0:00

Hey y'all, what's up? Jamie and I

0:02

are so excited to share a new

0:04

podcast with you hosted by the culture

0:06

critic Wesley Morris. She and I have

0:08

both been huge fans of Wesley and

0:10

his work over the years when it

0:12

comes to movie reviews and just cultural

0:15

criticism at large. So we're so excited

0:17

to see what he's going to do.

0:19

with this podcast. It's called The Wonder

0:21

of Stevie. You might think you know

0:23

Stevie Wonder, you might think you know

0:25

as music, but you've never heard it

0:28

like this. Wesley is taking us on

0:30

a deep dive through Stevie's classic period,

0:32

five legendary albums back to back in

0:34

just four years, hear about the record

0:36

deal that started at all, the technology

0:38

Stevie adopted to create never before heard

0:41

sounds, and also hear about his influence

0:43

on our culture. There will be appearances

0:45

from legends like Barack and Michelle Obama,

0:47

Smoky, Smoky Robinson. Dionne Warwick, Babyface, Janelle,

0:49

Monet and Moore. This upcoming episode is

0:51

actually a really, really good one. Wesley

0:54

details how Stevie is able to renegotiate

0:56

his Motown Records contract for complete creative

0:58

freedom and what follows is the beginning

1:00

of the greatest streak of albums in

1:02

American popular music, music of My Mind.

1:04

Okay, here comes a sneak preview. You

1:06

can binge the entire season of The

1:09

Wonder of Stevie right now, including a

1:11

bonus episode with Stevie Wonder himself talking

1:13

to President Barack Obama. Listen to the

1:15

Wonder of Stevie wherever you listen

1:17

to podcasts. Audible Originals, Higher

1:19

Ground audio, and Pineapple Street

1:22

studios present The Wonder of

1:24

Stevie, hosted by Wesley Morris.

1:35

Listen at that baseline.

1:37

That's an engine pumping.

1:40

We're about to drive

1:42

somewhere. No, no, no,

1:44

no. We're about to

1:46

fly. Every day I

1:49

wanna fly my guy.

1:51

And every day I

1:53

wanna fly. This is

1:56

the beginning of love

1:58

having you around. first

2:00

song on music of my

2:02

mind My first album in a

2:04

run of albums by

2:07

Stevie Wonder, of run almost

2:09

universally understood to be the

2:11

most miraculous, most inspired

2:13

streak in the history of

2:16

American popular music. They

2:18

call it history

2:20

of American popular music.

2:23

They call it

2:25

Stevie's classic period.

2:27

This song is the the sound of someone

2:29

turning into someone else. someone else. often

2:32

get to hear what that sounds like,

2:34

but that's what's happening right here

2:36

in this song. right here in

2:38

this becoming. musical adulthood.

2:40

Axe body spray

2:42

getting swapped for spray getting

2:44

swapped for song is

2:47

the moment that

2:49

that little Wonder Motown

2:51

genius genius becomes just Wonder.

2:53

Wonder. The visionary who's about

2:55

to change change everything himself,

2:58

Motown, our understanding understanding

3:00

of what pop music can even

3:02

sound like like, and our understanding of who

3:04

he is and what he's capable. of.

3:09

I'm I'm Wesley Morris, I'm I'm a critic of

3:11

the New York Times and I write about popular

3:14

culture I the relationship between the present and the

3:16

past between the races involved

3:18

in that relationship and I'm just

3:20

gonna say. involved in

3:22

Wonder. I love his love of black

3:24

people. I love his love of all people.

3:26

I love his love emotional honesty. I

3:28

love that I love his about life

3:30

as a person curious about

3:32

life as an curious a

3:34

plant, an and a plant, and I love

3:37

that this run of albums contains

3:39

a story of both a man

3:41

who made them, and a story

3:43

about life in this country. about life in

3:45

this country. purposes, this classic

3:47

period. starts with Music of

3:49

My Mind, which Motown

3:51

released in 1972, when

3:53

Stevie was just 21 years old. Months

3:55

later, later, he was back with the

3:57

second album in in this streak, Talking

3:59

Book. following year Stevie releases

4:02

inner visions the year after

4:04

that it's fulfilling this his

4:07

first finale and finally the

4:09

culmination of the run 1976's

4:11

songs in the key of

4:14

life five albums in less

4:16

than five years and it's

4:19

worth looking back at the

4:21

musical scope and big heartedness

4:24

developed in such a short

4:26

fraught period of time because

4:28

It hasn't been matched by

4:31

any other artist. We're talking

4:33

about Stevie Wonder's music today

4:36

because it's our history, yes,

4:38

but also because it's important

4:41

to our present too. There's

4:43

so much in this music

4:45

Stevie made over 50 years

4:48

ago. Still! So much that

4:50

is still moving us, delighting

4:53

us, surprising and inspiring us.

4:55

He's left a legacy that

4:58

still impacts tons of people.

5:00

People we're going to hear

5:02

from like Michelle Obama, Baby

5:05

Face, Yolanda Adams, Barack Obama,

5:07

Jimmy Jam, and so many

5:10

more people. To put it

5:12

simply, for the next six

5:15

episodes, We're going to be

5:17

luxuriating. And as Genomei describes

5:20

it, Stevie being a free

5:22

ass mother. This is the

5:24

wonder of Stevie. Today, episode

5:27

one, music of my mind.

5:29

OK, so. It's 1986. Come back

5:31

with me. It's Thursday night, 8

5:33

p.m. I'm 10 years old, and

5:36

I'm watching the Cosby show. I

5:38

know, just shut up. I'm watching

5:40

the Cosby show. Season 2, episode

5:42

18, and Denise Huxtable has just

5:44

gotten her license and has begged

5:47

for a car. Now, Denise was

5:49

the coolest Huxtable. But even at

5:51

10, I knew cool as Denise

5:53

was going to mess this driving

5:55

thing up. And mess it up,

5:58

she did. At some point, she

6:00

and her brother Theo come blowing

6:02

the living room with some breaking

6:04

news. You won't believe what happened

6:07

to us. We were in a

6:09

wreck. Only, they don't seem like

6:11

they're in a wreck. They seem

6:13

psyched. It's like, Denise, did you

6:15

hit somebody or did you hit

6:18

on somebody? Because I can't tell.

6:20

They're telling this story like the

6:22

accident is the farthest thing from

6:24

their minds. They hit this other

6:27

car and then... Stevie

6:29

Wonder! Yada! Yada! Yada! The Huxtable

6:31

family hangs out in the studio

6:34

with Stevie! Who's in these big

6:36

sunglasses and a milky sweater with

6:38

four big colorful rectangles up around

6:40

his chest? He's sitting at a

6:43

keyboard, and he gets them to

6:45

tell him something for him to

6:47

record. But their little starstruck, even

6:49

cool, asked Denise, who's a mortal

6:52

line to Stevie, is... I don't

6:54

know what to say. Denise,

6:57

it's your turn. I

6:59

don't know what to

7:01

say. And that, he

7:03

turns into music. What

7:08

I couldn't have known at the

7:10

time is that Stevie was basically

7:12

in what I'll call phase three

7:14

Stevie. Beloved, popular, a member of

7:17

black people's families, uncle Stevie basically.

7:19

You know how it is with

7:21

stars and kids. You don't know

7:23

the history. All you know is

7:25

what you see. And all I

7:27

saw in 1986 was a kind

7:29

of cultural totem. A stuffed animal,

7:31

nobody could leave the house without.

