Granted, it’s a good problem for any songwriter to have: That because you’re written so many famous, iconic songs, that there are many great ones you’re written that get overshadowed by the others, and underappreciated.
It’s also a good job to have to be able to spend hours finding these secret song heroes, and share them. All music fans have these; it’s the nature of the business. The hits are so celebrated and get so much radio airplay. Yet there are those glorious songs which stood out always on each album, the deep cuts.
When it comes to Stevie Wonder, most of what he did was really miraculous. On his chain of albums through the 1970s, he usually played every instrument. He’d famously lay down a drum track to the music in his mind, and then start overdubbing keyboards and vocals and more. Sometimes he’d bring in horn players, but did most everything else himself. His harmonica playing, as you might know, is phenomenal.
And then the songs. He’s got a musical language all his own, which is connected to the one we know but seems to have extra dimensions. And it’s all done, as it’s been said, on Stevie-time, unbound by arbitrary arcane strictures of humankind, like clocks and calendars.
We start our journey with his resplendent “Bird of Beauty,” from 1975.
