A track-by-track guide to Songs in the Key of Life Released September 1976 With 21 pieces that combine to create a timeless and spectacular masterpiece, Stevie Wonder has never sounded better – and now there is more Transcendence is a big goal, but Stevie Wonder achieved it in September 1976 when he released Songs in the Key of Life. Now, on the 50th anniversary of its release, Wonder has finally released four previously unheard tracks – all recorded during the album’s original sessions – to flesh out what is already a work that’s spilling over with riches. “We’ve lived with Songs in the Key of Life for 50 years, but there’s still more to hear,” Wonder has stated. “[These songs] bring me back to that time in my life, and now they get to become part of yours.” The new tracks include It’s Easier, a classic Wonder sweet-bitter break-up number featuring the soft bump of a rudimentary drum machine and a weaving disco-goes-bossa influenced groove. “How’d that sound in there?” Wonder asks as the song ends. My Life Story of Love is jazzy, joyous and free-flowing. I Can See the Sun in Late December is the best of these newly released pieces, a gorgeously melodic, mid-tempo ballad that would surely have become a much-loved Wonder song, while I’m Into Livin’ could have been a musical stepping-stone on the way to writing Have a Talk with God. In the autumn of 1976, Wonder was 26, had been a star since his early teens and had delivered three classic albums – Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale – back to back. America was in its bicentennial year and Wonder was one of the decade’s key stylistic visionaries. But times were changing. Contemporaries and elders like Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown were on a deep downswing, while George Clinton’s LSD- and science-fiction-influenced Parliament/Funkadelic were ascending to the mainstream. Gil Scott Heron’s 1974 hit The Bottle had set a tale of ghetto trauma to a jazz-funk groove, giving the John Coltrane-loving poet an underground hit. Two years had passed since Fulfillingness’ First Finale. Wonder had a new deal with Motown worth a potential £27 million – including a £9 million (around £39 million today) advance. A November 1976 piece in Time noted that “Wonder’s contract is worth as much as the Elton John (£6 million) and Neil Diamond(about £3 million) deals combined.” So where was Stevie hiding? On September 18 a tiny news story appeared on page 70 of Billboard magazine. “At long last,” it announced, “Stevie Wonder has completed his Songs in the Key of Life LP.” Wonder’s new songs tackled racism, poverty, political bankruptcy and a gnawing sense of black historical erasure, but they rubbed up against Wonder’s endless need for – and sharing of – love, his spirituality, thoughts on fatherhood and adult responsibilities. And he never forgot joy. Songs in the Key of Life debuted at Number One on October 16th 1976, and stayed there for 13 consecutive weeks; it was only the third album in history to debut at the top, and the first by an American artist. Elton John has called it “the best album ever made.” George Michael said it was his favourite album of all time. Michael Jackson cited it as his favourite Stevie Wonder album. In 2005 the RIAA certified it as 10X multi-platinum. Fifty years after its release, it’s as powerful and substantive as it ever was, with Wonder about to embark on a UK arena tour where he will perform the album in full. That’s transcendence. Read our track-by-track guide to Wonder’s original masterpiece. 1. Love’s in Need of Love Today Songs in the Key of Life took three years to record, and hundreds of songs were started, so choosing an opener should have been difficult – but Wonder had a concept in mind. “Love has to be fed,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2015. “Love by itself is hollow.” Written in a hotel room in New York in 1974, while his partner Yolanda was pregnant with their daughter, Aisha, Wonder immediately knew this song – a rich, gospel-inflected ballad that circled between the twin emotions of love and hate – was the perfect way to not only open the album, but set the tone for the entire journey. It would be covered widely by other artists, including George Michael, Whitney Houston and Engelbert Humperdinck. 2. Have a Talk with God Driven by the serenely growling funk of Wonder’s ARP 2600 synthesiser and co-written by his brother Calvin Hardaway, Have a Talk with God is a swinging, low-key delight, in no hurry whatsoever to make its point and lit up by a chorus so simple and powerful it’s like you’ve known it forever as soon as you’ve heard it. Not everyone loved it: a review in a December 1976 edition of the jazz magazine Downbeat read: “Have A Talk With God? Thanks, but my editor’s heavy enough.” 3. Village Ghetto Land Influenced by the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby, Village Ghetto Land is a song of austere elegance, with Wonder recreating the string sounds on his “dream machine” (otherwise known as the Yamaha GX-1 synthesiser). The lyrics, co-written with New York DJ and activist Gary Byrd, observe a desperately bleak inner city full of poverty, violence and despair, where the unhoused pull food from rubbish bins, blood and broken glass cover the streets and families have been reduced to eating dog food. Meanwhile the rich, as ever, get richer. The song found a new, global audience when George Michael performed it at the Nelson Mandela 70th-birthday tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in June 1988. 