7:33

I mean, just imagine that you're

7:35

10 years old and the first

7:37

Beyonce song you ever heard was

7:40

Cuffin. Because somebody on TikTok issued

7:42

a dance challenge. Now imagine your

7:44

aunt telling you then after the

7:46

song is over, oh honey, you

7:48

don't know nothing about that. And

7:50

shows you the Kachella homecoming performance.

7:52

She shows you the formation video

7:54

and the one for single ladies

7:56

and you weren't there, you don't

7:58

know. So now your brain is

8:00

on fire. And then she's like,

8:02

hmm. there's more. And then she

8:05

plays to Destiny's Child, and you

8:07

maybe feel like your whole life

8:09

has been a lie. This show,

8:11

it's about that, before. About how

8:13

phase one Stevie evolved into phase

8:15

two. It's about what came before

8:17

Denise Huxedable crashed that car into

8:19

Stevie Wonder. These next six episodes

8:21

are about when Stevie Wonder crashed

8:23

into us. Here's

8:33

how we're going to do it.

8:35

Each episode in this series is

8:37

going to delve into one of

8:39

the albums in Stevie's extraordinary five-album

8:41

run. We're going to start now

8:43

with music of my mind, but

8:45

before we get to that, how

8:47

this classic period began, you kind

8:49

of have to understand how Stevie

8:51

began as a music product you

8:53

raised in the Motown machine. He's

8:55

born in 1950, Stephen Hardaway, Judkins, and

8:57

Saginaw, Michigan. In fact, he arrived

8:59

ahead of schedule, and his being

9:01

born early resulted in a condition

9:03

called retinopathy of prematurely, which left

9:05

him without sight. His mother, Lula May

9:07

Hardaway, insisted Stevie not be treated

9:09

any differently than his four-sided siblings.

9:11

And so he had a vibrant

9:13

childhood. He was blind, but he

9:15

and his family would never call

9:17

his blindness a handicap. Lula May said

9:20

as much in a TV interview

9:22

from 1989 alongside TV with the

9:24

UK's Terry Wogan, because when the

9:26

Brits love you, they want to

9:28

know everything. He was saying he used

9:30

to try and ride bicycles as

9:32

a kid. Did he do all

9:34

those things? Clim trees? I mean,

9:36

how did you get down again?

9:38

I just jumped down, I got

9:40

down. Did you know

9:43

from the start that

9:45

he had great musical

9:47

talent? Yes, I did.

9:49

I did. nerve. Not

9:51

because he was loud,

9:53

but because he was

9:55

blasphemous, apparently. He was

9:57

making the devil's music,

9:59

according to a neighborhood

10:01

deacon familiar with the

10:03

situation. This little boy

10:06

needed to let the

10:08

Lord in his life,

10:10

so off the church

10:12

he went and played

10:14

the devil's music there.

10:16

And there, at church,

10:18

as a young man

10:20

named Ronnie White Sauce

10:22

TV and was floored.

10:25

And Rani happened to sing with

10:28

this act called Simpleism Alert, The

10:30

Miracles, as in Smoky Robinson and

10:32

The Miracles. Rani was so impressed

10:34

that he arranged for Lula May

10:36

to bring Stevie into this new

10:39

record company called Motown and to

10:41

meet the young cat who founded

10:43

it, Barry Gordy. Stevie and Lula

10:45

may arrive at the Motown offices

10:47

on 2648 West Graham Boulevard. And

10:50

2648 was a house, just like

10:52

a modest turn-of-the-century home that in

10:54

the late 1950s and 1960s would

10:56

have been impressive for a black

10:58

family to own. But for the

11:01

label that's about to redefine American

11:03

popular music, you kind of can't

11:05

believe this is it. Even after

11:07

they hang a huge sign outside

11:09

that says Hitzville USA. That's also

11:12

Motown. Major American recording Juggernaut and

11:14

Con of your uncle's house. When

11:16

Stevie and Lulamate get there, they're

11:18

put in this rehearsal room in

11:20

the basement that's also known as

11:23

the Snake Pit. And Stevie just

11:25

starts playing some of the instruments.

11:27

And there's some other people in

11:29

the room, and as the story

11:31

goes at one point, one of

11:34

them, this Motown exact name, Mickey

11:36

Stevenson. He runs upstairs to Barry

11:38

Gordy Gorty's office and says, you

11:40

gotta come here this kid now!

11:44

Barry heads down, enters the pit, and notices

11:46

the crowd that's formed around Stevie, including the

11:48

Supremes, who are the current babies of the

11:50

label. And he sees Stevie behind the drums,

11:53

and... I could see he was blind, he

11:55

was just... and

12:00

it was great, you know, but I

12:02

was wondering what's the big deal because

12:04

I wasn't in the market for a

12:06

drummer. That's parody Gordy,

12:08

apparently unmoved by the sight of

12:10

a pint-sized blind boy just killing

12:12

it on the drums. He remembers

12:14

watching TV go from one instrument

12:16

to the next, and after a

12:18

minute, that nonchalance, it kind of

12:20

started to thaw. Then, he left

12:23

the drums, and he started playing

12:25

the bongos, and he did that,

12:27

and it was okay, it was

12:29

nice. And then he, of course,

12:31

sung, you know, I wasn't thrilled

12:33

with his voice, particularly. But

12:36

it was okay, it was good.

12:38

And then he went to the

12:40

harmonica. Now that impressed me. With

12:42

that, and pretty much on the

12:45

spot I should say, Motown signed

12:47

Stevie to a rolling four-year recording

12:49

contract and a three-year artist management

12:51

deal. They worked out an agreement

12:54

with the Michigan Department of Labor

12:56

so that Stevie would be allowed

12:58

to work. Stevie was a minor

13:00

obviously, so his mom Lula May

13:02

represented him. There was this two-part

13:05

TV special from the late 1980s

13:07

called Superstars and their moms. Carol

13:09

Burnett hosted it with her daughter,

13:11

Kerry Hamilton. I used to love

13:14

Kerry Hamilton. And everybody else is

13:16

in it too. Debbie Allen and

13:18

Felicia Rashad with their mom. Cher

13:20

and her mom and Whitney Houston

13:23

with her mother Sissy. And then

13:25

Stevie and Lulame. You know what,

13:27

I feel the shyest thing around

13:29

my mother, straight out. It's ridiculous.

13:31

What's wrong with it? Do you

13:34

feel bad collecting raw to yourself?

13:36

It's TV? It

13:38

is such a deeply 1980s artifact. At

13:40

some point, Stevie and Lou Lame are

13:42

at the piano together, and he's doing

13:44

this lyrical ballot that he dedicates to

13:46

her, you know, just how much he

13:48

loves her. And just as he's ending

13:50

it, he kind of can't help but

13:52

just turn the funk up. Then she

13:54

starts to tell this story as Stevie

13:56

getting his first big paycheck, and Stevie

13:58

still at the piano. underneath

14:01

her while she talks. He

14:03

was first began going on

14:06

to Motown. I know he

14:08

don't remember this. He was

14:10

there playing drums for the

14:13

temptation. It was kind of

14:15

cold, he had on his

14:17

little coach, you know, he

14:20

comes stepping in there. He

14:22

gives me a check for

14:24

$750. So here my name

14:27

is, $750. And you know

14:29

what? That's $750 meaning just

14:31

as much to me as

14:34

$700 million. And it always

14:36

will. You don't remember that,

14:38

do you? No, actually, Ma,

14:41

I remember that money, and

14:43

I want that check back.

