With today’s playlist, from our month of playlists devoted to Stevie Wonder in honor of his 70th birthday, we take the same approach to Stevie’s 1972 watershed album, “Talking Book.” “Talking Book” is at the front end of Stevie’s period of immense creativity in the 1970s.
Still in his early 20s, and having won creative freedom over his work in his newest Motown contract, he created a multi-textured album filled with funk rhythms, smooth soul, and swinging pop – all merged together into one genius record that still sounds great today. (To hear NPR’s “Story of Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book” segment, click here.)
The album kicks off with the elegant “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” – which has become Stevie’s most-covered song, with over 250 versions recorded by other artists through the years according to SecondHandSongs.com (a website devoted to cover songs).
Many of those versions are similar. As evidence of Stevie’s complete crossover popularity by that point in his career, ‘Sunshine’ actually became an easy listening staple, performed by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Johnny Mathis to Liza Minnelli – and also by Jim Nabors, Vicki Lawrence, Brigitte Bardot and Englebert Humperdinck.
Opening with alternative rocker Jack White‘s version of that standard, our goal is to give you a playlist that feels both familiar to your memories of the original album, but also stretches musically to a few new places.
We’ve mixed in rock, easy listening, funk, dance, a cappella, jazz, Brazilian by artists as diverse as Macy Gray, Rufus, Michael Bublé and Sergio Mendes. We’ve placed the songs in their original album order, and have limited each song to one version – and each covering artist to only one track.
The list concludes with one of the newest Stevie Wonder covers – actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph beautifully covers “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)” for the soundtrack to “High Fidelity,” the new Hulu series in which she co-stars. Set around the vinyl-obsessed employees of a small independent record store, the choice to cover Stevie circa 2020 demonstrates that the music faithful still remain true believers in the sounds of Mr. Wonder.
As Good Black News continues its month-long tribute to Stevie Wonder in his 70th year on planet Earth, Marlon West has compiled a new Spotify playlist celebrating the times Wonder has graciously and successfully shared the spotlight with other artists.
Although Wonder’s collaborative skills are most famously remembered from the 1986 Grammy-winning chart topper “That’s What Friends Are For” with Dionne Warwick, Elton John and Gladys Knight that raised over $3 million dollars for AIDS research and prevention, he’s been at it for decades with a wide variety of artists and in the name of so many worthy causes and ideas.
Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney (photo via libraryofcongress.gov)
This playlist ranges from Stevie’s work with the Queen of the Beyhive (Beyoncé) on a heartfelt Luther Vandross tribute, to his duet with a former Beatle (Paul McCartney) to confront racism, a reworking one of his best-loved love songs with a Canadian diva (Celine Dion), to a loving back-and-forth with his first-born daughter (Aisha Morris, who famously made her debut on 1976’s “Isn’t She Lovely” when still a baby).
In Marlon’s words:
Hello and Happy Monday, you all! Stevie Wonder is one if the most distinctive and prolific voices in popular music. He is a singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist.
The brotha is one of greatest solo artists and bandleaders of our times. That said, Stevie Wonder has made many collaborations with other artists. He’s done duets, been a guest artist, and even a session musician one dozens of records. This playlist is devoted to Stevie Wonder’s duets. Do enjoy!
Ever since this writer was elementary school age and first becoming aware of music, I’ve been obsessed with the artistic connections created by “cover” versions (“remakes,” in layman’s terms).
My father and I would routinely spend a Saturday night pairing together interesting playlists for each other comprised of original versions and their remakes, usually trying to find versions as far apart musically from the originals as possible.
Several decades ago, this was very labor intensive – we had to go ‘digging in the crates’ through our own vinyl, and we had to actually know and remember that the cover version had been done. Piecing it all together was half the fun.
Today, with Spotify and the internet, it’s much much easier to uncover covers. Just type in the song name and often you’ll find hundreds of options to pick from, especially when we’re talking about Stevie Wonder, who has literally had thousands of remakes done of his songs.
So many versions, in fact, that it’s impossible to weed through them all. (According to SecondHandSongs.com, a website devoted to ‘cover’ songs, Stevie is the most covered R&B artist of all time.)
So with today’s Stevie Wonder playlist from GBN, I’ve limited myself to covers of songs from his landmark 1976 double album “Songs in the Key of Life.” “Songs in the Key of Life” capped a prolific mid-1970s golden era for Stevie Wonder, winning him a remarkable third Grammy for Album of the Year – all three of his wins coming in just four years! Many lists feature “Songs” as one of the best albums of all-time.
You may ask – why should I listen to cover versions when the originals are so perfect? I certainly won’t argue with the originals’ perfection. And I don’t think that any of the artists here would argue either that their version supersedes Stevie’s own.
What I would say is that cover versions can do several things. First, they evoke the true songwriting abilities underlying the original song – a great ‘song’ should be able to stand up to multiple interpretations.
Second, when the cover version is in a different genre (and these are the most interesting ones, usually) – they can bring the listener to new places musically that they may not have ventured before. Third, after hearing an iconic album so many times that it becomes almost second nature, it can be refreshing to hear it again in a new way.