4. Contusion A sparkling and demanding jazz-fusion instrumental ripper that tips its hat to Weather Report and Return to Forever as much as King Crimson and Soft Machine. The recording was such an epic journey that engineer Gary Olazabal said later: “We wondered if it would ever finish.” According to guitarist Michael Sembello, Contusion was Wonder’s way of saying “that he could play and that he wasn’t just this pretty voice”. 5. Sir Duke A delicious, exultant tribute to jazz legend Duke Ellington – a formative influence on the young Wonder – who died in 1974, Sir Duke was a US Number One single, and a UK number two, in the spring of 1977. “Just because a record has a groove,” Wonder sings, “don’t make it in the groove.” A sunburst of positivity, the sheer limitless joy of the piece belies the fact it was written and recorded at lightning speed with an exhausted band. Cash Box magazine delighted in the “horn section that dances on winged feet”. Even the grumps at Downbeat liked it, saying “When [Wonder] strikes those first few chords, I can’t help but capitulate.” 6. I Wish As the lead single for the album, a lot rested on the shoulders of I Wish. Bassist Nathan Watts recalled that it “was a song that [Wonder] never rehearsed”, but was completed, from initial idea to complete song, in a matter of days. Wonder had intended the lyrics to cover “a lot of cosmic, spiritual stuff,” but that idea was scuppered by the ebulliently funky music he wrote. I Wish is clearly in love with the then-hot sound of Funkadelic, and it’s also a none-too-distant cousin of Wonder’s own 1972 hit Superstition. Radio embraced it and the song went to Number One in the US and top five in the UK. That’s his sister Renee with the infectious ad-lib: “You nasty boy!” 7. Knocks Me Off My Feet A candid, sensitive piano-led number that builds into a joyful declaration of love attained, Knocks Me Off My Feet feels entirely personal, with a soaring ride into a chorus that lifts it close to the divine. Complex and dynamic, simple and memorable, NMEthought the song was “where Wonder’s bubble-bath sentiments get the better of him”, but it’s actually a gold-tier slice of slick and celebratory 1970s Stevie. Soul legend Luther Vandross loved it so much he covered it in 1996 – as have, less successfully, many contestants on American Idol. 8. Pastime Paradise Featuring a chanting choir made up of followers of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Self-Realisation Fellowship Temple in Hollywood, who, according to Olazabal “walked single file from their shrine to [Wonder’s studio] Crystal Sound,” Pastime Paradise is a spare, emotional hymn of black protest. Taking its first eight notes from Bach’s Prelude No. 2 in C Minor, the song sees Wonder castigate those who fall into easy nostalgia over rigorous self-renewal. But despite its brilliance, it is perhaps now more associated with a different artist – the late rapper Coolio, whose 1995 interpolation Gangsta’s Paradise topped the charts around the world. 9. Summer Soft Wonder at his most gentle, this tender ballad swoons before it explodes into Steely Dan-like yacht rock that drives the chorus (“And she’s gone / And she’s gone...”) somewhere unexpected. A personal and political statement comparing new love to spring and the fading of desire to autumn, Downbeat suggested that Summer Soft showcased a Wonder who was floating on “a cosmic cloud of unknowing” – but I think his heart sounds incredibly close to the surface here. 10. Ordinary Pain Wonder’s ex-wife Syreeta Wright (they divorced in 1972), Deniece Williams and Minnie Riperton provide backing vocals on what was the first disc’s final – and lengthy – song. Divided into two halves, the first part finds Wonder lamenting the wreckage of a failed relationship; the second half is from the girl’s point of view. Long-term Wonder collaborator Shirley Brewer doesn’t stint in her rebuttal. “You’re just a masochistic fool,” she sings, “Because you knew my love was cruel.” A fabulously dark end to this chapter of the record. 11. Isn’t She Lovely The first two sides of Songs in the Key of Life often demand serious attention, but Isn’t She Lovely just plonks itself right in front of you, eyes shining, asking to be loved. Beginning with uncredited birthing sounds, it’s Wonder’s daughter Aisha’s voice you later hear, happily splashing in a bath – Olazabal remembers it being “a pain in the neck” to properly line up that home recording with the track. Six and a half minutes of pure, new-parent joyousness, the song immediately became a standard – even Frank Sinatra recorded it. Wonder had rarely sounded this untroubled since 1967’s I Was Made To Love Her. 12. Joy Inside My Tears A softly surging wave of emotion, Joy Inside My Tears pulls a heavy curtain against the sunlight cast by the preceding song as it considers the quality of elation that can survive any sadnesses. NME considered it “the album’s most dreary track” – perhaps they missed the hypnotic, Hey Jude-like repetition of the chorus and Wonder’s own gloriously elastic, sliding bass synthesiser work. He’s literally pulling the song along, like a man who’s unwilling to let the heavy weight of despair drag him away from the happiness that’s somewhere out there, just beyond the horizon. 13. Black Man A direct history lesson with a pop quiz thrown in at the end. Activist Byrd was back on co-writing duty for Black Man, which name checked a string of historical figures from different races and cultures, including the American whaler and sailor Crispus Attucks, and Matthew Henson, the explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on the 1908-09 expedition to the North Pole. Soulmagazine’s November 1976 review of the album suggested “folks who might never be curious enough to read a book on Black history will listen to Black Man and become enlightened”. The extended call-and-response end section features children from the Al Fann Theatrical Ensemble of Harlem. Music geek sidenote: In 1976, the lyric naming “yellow man” Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa – the Japanese-American academic and linguist – as “the famous educator and semanticist” got the record pulled off some radio stations, as Hayakawa was then running in the California Senate election against Democrat John Tunney. Hayakawa, a Republican, won. History in the making. 14. Ngiculela – Es Una Historia – I Am Singing Wonder was nothing if not ambitious. Ngiculela showcases his work marrying African and Latin-inflected musical styles with his distinctly American pop-soul flavour. The melody acts as the connective tissue between three languages, with successive verses delivered in Zulu, Spanish and English. Is it anyone’s favourite track on the record? Probably not, but saxophonist Gato Barbieri’s 1977 jazz-fusion version was great. 15. If It’s Magic One of popular music’s great ‘What If’s?’. Alice Coltrane, spiritual jazz legend and widow of John Coltrane, was called in to play harp, but she wanted to reimagine the song her way. So Wonder thought, “What if it’s someone else?” Enter the brilliant Dorothy Ashby, a Detroit-born pianist who switched to harp and went on to record incredible, questing LPs such as 1970’s The Rubáiyát of Dorothy Ashby. Accompanied only by Ashby’s rippling arpeggios, Wonder delivers one of the album’s true vocal highlights. A hypnotically beautiful song, this is weightless genius, a pocket of warm air that will never go cold. 16. As As is a stellar gospel-funk construction of such inventiveness – musicologists in dark corners of the internet still argue as to whether it’s in 2/4 time at 98 bpm or 4/4 time around 102 bpm – that it’s become part of cultural history. Touched again by Wonder’s love of call-and-response vocals, As makes room for Herbie Hancock, whose Rhodes solo dirties up the harmonies while sliding delicately across Wonder’s galloping chords. Drummer Greg Brown’s relentless pulse helps drive a series of peaks supported by Mary Lee Whitney and Wonder’s own stacked backing vocals. Sister Sledge recorded a cover version in 1977, while superfan George Michael had a huge hit with it in 1999, with Mary J Blige. 17. Another Star A production as big as Songs in the Key of Life needs a spectacular finale – and Another Star provides gloriously straight-up disco heat. Eight-minutes of Afro-funk adventurism are dusted with George Benson’s rhythm guitar and Bobbi Humphrey’s flute, while Wonder asks what happens when two people are in love, but their levels of commitment vary. “There might be another star,” he sings, “but through my eyes the light of you is all I see.” Perfection. 18. Saturn Originally on the four-track EP that accompanied the album, Saturn constructs a synthesiser-based sci-fi paradise where the religion of the universe is peace and love. Guitarist Michael Sembello, who had toured with Wonder in 1973, heard Wonder’s demo for Going Back to Saginaw – Saginaw being the Michigan city where Wonder’s mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, met his father, Calvin Judkins (they had a tempestuous relationship: he was a drinker and a pimp, and almost as old as her own father). Sembello thought Wonder was singing “Saturn,” which delighted the songwriter so much Sembello got a co-writing credit. NME thought it sounded like “bits of three Procol Harum songs Sellotaped together,” but it made it onto the multi-million-selling record. “Thank God for double albums,” a well-recompensed Sembello would later laughingly enthuse. 19. Ebony Eyes A branch of Wonder study thinks Ebony Eyes, with its mention of a “Miss Beautiful Supreme”, is a concealed tribute to the object of his childhood devotion, Motown labelmate Diana Ross (who lived next door to the Wonder family once they moved to Detroit). “I had a crush on her,” Wonder told Vanity Fair in 2008. “She was wonderful.” 20. All Day Sucker In a repeat of the Coltrane/Ashby situation, engineer Olazabal had tried Frank Zappa on guitar on this funk-rock groover. When Zappa couldn’t quite get it, Olazabal tried composer and guitarist WG “Snuffy” Walden – whose name will be familiar toWonder Years and West Wing fans. “Snuffy” nailed it, and I consider his screaming, string-bending exhortations to be an embryonic precursor to Adrian Belew’s abrasively textural work on David Bowie’s 1979 album Lodger. Prove me wrong. 21. Easy Goin’ Evening (My Mama’s Call) Finally, after one hour and 44 minutes, the closing theme. Easy Goin’ Evening (My Mama’s Call) is a tribute to Wonder’s mother, and his ability to paint emotion with melody is showcased so casually you barely notice it. This quiet goodbye, a slow and dreamy harmonica-led instrumental with Nathan Watts on upright bass, is one last tiny gift to close out Wonder’s most timeless and spectacular banquet. He’d never sound better. Source: telegraph.co.uk/gift/1702b77…