14:45

Motown seized control of all

14:48

of Stevie's finances and put

14:50

his earnings into a trust

14:52

that he would not have

14:55

access to until he turned

14:57

21. Motown also gave Lula

14:59

Main Stevie a stipend that

15:02

she used to keep the

15:04

family going and Stevie's portion

15:06

started at $2.50 a week.

15:09

The innovation of Barry Gordy's Motown,

15:12

one of them anyway, is that

15:14

it's a black-run music company with

15:16

a stable of black artists in

15:19

an industry white men control. Still,

15:21

he took out an $800 loan

15:23

from his family to get it

15:26

up and running and his first

15:28

fax included Smoky's Miracles, of course,

15:30

Mabel John and Mary Wells and

15:33

the Marvelets, then come Martha and

15:35

the Vandelas and the Supremes and

15:38

the Four Tops and the Four

15:40

Tops and Marvin Gay. By the

15:42

time TV comes on to the

15:45

scene in 1961, the company is

15:47

already making enormous hits. By the

15:49

time TV comes on to the

15:52

scene in 1961, the company is

15:54

already making enormous hits. Like, The

15:56

Miracles shop around and please Mr.

15:59

Postman by the Marvelettes. everybody at

16:01

Motown is young. But Stevie Wonder

16:03

is a child at work all

16:06

day on day. So while the

16:08

Supremes are supremeing and Mary Wells

16:11

is a wellin' and the temptations

16:13

are tempting and the four tops

16:15

are atopin' all becoming international sensations,

16:18

Stevie's there too, so can all

16:20

this in, learning how to rate

16:22

and produce and perform. And when

16:25

he's not working and learning at

16:27

Motown, Stevie's enrolled at the Michigan

16:29

School for the Blind. He's got

16:32

a tutor that Motown provided named

16:34

Ted Hull, who was partially cited.

16:36

And Stevie's also busy being a

16:39

regular kid! Sometimes

16:42

he'd just swoop into a recording

16:44

session and interrupt because he couldn't

16:46

see the red light saying don't

16:49

go in recording in progress. He'd

16:51

ride bikes and pretend to be

16:53

reading books. Call up Barry Gordy's

16:55

assistant and convincingly pretend to be

16:58

Barry on the phone. Dion Warwick,

17:00

yes, the Dion Warwick, told me

17:02

about this prank that Stevie played

17:04

on her. It involved the Cheryls,

17:07

the Hall of Fame all-girl group

17:09

famous for dedicated to the one

17:11

I love and what you still

17:13

love me tomorrow among other gems.

17:16

For some reason the Cheryls did

17:18

not like this red-dressed Dion ad.

17:20

And so they get Stevie to

17:22

talk to her about it. He

17:25

said, you know that red dress

17:27

you wear. and kind

17:29

of befuddled on me first of

17:31

all how to know it was

17:34

read. I said, yes. He said,

17:36

don't wear that anymore, just look

17:38

good on you. I

17:40

said, what? How do you know it

17:42

doesn't look good? He says, I know,

17:45

I know. I thought he could see

17:47

it. I really did. I thought, well,

17:49

this kid can see it. Between prank,

17:52

Stevie was also getting tutoring at Motown

17:54

that Ted Hall didn't provide. The label

17:56

had a whole finishing school. Artist development

17:59

is what they called it. When an

18:01

act got Motown and had a hit

18:03

and seemed destined to tour as part

18:06

of the Motown review, or maybe even

18:08

as part of their own show. Going

18:10

to artist development was mandatory. That's where

18:13

you'd basically be made presentable in long

18:15

sessions of comportment and movement in properness.

18:17

It was like going to school. Yes,

18:20

it's Smoky. Smoky Robinson. It

18:22

was mandatory. It wasn't your option.

18:24

You had two days a week

18:27

when you were in Detroit that

18:29

you went to artist development, no

18:31

matter who you became or who

18:33

you were at the beginning. Okay?

18:36

Motown was going sand off those

18:38

rough edges. Allow me to introduce

18:40

you to Suzanne Depass, who worked

18:42

at Motown as Barry Gordy's creative

18:44

assistant. She helped launch the Jackson

18:47

Five. Also, she's the one that

18:49

Vanessa Williams played in the Jackson's

18:51

and American Dream, that miniseries it

18:53

plays, everything Thanksgiving. She also really

18:55

knew the Motown formula to success.

18:58

What was unique about artist development

19:00

in Motown was that there was

19:02

a great deal of time and

19:04

effort put into not only singing

19:06

and dancing, but sort of an

19:09

approach to how to do an

19:11

interview, how to present themselves. Basically,

19:13

even after a few coats of

19:15

artist development, you still got to

19:18

be yourself, but in a sleek,

19:20

tailored suit with a gleam. When

19:22

you winked or smiled or got

19:24

out of a car or off

19:26

a tour bus, you'd be all.

19:29

I suppose a question one could

19:31

ask is, why? Another might be

19:33

for whom? These are fair questions.

19:35

Of course, the implication of that

19:37

question is that Motown was grooming

19:40

these performers so white people wouldn't

19:42

mind looking at them. Also fair.

19:44

But there was a politics at

19:46

work in this grooming. Motown arrived

19:48

during the TV age and its

19:51

acts were basically performing in people's

19:53

homes. Most white people wouldn't have

19:55

seen black people dressed like this.

19:57

the street because they'd fought to

20:00

be and accepted being segregated from

20:02

them or on TV because the

20:04

very few black people there were

20:06

service people in service uniforms or

20:08

rags. So the application of etiquette

20:11

was as much a revolutionary act

20:13

of politics as a lunch counter

20:15

sit in as far as I'm

20:17

concerned. Maybe even more

20:19

subtly effective, since seeing four dapper black

20:22

men called the Temptations might actually tempt

20:24

a skeptical white person to think of

20:26

them as human. At the same time,

20:29

Motown's respectability approach would have certainly thrilled,

20:31

delighted, and moved black people. Black people

20:33

who yearned to see other black people

20:36

as glamorous as the white star as

20:38

Hollywood was inventing. I talked to the

20:40

Smoky Robinson about this dilemma. Back in

20:42

those days, man, if you were being

20:45

played on white radio, you were in

20:47

trouble. You know what I mean? Was

20:49

there ever a conversation among you artists

20:52

and with Barry and some of the

20:54

other people at the label in the

20:56

executive branch about this question of being

20:59

proper and being respectable and making yourselves

21:01

palatable to a whiter audience? Is that

21:03

ever a conversation? You say to a

21:06

whiter or whiter? to a white audience

21:08

basically. It was hard to get played

21:10

on white radio if you were black

21:13

back in those days. You know what

21:15

I mean? But we got to the

21:17

point where his white radio was calling

21:20

us, asking us, could they please have

21:22

the records? Okay? We bombarded them with

21:24

so many hits, back to back to

21:27

back, they had no choice. They were

21:29

calling us and saying, can we get

21:31

the new Supreme's record first? Can we

21:33

have that new Stevie? Can you give

21:36

them? That was white radio calling us.

21:38

You know what I mean? So, yeah,

21:40

you wanted to groom yourself because that's

21:43

where the money was, man. That's

21:45

what the money was. That's what still is.

21:47

So I'm saying, yeah. So that's nothing new.

