Stevie Wonder's output of four studio
records beginning with Talking Book in 1972 remains a period of
artistic masterpieces firmly rooted in a cultural and political terra
firma that has rarely been matched.
The deeply funky Maybe your Baby,
though not political, sets the tone of paranoia that could be said to
characterize the aftermath of the 1960s. Later on the record, the
defeat of utopian hopes and the faint, dying pulse of an American
Left are heard, (or felt) on the song, Big Brother;
You've killed all our leaders
We don't even have to do nothing to you
you cause your own country to fall.
The richness of the analogue synths,
the production of Talking Book marked the beginning of a string of
albums that showed Stevie as no longer 'Little Stevie', but rather a
fully mature artist doing what artists should do, which is giving a
generation both a gift, in that those who receive this work are
shaped, are taught by the works they receive, as well as paint a
picture of the times they find themselves in.
The next record, Innervisions, saw
Stevie recording virtually all the instruments. The album covers a
wide range of themes and emotions. The song, Higher Ground redeems
one's failings in life, negating regret by seemingly insisting on
reincarnation while still alive, in this life, in this body. Mistra
Know it All is a scathing attack on the Nixon administration. Too
High, and Livin for the City describe a time when cities were an
anathema, decades before they were put up for sale and had become the
overpriced playgrounds for privileged young adults.
The next record, Fullfillingness' First
Finale is a stark record in production, opening with the telling,
Heaven is Ten Million Light Years Away, and the bitter, wrenching
They Won't Go when I Go. This record was done after Stevie had been a
car crash with a logging truck that left him in a coma. It seems to
be a deep rethinking of what it is to be a human in the waning days
of a tumultuous century. One cannot say it is a return to form, as it
is the third of a string of brilliant records, but it does show an
artist rethinking his place and role.
While 1977 saw punk as taking up the
Vanguard for political music, disco moving to the forefront of
popular music, and Peter Frampton and Fleetwood Mac inserting their
bloated egos into the marketplace, Stevie was to release the crowning
achievement of his career with Songs in the Key of Life. The title
alone sort of says it all. By this time, the artist has shown us so
much, art as activism, the depth and breadth of what a song about
love could possibly be. Here, at the end of these four albums we
could say, “Thank you, Stevie, you have made the world a better
place”. A double album with a four song 45 bonus single included,
which sums up the polarity of his vision in two ways. One is a line
in the song, Ebony Eyes; Devastating Beauty. Indeed. The other is the
song, Saturn, which seems to imply that for all his hope, all his
love, things would be better anywhere than on this Earth.
I love you, Stevie Wonder
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete