Ben Bridges' guitars to sketch out a melancholy melody, over which sits an exceptionally clear and clean vocal line. The real gem, though, is the syncopated "Ebony Eyes", where Wonder's honky-tonk piano is joined by "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow's pedal-steel and Jim Horn's rasping saxophone, describing falling in love with a beautiful girl born and raised in a horrible place like the streets of the ghetto (“She’s a girl that can’t be beat/ Born and raised on ghetto street/ She’s a devastating beauty/ A pretty girl with ebony eyes”). A distinctive touch of the track is the splash of color provided by the use of the talkbox. Funk comes roaring back on "All Day Sucker", which features, for the first time, some sounds typical of hip-hop. The keyboard, for instance, creates a kind of scratch effect that accompanies the vocal throughout the track. The bass swells, the clavinet stammers, and W.G. "Snuffy" Walden's guitar sketches out an epic solo. The album closes with the instrumental "Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)", in which the absolute star is the harmonica, played with the usual mastery by Stevie Wonder himself.

A kaleidoscope of sounds, emotions, influences, languages: that's the best way to describe "Song In The Key Of Life". A vibrant, immortal work capable of enveloping, overwhelming and uplifting any kind of listener, dragging them into that world of pure magic conjured by the intimate, wondrous visions of Mr. Wonder.

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27/02/2026