21:49

Right about now, ladies and devil, like to

21:52

continue with out with Shell. I introduced you

21:54

a young man that was only 12 years

21:56

old, and he is considered as being a

21:58

genius of our time. Ladies didn't let you

22:00

and I'll make him feel happy with a

22:02

nice ovation as we meet in green. Little

22:04

Stevie Wonder, how about you? Anybody

22:08

who saw Little Stevie live would

22:10

have seen him on stage as

22:13

Blazer and Slacks, looking as sophisticated

22:15

as the label's grown-ups, playing in

22:17

a touring act called the Motown

22:19

Review. These shows had a kind

22:22

of big band arrangement, and everybody

22:24

basically wore versions of the same

22:26

formal get-up. I want to talk

22:28

about this one night 1962 at

22:31

the Regal Theater in Chicago, because

22:33

it's magical. The MC brings Stevie

22:35

on and he's let out to

22:37

a chair, oh, a little aggressively

22:40

from my taste. And he puts

22:42

a set of bongos in his

22:44

hands to play a song called

22:46

Fingertips. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going

22:49

to do a song taking for

22:51

my album, The Jazz Soul of

22:53

Little Stevie. The name of the

22:55

song is called Fingertips. He's

23:00

ready to turn them on and

23:02

turn this song out. He starts

23:04

by telling them to clap their

23:07

hands and stomp their feet. Jump

23:09

up and down, do anything that

23:11

you want to do. I

23:18

should say first that Clarence Paul

23:20

and Henry Cosby, two of Motown's

23:22

great songwriters, wrote fingertips for Stevie's

23:25

debut album, which was called the

23:27

Jazz Soul of Little Stevie. And

23:29

I just want to also say

23:31

that his Jazz Soul was all

23:33

of 12. It was an instrumental

23:35

album that's pretty party jazz and

23:37

it's supposed to show off his

23:39

percussion and keyboard and harmonica skills.

23:41

You could be forgiven for hearing

23:43

it and assuming you've been placed

23:45

on a brief hold. But live

23:47

at the regal, Stevie meets the

23:50

audience and this chemical reaction starts.

23:52

The crowd is ready to lose

23:54

it. Eventually he stands up and

23:56

switches to the harmonica and does

23:58

some dazzling, pretty sophisticated or playing.

24:04

Again, he's

24:06

12. Anybody

24:10

looking at this moment

24:12

today with any knowledge

24:14

of who Stevie would

24:16

become would say, ha

24:18

ha, this seems kind

24:20

of important. This is

24:22

the beginning of Stevie

24:24

finding an extension of

24:26

his physical voice with

24:28

the harmonica, a pocket-sized

24:31

organ that the mouth

24:33

plays, and that Stevie

24:35

uses to express the

24:37

blowest of blues, and

24:39

the highest of highs.

24:41

The harmonica was a

24:43

way to manifest the

24:45

music of his mind

24:47

with his literal fingertips.

24:49

Anyway, at about the

24:51

performance is halfway point.

24:53

Stevie pivots into what

24:55

becomes the song's much

24:57

more famous second part.

24:59

Everybody say yeah! And

25:01

they do! He

25:10

had actually wanted his stage name

25:12

to be his birth name. Stephen

25:14

Judkins. But the folks at Motown

25:16

were so odd by Stevie's talent

25:19

that the only stage name that

25:21

made sense was Stevie Wonder. So

25:23

that's what everybody called him. Little

25:25

Stevie Wonder. It took years from

25:27

Motown to figure out what to

25:29

do with all of Stevie's wonder.

25:31

Initially, Barry tried stuffing him into

25:33

a Ray Charles mold. The result

25:36

was an unimaginative ripoff called tribute

25:38

to Uncle Ray, other than being

25:40

blind and astonishingly talented. Stevie's nothing

25:42

like Ray Charles. The live version

25:44

of the song, Fingertips Part Two,

25:46

did top the album chart in

25:48

1963, but nothing Motown tried for

25:50

Stevie after, made much of an

25:53

impression. And it wasn't like he

25:55

wasn't to break through. But as

25:57

hard as he appeared to work,

25:59

bringing some soul and wit to

26:01

songs that didn't really know what

26:03

to do with either, he seemed

26:05

poised to become a novelty act.

26:07

By the time he was 15,

26:09

everybody knew he could sing and

26:12

play. But Motown only let him

26:14

do that on songs other people

26:16

had written, and not even songs

26:18

by its pop masters. It wasn't

26:20

until he hooked up with the

26:22

songwriter Sylvia Moy, another Motown powerhouse,

26:24

that anybody knew what would happen

26:26

if he got to sing and

26:29

play music he played a part

26:31

in writing. Songs that originated with

26:33

him. At the end of 1965,

26:35

the label got its answer when

26:37

it released the song Moy wrote

26:39

with Stevie. Up

26:45

tight! Everything's all

26:47

right! Great song!

26:49

And it sounds

26:51

like the 1960s

26:53

and like Motown

26:55

and at last

26:57

like Stevie. His

27:01

voice had actually begun to change to

27:03

both deepen and grow more elastic. And

27:06

the song went to number three on

27:08

the Hot 100. For years, Barry Gordy

27:10

had had the wonder. But it wasn't

27:13

until he was helping write his own

27:15

stuff that the wonder really went wow.

27:17

He finally seemed to make complete artistic

27:20

sense at Motown, a company that in

27:22

1965 was still changing the way black

27:24

people were seen and the way they

27:27

saw themselves. Ever

27:31

since the first Africans were shipped

27:33

here enslaved in the 17th century,

27:35

one question for white Americans, whether

27:37

they owned black people or believed

27:39

in their freedom, was what would

27:42

freedom mean? What would it look

27:44

like? How would it sound? One

27:46

answer, I would argue, was Motown.

27:48

Barry Gordy started the label hoping

27:50

in part to nationalize black music.

27:52

Black culture had been elemental in

27:54

the development of American pop music,

27:56

either through black-faced men. white

27:59

performers invented, or forms

28:01

of expression like

28:03

like like like like

28:05

jazz in the

28:07

in the blues. The

28:18

genius of least at least according

28:20

to me, is that took the took

28:22

the music you would have been

28:24

hearing on Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon

28:26

because you know how how church is, sometimes

28:28

it starts at night It took three. church

28:30

music, the belted harmonies, all those

28:32

big feelings, the call and response, and combined

28:35

it with the music you would

28:37

have been hearing the night before.

28:39

Music you would have been going

28:41

to church to to God that you

28:43

could get out of your system.

28:45

Take Martha and the vendellas in their jam heatwave.

28:51

You can hear an

28:53

actual slapping a a tambourine on

28:55

that song. That's exactly

28:58

what you'd be hearing if

29:00

you were in church

29:02

on Sunday. can hear And you

29:04

can hear in the

29:06

way the back to are calling

29:08

back to Martha else that

29:10

else that happens in church

29:12

which is basically the

29:14

congregation calling out to the

29:16

preacher when the preacher is

29:18

doing a sermon. a sermon.

29:20

The music that came out

29:22

of this shotgun wedding

29:24

between the sacred and the

29:26

secular, between the music and

29:28

and sounds, strings, gospel woodwinds,

29:30

that didn't sound like anything

29:33

else in the radio.

