40 Year Itch : Stevie's Ladies

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   Just months after winning five Grammys, Stevie Wonder was lending his hit-making magic to the ladies in his life. Under the pseudonym El Toro Negro, Wonder produced Minnie Riperton's comeback album as well as her biggest hit "Lovin' You". The story is, with a song short of a full album, Wonder asked Minnie and husband Richard Rudolph for their most embarrassing song. Minnie immediately thought of the bedtime lullaby she sang to daughter Maya (Rudolph of SNL fame): the US #1 hit "Lovin' You". 

Perfect Angel offers more than sweet ballads showcasing Minnie's epic range. There are two Wonder-penned tunes ( "Perfect Angel", "Take a Little Trip"), a rocker (" Reasons") and a great Summertime jam called "Seeing You This Way".

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  Stevie Wonder gave away a sure-fire hit when he met LA funksters Rufus working on their second album.   He liked their recording of  "Maybe Your Baby" on the Rufus debut. Wonder first offered Rufus " Come and Get This Stuff" but Chaka Khan wasn't impressed. So Wonder offered " Tell Me Something Good", which he also produced. He had to convince Chaka Khan to sing the song in his key...which she did in one take. The result is a #3 hit.

   Watching the video, you'll see why Chaka Khan dominated the spotlight. That didn't necessarily sit well with the other members. Many left after the recording was finished. Too bad! Rags to Rufus has more going for it than the hit single. There's the Chaka penned "You Got the Love" and deep cut favorite  "Smokin' Room".

Wonder wrote "Until You Come Back To Me ( That's What I'm Gonna Do" in 1967 but handed it off to Aretha Franklin who hit #3 with the tune. 1974 wasn't much of a year for the Queen of Soul. For the first time ever, She failed to deliver an Atlantic album into the Top 40. On the bright side, Aretha shed 40 pounds thanks to a vinegar and honey diet and replaced her African robes with foxy outfits. 

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Last but not least is the album Stevie Wonder produced for and with his ex-wife Syreeta Wright. Among the songs ( there's more smooth soul than funky butt soul here)  are three UK hits and "Come And Get Your Stuff, the tune Chaka Khan turned down. Side Two features an Abbey Road like medley. Because all of the songs were written--or co-written-- by Wonder, his biggest fans say this album, falling between Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale.

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40 Year Itch : American Music Awards debut

On February 19, 1974 Dick Clark did his best to steal the thunder away from the Grammy Awards by airng the first American Music Awards two weeks earlier. Winners were decided by surveying 200,000 Americans in three areas of music: pop, soul and country. Each area had five categories. It was a bland affair hosted by Helen Reddy, Smokey Robinson and Roger Miller. The highlight was having Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson hand out awards with the tot sized Rodney Allen Rippy and Ricky Seagall:

The winners were all the usual suspects. The late Jim Croce beat Elton John and Stevie Wonder in Favorite Male Pop Artist. "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" won best pop song. The Carpenters won best group. You get the idea.




Stevie Wonder won Best Soul Song with "Superstition" and Favorite Male Artist.



Wonder. who had recovered from a near deadly car accident the year before,  received a standing ovation and thanked "my Supreme Being for letting me be here. 'Cause it didn't have to be that way."

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40 Year Itch : Those Marvelous Motown Anthologies

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Advertised as "the most comprehensive collection of classics ever assembled", Motown followed up its 1973 Temptations Anthology in February of 1974 with sets from Gladys Knight and the Pips and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Each of these multiple-record set came with a 12 page booklet, brimming with color photos.

In the months to follow more two record sets would follow from the likes of Diana Ross and the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas  and Jr Walker and the All Stars.

 For Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops and Stevie Wonder, whose Looking Back was released in 1977,  the anthologies would fill three records.

   Motown did a great service to the public and their own bottom line. Casual fans had all the hits and a sampling of the best tunes from the artists' best albums. And any of these anthologies charted in 1974. But Motown has also failed the artists and fans by letting so many of their best albums go out of print. Can we begin by bringing back the Temptations's All Directions?

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40 Year Itch: Stevie Wonder's 12 Fave Songs

Five months after the car accident that nearly killed him Stevie Wonder and his band Wonderlove played two shows in a single night at the Rainbow Theatre in London. Among those in the audience: Paul and Linda McCartney, Eric Clapton, David Bowie, Ringo Starr, Pete Townshend and The Staple Singers. Radio Luxembourg recorded the second show for broadcast.

    Asked to make a Sophie's Choice between Innervisions and Talking Book, Wonder said he preferred Innervisions ,  telling Rolling Stone 

          

As far as tunes, I like several from Talking Book: "Looking For Another Pure Love", "Superstition" "You've Got It Bad, Girl"  and "Sunshine of My Life". 

             With Innervisions I was going through a lot of changes . Although I didn't know we were going to have an accident, I knew I was undergoing changes." Higher Ground" is the only time I've ever done a whole track in one hour, and the words just came out. That's the only time, and that's very heavy.  

He also gave BBC radio producers a list of his 12 favorite songs:

1. Thurston Harris "Little Bitty Pretty One.

2. Bread "Diary"

3. Don McLean "Vincent"

4. Jackie Wilson "That Is Why"

5. Ray Charles "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying"

6. Johnnie Taylor "I Believe In You"

7. Donny Hathaway "The Ghetto"

8. The Beatles "Something"

9. B.B. King "Stormy Monday"

10. Aretha Franklin "Angel"

11. Marvin Gaye "What's Going On"

12. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles "Tears of a Clown"

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40 Year Itch: Stevie Wonder's Near Fatal Car Accident

Three days after the release of Innervisions, on August 6, 1973, Stevie Wonder and his driver John Harris were involved in a horrible car accident outside Salisbury, North Carolina. With Stevie asleep in the passenger seat, Harris attempted to pass a logging truck. In the words of Stevie Wonder's mother:

"There was a great, grinding screech as metal hit metal and, then, impossibly, as if in some lavishly produced Hollywood action movie, one of the great logs disencumbered itself of the truck and came crashing through the windshield, spearing Stevie square in the forehead."

 Wonder was rushed to Winston-Salem's North Carolina Baptist Hospital where doctors discovered Wonder had a broken skull and severe brain contusions. Doctors ruled out surgery. For 5 days, Wonder lay in a coma--his head swollen to nearly three times its normal size.

Wonder's publicist Ira Tucker walked into Wonder's quiet room and witnesed a somber scene. He started singing "Higher Ground" into Stevie's ear. Eventually he noticed a twitch in Wonder's finger, followed by tapping.

After two weeks Wonder would make a full recovery ( although he would lose his sense of taste). He told a newspaper reporter


“The only thing I know,” he said, “is that I was unconscious, and that for a few days, I was definitely in a much better spiritual place that made me aware of a lot of things that concern my life and my future, and what I have to do to reach another higher ground.”


In would be seven months before Wonder performed live again. Looking back on the accident, Wonder told Crawdaddy Magazine:


"What happened to me was a very, very critical thing, and I was really supposed to die," he said. When plastic surgery was suggested to remove the mark left by the crash, he said "I will leave it as one of the scars of life I went through."

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40 Year Itch : "Chevre" Is That Right Mama?

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The album may have been called Innervisions, but,  more than ever before,  Stevie Wonder focuses on what's going on outside... in the streets. From "Too High", a song about the toll drugs takes on a talented woman, to the injustices of "Living For the City" to the hypocritical politicians of "He's Misstra Know-It-All", Wonder is warning his community that , despite the title of the single, there are a lot of things to be worried about in the early 1970's.

   It's a bleak message: this sense of impending doom.And it's one this 23-year old  felt to his bones. As Ben Fong-Torres wrote in an April 1973 article for Rolling Stone:

  He sees the earth zigging towards a destructive end; he can see himself dying soon and he hopes, by his music, to be able to leave something for the rest of us — even if we ain't that far behind him.

   And yet there is nothing in the music but pure joy and passion. As in Music of My Mind and Talking Book, Wonder uses Tonto's Expanding Head Band's sythesisers to compose the songs "Living For the City", "Golden Lady" and "Misstra Know-It-All". He's also a one man band on tracks like "Too High", "Jesus Children of America" and "Higher Ground". 

  

'Higher Ground' is the only time I've ever done a whole track in one hour, and the words just came out. That's the only time, and that's very heavy. -Stevie Wonder





Of all the albums to be released in 1973, including Dark Side of the Moon, Innervisions is the one I insist you own first.

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40 Year Itch: Slow Jamming With Stevie Wonder

On July 13 1973, weeks before the release of Innervisions,  Stevie Wonder finished his show at New York City's Rainbow room with an impromptu  six and a half minute thank you to his audience.

Wonder had given the New York crowd a preview of four songs that would appear on next month's release Innervisions.

1. Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing

2. Higher Ground

3. Superwoman

4. To Know You is To Love You\

5. Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours

6. Visions

7. Living for the City

8. You Are the Sunshine of My Life

9. Superstition

10. My Dreams

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40 Year Itch: You Are the Sunshine of My Life Hits #1

Four months after topping the charts with "Superstition" , Stevie Wonder returned to the Number 1 spot with "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", a song he wrote for his first wife Syreeta Wright, a Motown secretary who taught transcendental meditation and brought Stevie some centeredness to his life..if not sunshine. Future #1s "Frankenstein" and "My Love" were also in the Top 10 and another, George Harrison's "Give Me Love", entered the chart at #59. Sweet's "Little Willy" peaked at #3.

1. You Are The Sunshine Of My LifeStevie Wonder
2.Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando 
3. Little Willy Sweet



4. FrankensteinEdgar Winter Group
5. DanielElton John
6. My LovePaul McCartney and Wings
7. Drift AwayDobie Gray

 8. Stuck In The Middle With YouStealers Wheel
 9. Pillow TalkSylvia
10. WildflowerSkylark



11. Reeling in the YearsSteely Dan
12. The Night The Lights Went Out In GeorgiaVicki Lawrence
 13. Hocus PocusFocus
14. Daisy a DayJud Strunk

15. The Cisco KidWar
16. Funky WormOhio Players
17. Out of the Question Gilbert O'Sullivan



18. The Right Thing to Do Carly Simon
19. Thinking of YouLoggins and Messina
20. I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little More BabyBarry White

 TOP DEBUTS 

 59. Give Me Love ( Give Me Peace on Earth)George Harrison



71. ShambalaThree Dog Night
76. You'll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)Stylistics
82. KodachromePaul Simon
84. MoneyPink Floyd

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