29:35

The clean beauty of didn't

29:37

the boisterous noise of a

29:39

packed club. radio. take Anthapokillia

29:41

by Marvin plus the boisterous noise of

29:43

a packed club. Let's just take Aunt Thapacular by

29:45

Marvin Gay. Those hand claps,

29:47

the tightness of the tightness of the

29:49

rhythm section. Plus, Marvin's angelic delivery of delivery

29:51

of Romantic the Wildermint,

29:53

he don't know what hit

29:55

him. he don't

29:57

know what hit him.

30:04

These are

30:08

gospel ideas

30:11

that sound

30:15

like dance

30:18

music. Secular

30:22

yearning. Fun!

30:31

By 1965, when this song sold

30:33

more than a million copies and

30:36

hit number eight on the pop

30:38

chart, the Motown sound was basically

30:40

at the center of American culture.

30:43

and therefore also in America's living

30:45

rooms. There's a kind of music,

30:47

for instance, the black music which

30:50

originates from the church, the gospel

30:52

church. This is Davy talking on

30:54

a rage music program, an Australian

30:57

music show. Just like the English

30:59

music, for instance, at the Beatles,

31:01

a lot of writing, Eleanor Rigby

31:04

for instance, or yesterday, I think

31:06

maybe a little while back. could

31:08

have been some of the music

31:11

that originated from the church in

31:13

a different way. So we've all

31:15

been influenced in a sense by

31:18

the church music. And this is

31:20

really important for two reasons. The

31:22

church's influence in Motown can't be

31:25

understated, and therefore its influence in

31:27

Stevie's music can't be understated, because

31:29

Americans would have been groving to,

31:32

groving with the best dressed, best

31:34

choreographed people and pop. Negroes, as

31:36

opposed to end words. I'll just

31:39

say it again. No white person

31:41

would ever have seen such resplendent

31:43

black people before. Nor would any

31:46

black person really. Not on TV.

31:48

Motown was fueled by vision and

31:50

talent and risk. Lots of people

31:53

had become rich famous and adored.

31:55

But over time, that system began

31:57

to demoralize some of the art.

32:01

And before he was

32:03

even 20 years old,

32:05

Stevie was one of

32:08

those people. So at

32:10

an age when a

32:12

lot of young adults

32:14

are heading out their

32:17

lives, Stevie is turning

32:19

out hit after hit,

32:21

like for once in

32:24

my life when he's

32:26

18 years old. And

32:30

Science Hill delivered when

32:33

he's 20? Yeah, Science

32:35

Hill delivered. I'm yours!

32:38

And that time I

32:40

went and said goodbye.

32:48

But even with all this success,

32:50

he had begun to sense that

32:52

his growth wasn't necessarily in alignment

32:55

with Motowns. And one of his

32:57

guides to that realization was a

32:59

Motown Secretary named Sarita Wright. How

33:01

did you meet your husband, Stevie

33:03

Wonder? Stevie Wonder, heard a record

33:06

that I had done with Nick

33:08

Ashford and Valerie Simpson. And what

33:10

that record was called, I can't

33:12

give back the love I feel

33:14

for you. He heard my voice

33:16

and said, you know, I think

33:19

I need to meet her. This

33:21

is her in 1990 on Geraldo

33:23

Rivera's sane talk show. And she's

33:25

talking about their meeting toward the

33:27

end of the 1960s. Stevie's in

33:30

his late teens and Sarita's doing

33:32

her secretary work, but she's also

33:34

singing backup on records by acts

33:36

like Martha and the Vandelos. A

33:38

lot of the women's TV would

33:41

work with, Sarita, Minnie Ripperton, Denise

33:43

Williams. They have these sweet, almost

33:45

angelic sopranos, a perfect complement to

33:47

Stevie's singing. You can hear the

33:49

way Sarita's voice flutters on a

33:52

song like her version of Smoky

33:54

Robinson's What Love is Join Together

33:56

from 1972. long after they meet,

33:58

Stevie encourages Sarita to write her

34:00

own songs, including with him. And

34:02

so he sat at the meeting

34:05

and I went in and with

34:07

him. He wrote a song and

34:09

went in and tried to sing

34:11

it. And I don't know, I've

34:13

never been starstruck, but I could

34:16

not seem to get this song

34:18

called When You Love. And I

34:20

tried. I was so embarrassed. I'm

34:22

supposed to be a quick study

34:24

for songs. I couldn't get it.

34:27

And I felt terrible. That's what

34:29

happened. This is Sarita's way of

34:31

saying, yada yada yada, we fell

34:33

in love. I wrote songs with

34:35

him, he wrote and produced for

34:37

me, and we wrote some songs

34:40

together, some gems. They marry in

34:42

1917, divorce about two years later,

34:44

and eventually meet and marry other

34:46

people. Start separate families, yet creatively,

34:48

remain very close. Something deep and

34:51

intangible is going on in that

34:53

yada yada. So Rita Wright is

34:55

a crucial factor in the transition

34:57

from Little Stevie to Stevie. She

34:59

was his personal artist development program.

35:05

So that brings us to 1971. The

35:08

year Stevie turns 21. A time, lots

35:10

of people graduate from college and start

35:12

to figure out the rest of their

35:14

lives. 1971? Also the year his contract,

35:17

the one we mentioned at the beginning

35:19

of the episode, is set to expire.

35:21

And it's going to be a thing.

35:24

Barry Gordy wants Stevie to re-up that

35:26

contract, so he tries to sweeten the

35:28

deal a little bit by planning Stevie

35:31

a big 21st birthday party. We

35:36

were in Detroit on his 21st

35:39

birthday and we had a little

35:41

party for Stevie and we sat

35:43

at the table and we were

35:45

having so much fun. So that

35:47

contract Stevie's mom signed a decade

35:49

ago and he was 11 and

35:51

then renewed at 16. A 2%

35:53

royalty on his record sales in

35:55

Motown handles his finances and his

35:57

earnings go into a trust that

35:59

he can access when he we're

36:01

talking about an talking

36:03

about an estimated Guess

36:05

.5 coming? And guess who's Guess

36:08

who's got a birthday coming, guess

36:10

who's the money discover that the giving him

36:12

him is nowhere near what he

36:14

believes he's owed. owed? Imagine Stevie and

36:16

hearing about the enormous... the enormous

36:18

has been charging Barry's been his

36:20

his Ted account? For his tutor Stevie

36:22

graduated from high school.

36:24

For Stevie's graduated whatever that

36:26

means. Do you subtract all

36:29

of that? Not only did you subtract all

36:31

.5 only did got about

36:33

get .4 million he than

36:35

that. million less than that. Anyway, back to back

36:37

to the birthday party throwing in for

36:39

Stevie. Yay. When I got here, there was I

36:42

got here, there was a wire

36:44

from Stevie's attorney, disaffirming every

36:46

contract that he had with had with

36:48

Motel. I couldn't I My believe it. move

36:50

My a move when a caught

36:52

is called with his in in

36:54

the cookie jar when when he's like, I

36:57

don't really understand what's happening here.

36:59

what's happening cookies. just cookies. Sorry,

37:01

Barry. It's baby. baby. I'm

37:03

sitting with this man. and I And

37:05

I thought, Stevie's Stevie's leaving the company. He

37:08

He disaffirmed everything, he's 21, 21. Now he's gonna

37:10

go out and get and from all the

37:12

other companies the he's got to and he's

37:14

gonna leave the company. mean, leave the company. I mean, that's

37:16

would he do this do telling me anything?

37:18

me anything? All those years, Barry Barry

37:20

had complete financial and creative

37:22

control over his artists. Now, one one

37:24

of them was pushing back back hard and

37:26

he's got nothing to lose. to lose.

37:29

Here's Barry a place he's

37:31

rarely ever been before. Life

37:33

or death compromise. He's got

37:35

to give something up. up or gonna

37:37

lose Stevie. to lose You might

37:40

might hearing me say this this and

37:42

wonder. What were the financial consequences? What

37:44

about his mother, about who originally

37:46

signed this deal? signed Stevie really

37:48

ever consider Motown in any

37:50

serious way? in any serious way?

37:53

importantly, after being being this misled

37:55

by Barry, would he stay?

37:57

You know, these are You know, these are

37:59

all the existential questions. that are probably unknowable

38:01

to anybody who isn't named Stevie Wonder?

38:03

And who knows, maybe one day I'll

38:05

get to ask him. But what I

38:07

will say is it in Gerald Posner's

38:10

book on Motown? A man named Thomas

38:12

Bean's Bowles who managed the kid's accounts

38:14

is quoted as saying. The problem was

38:16

that Barry kept those accounts going for

38:19

too long. He didn't know when to

38:21

stop treating people like kids. So, put

38:23

a pin in that. In

38:28

the meantime though, Stevie's new

38:30

contract ran to more than

38:32

120 pages. 120 pages of

38:34

Stevie mapping out his independence

38:37

from a man who had

38:39

been his boss and a

38:41

father figure to him for

38:43

so many years. And it

38:45

just turned out that Stevie

38:47

was 21 and he wanted

38:49

a little respect and he

38:51

ended up making me pay

38:53

him $13 million. to sign

38:55

up another whole new contract

38:57

with him, which was unprecedented

38:59

at the time, but probably

39:01

one of the best deals

39:03

I ever made. You can

39:05

say that now, Barry Gordy,

39:08

behind sight being what it

39:10

is. And

39:13

besides the 13 million, Stevie wanted his own

39:15

publishing company that would own the publishing rights

39:17

instead of Motown. 20% royalties, total artistic control

39:19

of all his songs. He wanted to choose

39:22

who played on these records. He wanted to

39:24

choose what songs appeared on the album and

39:26

what the first single would be. Basically, he

39:28

wanted absolute autonomy from Motown's classic way of

39:30

doing things. Stevie was at least as big

39:32

as the music factory that discovered him. Signed,

39:35

sealed, delivered, free. A lot of people talk

39:37

about the whole thing of me, reaching 21,

39:39

and everything happened, and everything broke, and everything

39:41

this, and I began to rebel. Here's Stevie

39:43

talking about that on A&E series, biography. It

39:45

didn't start at 21. it what does

39:48

21-year-old's TV want it starts with

39:50

I get bored with

39:52

what I'm doing. a lot

39:54

of done a lot

39:56

of writing, I a lot

39:58

of songs, and I

40:01

just felt that as

40:03

much as I knew

40:05

that Motown felt they

40:07

were doing whatever they

40:09

thought was the best

40:11

for my career, what

40:14

I had a feeling

40:16

as to how and

40:18

what I wanted to

40:20

do. And what does TV

40:22

-old Stevie Wonder do

40:24

with that newly acquired

40:27

freedom? He does this. Please!

40:29

Mama, Mama, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby,

40:31

baby, mom, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby,

40:33

baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby,

40:36

baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby,

40:38

baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby,

40:40

baby, baby, Love having you around.

40:43

you around. started this we

40:45

started this episode

40:47

with. The first song

40:49

on mind, Mind, the

40:52

first album in

40:54

this streak that this

40:56

whole whole about. about.

40:58

Stevie would never be

41:01

the same after

41:03

this album. He would

41:05

never sound the

41:08

same. the same. The

41:17

album isn't just the sound of

41:19

an emotional of an or some sort of

41:22

philosophical breakthrough. sort of is the sound

41:24

of a technological breakthrough. breakthrough. Stevia discovered a

41:26

sound, a a technology that produced that

41:28

sound he could hear in his head

41:30

but that no Motown band, no no

41:32

house it is, no matter how good it

41:34

is, no regular instrument was going

41:36

to produce. he It's the sound he

41:39

went looking for and when he found

41:41

it, it was as revolutionary for

41:43

him as when he picked up a

41:45

a for the first time or when

41:47

he got that new contract from

41:49

Motown. from that would take his sound

41:51

into the future. That

41:57

is a a song

41:59

called Cyber Knot. an

42:01

album called Zero Time. Cybernaut sounds

42:04

like a Stevie Wonder record with

42:06

a flat butt. It was written

42:09

by a couple of self-described, experimental,

42:11

hippie, music, geek, and Bob Margoloff

42:13

and Malcolm Cecil. When Stevie heard

42:16

their album Zero Time, it blew

42:18

his mind. Bob and Malcolm were

42:20

part of an act called Tanto's

42:23

expanding headband. The Tonto referred not

42:25

to the Lone Ranger's Native American

42:28

sidekick, thank God, but to a

42:30

synthesizer. A souped-up, complicated behemoth of

42:32

a synthesizer that was able to

42:35

create really weird, very specific sounds.

42:37

So he hears this otherworldly sound

42:40

and he goes to New York

42:42

City to Bob and Malcolm Studio.

42:44

He's never met them. They don't

42:47

know he's coming and then... Well,

42:49

I'll just let Bob tell it.

42:51

Memorial Day weekend in 1971, the

42:54

studio was closed. Malcolm was a

42:56

chief engineer of Media Sound, so

42:59

they gave him an apartment over

43:01

a delicatessen, which was approximately very

43:03

next door to the studio, one

43:06

flight up, so he could look

43:08

out the front window and see

43:10

the studio entrance below. and it

43:13

was very quiet because it was

43:15

a holiday. It was very little

43:18

traffic and it was kind of

43:20

warm. It was late in the

43:22

afternoon. And I hear, Malcolm, Malcolm.

43:25

And Malcolm, I stick our heads

43:27

out the window and look down

43:29

at the entrance to Media Sound

43:32

and there is Ronnie Blanco, a

43:34

fellow base player standing there with

43:37

a tall black guy in a

43:39

chart whose drum suit with our

43:41

album under his arm. And that

43:44

was Stevie. They invite

43:46

him in and there's a room

43:48

full of instruments and speakers and

43:50

before long Bob and Malcolm and

43:52

Stevie start noodling around playing music

43:54

together and over in the corner

43:57

of the room is this big-ass

43:59

synthesizer except it doesn't even look

44:01

like diet piano thing you're probably

44:03

used to seeing, especially when TV

44:05

performs live, this thing is a

44:07

console, a keyboards, and knobs, and

44:09

jacks, and wires, whose purpose is

44:11

to synthesize sound, not simulate analog

44:14

instruments. In this case, the synthesizer

44:16

in the corner of that room

44:18

is a six-foot tall circular machine.

44:20

a wall, an edifice that could

44:22

extend to 25 feet in diameter

44:24

and weigh to one ton and

44:26

probably get you to Oz. Obviously,

44:28

that thing is calling Stevie's name.

44:31

Stevie put his hands all over

44:33

it. There was plenty of wires

44:35

sticking out of the front of

44:37

it. I put up a sound

44:39

on the synthesizer. We had it

44:41

plugged into the studio into the

44:43

speakers. And he says, Bob, Bob,

44:45

there's got to be something wrong

44:48

with it. And I said, why?

44:50

He says, well, I play in

44:52

all these notes and just, I

44:54

skips from one note to the

44:56

next. I don't know what's going

44:58

on. And we had to explain

45:00

to him that the synthesizer in

45:02

a way was sort of like

45:05

a sax. He only played one

45:07

note at a time. And so

45:09

begins an artistic relationship with Tanto,

45:11

with Bob and Malcolm, with Stevie,

45:13

that would last for the next

45:15

four years. As a force him,

45:17

they helped Stevie get it sounds

45:20

he'd never been able to communicate

45:22

before. After that first meeting, they

45:24

made one song, and then another,

45:26

until a few songs became 17,

45:28

and 17 became the makings of

45:30

a library. Stevie finally found the

45:32

tools and collaborators that could take

45:34

his power, which was awesome, and

45:37

make it a superpower. Stevie said,

45:39

oh, you know, this is... I

45:41

got a lot of stuff on

45:43

my mind and we said, yeah,

45:45

it's a good album title, Steve,

45:47

so that's how music of my

45:49

mind came out. Music of my

45:51

mind is an album full of

45:54

swinging moods. One

46:00

thing about Stevie is that he

46:02

knows his way around a love

46:04

song. And Love and Loss are

46:07

all over this record. He and

46:09

Sarita were mid-divorce when he recorded

46:11

these songs. And the album culminates

46:13

with the realization that you can

46:15

love, love, love the person who

46:18

used to be your better half.

46:20

And all the things she wants

46:22

to be, she needs to leave

46:24

behind. The

46:31

second song on this album, it's a

46:33

seamless marriage of two songs put together

46:35

to make one shocker called Superwoman, where

46:37

were you when I needed you? This

46:39

marriage of two songs is extra poignant

46:42

when you think about each side being

46:44

about separation. Even a, I don't know,

46:46

a middle schooler can hear the disappointment

46:48

in that. I remember I was like,

46:50

hmm. This is baby face and totally

46:53

in love with this girl and she

46:55

was leaving that summer. This is Baby

46:57

Face. And look, we talked to a

46:59

bunch of people just to hear what

47:01

Stevie's music means to them. This guy

47:03

has 12 Grammys. He's one of PopMusic's

47:06

great production minds. He's a peerless writer

47:08

of earworms. But even with all that

47:10

acclaim, all that success, all those Grammys,

47:12

all that talent. Back in 1972, Baby

47:14

Face was just a kid named Kenny

47:16

Edmonds with a broken heart because the

47:19

girl he liked didn't like him back

47:21

and Stevie Wonder was the place he

47:23

drowned that sorrow. It was like the

47:25

end of the year came and she

47:27

was going away and I remember going

47:30

home and skipping past Superwoman and playing

47:32

where were you and I needed you

47:34

because the way that he used those

47:36

scents that almost sound like strings and

47:38

it felt like it was talking directly

47:40

to me and directly to my emotions

47:43

and the state that I was in.

47:45

And I just kept playing that song

47:47

again and again and every time I

47:49

hear that song to this day it

47:51

takes me right back to like summer

47:53

of 1973 and and that lonely feeling

47:56

that I had of this girl that

47:58

was going for the summer and I

48:00

also knew that she was going away

48:02

to see this guy that she liked

48:04

that wasn't me. As necessary

48:07

as this album is for setting Stevie

48:09

up to innovate on the albums that

48:11

follow, and for as much as some

48:13

of us, like me, love this album,

48:15

it didn't make much of a splash

48:17

in 1972. Not in the charts, not

48:20

on the radio. The album's biggest single,

48:22

Superwoman, where were you when I needed

48:24

you? It didn't even crack the R&B

48:26

top 10. Is that because the music

48:28

wasn't as immediately accessible as some of

48:31

Stevie's earlier hits? Was it because art

48:33

that's revolutionary always takes a while to

48:35

catch on? Is it because music critics

48:37

at the time were pretty much all

48:39

white guys and they couldn't fully appreciate

48:42

what Stevie was up to thematically? I'll

48:44

keep my answer brief. Yes. All I

48:46

can say is, with music in my

48:48

mind, they sensed something good stylistically was

48:50

changing with Stevie. They even liked the

48:52

album, more or less. What they were

48:55

sensing had to do with the nature

48:57

of the sound of this music. In

48:59

Rolling Stone, Vintiletti called it indulgent and

49:01

egotistical, but he also noticed something important.

49:03

Wanders is one of the very few

49:06

down-to-earth uses of the synthesizer, he wrote.

49:08

No attempts at space music here. No

49:10

swollen, overripe breaks, engulfing two-thirds of the

49:12

album. Only funky, exuberant music of the

49:14

sort we've come to expect from Stevie

49:16

Wonder. That sound Vinceletti was picking up

49:19

on was Tanto. And the way that

49:21

Stevie and Malcolm and Bob used Tanto

49:23

wasn't normal. It wasn't routine. It's not

49:25

how producers tended to use synthesizers and

49:27

music. It's like normally for a song

49:30

to be emotional. It was violins, it

49:32

was strings, it was cellos. This is

49:34

the producer and songwriter Jimmy Jam, who

49:36

along with Terry Lewis has made some

49:38

of the greatest pop songs of anybody

49:40

ever. That includes the masterpieces he made

49:43

with Janet Jackson. It was French horns,

49:45

it was oboes, it was all the

49:47

traditional, if you think about the Motown

49:49

system, all of those things existed.

49:51

what made those songs

49:54

so beautiful was

49:56

those string arrangements and

49:58

that. Stevie took

50:00

all of that away

50:02

all now he's doing

50:04

what a horn

50:07

would do on a

50:09

synthesizer. And that

50:11

was so revolutionary. Up to that

50:13

point, synthesizers were kind of

50:15

a lot of and almost sound effect

50:17

things. The The fact that he

50:20

was using the synthesizer as as

50:22

the main instrument for chords

50:24

and beautiful textures and actually finding

50:26

the emotion in the synthesizer

50:28

where it wasn't this cold electronic

50:30

thing, all of a sudden

50:33

there was a nuance to it

50:35

nuance a and a warmness to it and you

50:37

to it. made know, they really

50:39

made you feel emotional about an

50:41

electronic sound. sound. The

50:57

of music of my mind is

50:59

also the revelation of this album.

51:02

It's that Stevie had found warmth

51:04

in all of that machinery. He

51:06

found a deep human frequency

51:08

in it. The ground he broke

51:10

is that electronic music was

51:12

no longer just for robots longer just

51:14

for geeks and freaks and

51:16

outer space. and It could make outer

51:18

sense could here sense right here on He

51:20

could use it for joy

51:22

and pain he knew he knew instantly,

51:25

instinctively the to adjust the temperature

51:27

on those emotions with this

51:29

device to get tanto from robotic

51:31

to romantic. Like he does

51:33

on the next song, track song, track

51:35

three. love every little thing about

51:37

you. you. He immediately chases the

51:39

uncharacteristic bitterness and where were you

51:41

when I needed you? what With what

51:43

me to me an atonement. One that

51:45

starts with this this opening and

51:47

then it swells to this to

51:49

this out melody. melody. I love,

51:51

I love, I love, I love

51:53

every little thing about you,

51:55

baby. Yeah,

51:57

yeah, yeah, atonement. yeah, yeah, One yeah, starts yeah. with I

52:00

love little thing about you

52:02

has one of my as one of

52:04

my favorite Stevie Wonder It's pretty simple,

52:06

just that title repeating over

52:08

and over, but it's got

52:10

a But it's got a and certainty.

52:13

He loves, he loves, he

52:15

loves he way congregants love

52:17

Jesus. He loves this woman.

52:19

Yeah, yeah,

52:21

yeah. A little

52:23

baby. Come on baby. Oh

52:25

baby. baby. Yeah, And

52:28

then it thing very on

52:30

baby. And then it

52:32

ends very softly with

52:35

Serita whispering about candy

52:37

and sugar, and Stevie

52:39

growling about a big old piece

52:41

of cake. Sugar. Cookie.

52:46

Butter. There's

52:56

ecstasy on on of

52:58

my mind. my There's such

53:01

sympathy and rich poetry.

53:03

There's also this also this.

53:05

playfulness? Take the the second

53:07

to last song on

53:10

the album, the album, Keep On

53:12

which starts with the

53:14

opening rattle the opening where

53:16

the of church, the house

53:18

band up, that throbbing up,

53:21

that throbbing a tease of

53:23

what sounds like a

53:25

what guitar, like a some some

53:27

tambourine, and Stevie tells

53:29

somebody Stevie about to

53:32

jump out of the

53:34

bushes and grab about to

53:36

And this of the bushes session

53:38

takes off, man rising

53:40

and building, then tumbling

53:43

apart and then tumbling up all

53:45

over again. again. The idea of

53:47

the song always makes me laugh. The idea

53:49

of the song always makes me laugh. It's

53:52

church music in a idea of

53:54

this song always makes

53:56

me laugh. one hand. in

53:58

a mini -skirt with

54:00

a drink in one

54:03

hand. That's a classic

54:05

Motown idea, but with

54:07

Stevie rejecting Motown's efficiency

54:09

and and rigor. the rest of music of

54:11

my mind, is about playing with form, about

54:14

being rigorous in some new way that chiefly

54:16

involves a determination to define independence as almost

54:18

literally doing everything yourself, including taking everything you've

54:20

learned from your colleagues and mentors. To invent

54:22

some new thing that doesn't want to get

54:25

boxed in or be concise or musically simple,

54:27

it wants to sound exploratory because the man

54:29

making it is on an adventure to discover

54:31

himself. I

54:39

love every little thing about this

54:41

album. I loved it before I

54:43

knew anything about how it got

54:45

made and how important it was

54:48

to Stevie's becoming his own artist.

54:50

I love the assurance in craftsmanship

54:52

of this album. I love the

54:54

daring of Stevie Wonder to abandon

54:56

the comfort of Motown's innovations and

54:58

renovate himself. I love that Stevie

55:00

didn't care about these questions of

55:03

artistic purity when it comes to

55:05

so-called genre music. Black music, jazz,

55:07

R&B, soul, gospel, blues, reggae. As

55:09

if these forms didn't come from

55:11

the same source? As if electronic

55:13

music didn't come from the same

55:16

source. Here's the thing about the

55:18

synthesizer. It was never a dead

55:20

end for him. For Stevie, it

55:22

was the key to unlock his

55:24

musical mind. And an escape hatch

55:26

out of everybody else's. It was

55:28

a way to do what Motown

55:31

did, combine the church, the party,

55:33

and the symphony. Only he didn't

55:35

need a whole orchestra. He was

55:37

a one-man funk brother. What becomes

55:39

obviously irreversibly true about Stevie and

55:41

his ingenuity, starting with music of

55:44

my mind, and would it become

55:46

even clearer and more electrifying just

55:48

months later with his next album,

55:50

is that even though he had

55:52

this enormous piece of technology he's

55:54

going to use to bring all

55:56

these new ideas and feelings together,

55:59

the technology itself. See, as important

56:01

as Tanto was for making Stevie's

56:03

dreams come true, it was just

56:05

an instrument. The reason these albums

56:07

mattered at the time, the reason

56:09

they still move us as much

56:12

as they do, it's pretty simple.

56:14

The real synthesizer, it was Stevie.

56:16

This album declares his independence. The

56:18

next album in the streak, Talking

56:20

Book, makes him bigger than he'd

56:22

ever been. He basically provides the

56:24

goods and has the makings of

56:27

what could be a global superstar.

56:29

And this is one of the

56:31

ways that Stevie Wonder will start

56:33

not only living up to the

56:35

promise of creative genius, but also

56:37

in terms of a creative genius

56:40

that can be commercially viable. This

56:42

will help in that direction because

56:44

he's going to face an entirely

56:46

different audience that otherwise just knew

56:48

of as that guy that sing

56:50

that sing that one song or

56:52

the other song or whatnot. That's

57:01

next time on The Wonder

57:03

of Stevie. This has been

57:05

a higher ground than Audible

57:08

Original. The Wonder of Stevie

57:10

is produced by Pineapple Street

57:13

Studios. Higher ground audio and

57:15

Audible, our senior producer is

57:18

Josh Quinn. Producer is Janelle

57:20

Anderson. Associate producer is Mary

57:23

Alexa Kavanaugh. Senior Managing producer

57:25

is Asha Salusia, executive editor

57:28

is Joe Lovell, archival producer

57:30

is Justine Dom, fact checker

57:33

is Jane Drinkard, head of

57:35

sound and engineering is Raj

57:37

Makija. Senior audio engineers are

57:40

Davy Sumner, Pedro Alvira, and

57:42

Marina Pais. Assistant audio engineers

57:45

are Jay Brooks and Sharon

57:47

Bardales. Mixed and mastered by

57:50

Davy Sumner and Raj Makija.

57:52

Additional engineering by Jason Richards.

57:55

Score and sound design by

57:57

Josh Gwen and Raj Maki.

58:00

score performed by by Music and

58:02

Raj Makija. Additional music music

58:05

provided by Epidemic Sound.

58:07

and executive produced by Wesley

58:09

Morris. Ground executive producers of

58:12

Obama, Michelle Obama, Green Gilliard

58:14

Fisher, Dan Dan and Mukda Mohan.

58:16

Creative executive for for higher

58:19

ground Janay Marable. Executive

58:21

producers for Pineapple Street Studios

58:23

are and Max and Max Linsky.

58:25

Audible producers are Kate of

58:27

and Nick D 'Angelo. The

58:30

Wonder Stevie is also executive

58:32

produced by Amir by Amir Questlove Thompson,

58:35

Stevie Wonder. Wonder. is the producer

58:37

of this show of of courtesy

58:39

of I can also be heard

58:41

on Questlove Love I Heart I

58:43

Heart Special thanks

58:45

to John to

58:47

John Asante, Brittany Payne, Benjamin,

58:49

Sam Dulnick, Haley

58:52

Kevin Garlets, Jackson, Rob

58:54

Light, Alexis Moore, Joe Paulsen,

58:56

Nina Shaw, Chris Samson, Eric Spiegelman,

58:58

and Zara Zara Recorded at

59:01

Different Fur, Patches, The Hobby Shop,

59:03

and Pineapple Pineapple Street

59:05

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59:07

Creative Development at

59:10

at Audible is Kate Chief

59:12

Content Officer is

59:14

Rachel Giazza. Copyright by by

59:16

Audio Ground Sound

59:18

Recording Copyright 2024 by

59:20

Higher Ground Audio LLC. by

59:22

Higher Ground Audio LLC. All right, that was

59:24

a preview of the Wonder of right,

59:27

that was a preview

59:29

of The Wonder of

59:31

Stevie. it Again, Recording you

59:33

can find it wherever

59:35

you listen to podcasts.