In this playlist, we’ve got the entire ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ song list, in the same order as the original – with the four ‘bonus tracks’ from the extra single included in the original release added to the end.
Each song has only one extra version – and each covering artist is limited to just one track. The mix spans jazz, folk, rock, Latin, soul, dance music and many more, including Luther Vandross, Thelma Houston, Najee, Mary J. Blige and James Taylor‘s brother Livingston Taylor. There’s even a Spice Girl in there if you look for her!
It’s no secret how much the Good Black News team loves and reveres Stevie Wonder, as we have been celebrating him throughout May with various tributes, posts and playlists on the main page and across our social media.
But today, on May 13, Stevie Wonder’s actual birthday, we want to offer you links to all things Stevie, like his official website, Instagram (which is playing Stevie music live all day!) and Twitter, the biography written about him, as well as the Wikipedia and Biography entries that encapsulate the his life and career in words and video.
But really, to know Stevie all you have to do is listen to his music, especially the songs that comprise the majority of his offerings to this world – album tracks never released as singles – aka Stevie Wonder’s Deep Cuts.
Our newest playlist is comprised solely of these songs, and arguably they are as moving and meaningful as his tunes that topped the charts.
In fact, many of these songs (“You and I,” “Too High,” “Bird of Beauty,” “Love’s In Need of Love Today,” “Rocket Love”) are more popular with Stevie stans than many of his global hits.
They are sequenced in chronological order (like our companion playlist of chart releases and hits “The Age of Wonder”) so the listener can hear the evolution of Stevie Wonder’s writing, production and sound. Enjoy – and Happy Birthday, Stevie! We love you!
Stevie Wonder told us with his very first hit, ‘Fingertips,’ recorded when he was 12, that he was a harmonica master. Somehow, through all the genius songwriting, singing, production and keyboard innovation, we tend to forget about those harmonica skills.
But Stevie hasn’t.
His unmistakable harmonica blowing is right there, easy to find in such Stevie favorites throughout his career including ‘I Was Made to Love Her,’ ‘Isn’t She Lovely,’ ‘For Once In My Life,’ ‘That Girl,’ ‘We Can Work It Out,’ ‘Boogie On Reggae Woman,’ and even 1990s gems like ‘Treat Myself.’
Although he does play that Hohner Chromonica often on his own records, Wonder actually seems to utilize his harmonica skills most frequently as a means to collaborate with other artists.
From the 1960s to today, he’s played harmonica as a guest session man on over 150 songs from other artists. That’s more than 10 whole albums worth of additional Stevie-infused material!
To celebrate that part of Stevie’s career, today’s GBN Month of Stevie playlist is entitled “The Wonders of Stevie’s Harmonica,“ where we’ve amassed every Stevie Wonder harmonica guest appearance that we could find on Spotify into one huge list.
You’ll find a few famous hits – Chaka Khan’s ‘I Feel For You,’ Elton John’s ‘I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues,’ Sting’s ‘Brand New Day,’ R&B classics from DeBarge’s ‘Love Me In A Special Way’ to Jermaine Jackson’s smash ‘Let’s Get Serious’ (which Stevie also wrote and produced). And one of my personal favorites, the Eurythmics #1 UK hit ‘There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart).’
And though he hasn’t released a full album of new work since 2005, Stevie Wonder has stayed relevant to the charts through these harmonica-based collabos. That’s Stevie’s harmonica on Drake’s ‘Take Care’ album – the #1 album of 2012.
He appears twice on the Mark Ronson 2015 album that contained the #1 song of that year, “Uptown Funk.” And just last year, that was Stevie’s harmonica again on rapper Travis Scott’s chart-topping album “AstroWorld.”
But going on Stevie Wonder’s harmonica journey through music takes you to more than just the top of the charts. One of the special things about being Stevie – a sonic force for nearly 60 years – is his wide-ranging love of music across all genres and generations, and his ability to play with all those people.
(photo via youtube.com)
While many associate the harmonica mostly with blues and folk sounds, Stevie takes the instrument to new places. To be expected, his harmonica is present in the work of his Motown compatriots from the Supremes to the Temptations to Smokey Robinson.
But he’s also played with the finest in rock music (Paul McCartney, James Taylor), popular standards (Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett), world music (Sergio Mendes, Djavan), jazz (Robert Glasper, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy Gillespie), pop (NSync, 98 Degrees, Mariah Carey), hip hop (Drake, Snoop Dogg) and gospel (BeBe Winans, Andrae Crouch). (Stevie, of course, has also ventured into Broadway, but the version of Rent’s ‘Seasons of Love’ with his contributions isn’t available on Spotify. But you can hear it here.)
The list closes with another personal favorite, this one from Stevie’s own catalog – his harmonica infused take on the classical holiday piece ‘Ave Maria’ – written in 1825 and sung primarily by opera singers through the centuries.
The 45-second harmonica solo here is simple and majestic, and completely at home within a classical music space, something I think only Stevie Wonder could achieve with this instrument.
Come take a ride on Stevie’s harmonica highway – and listen out for that unmistakable sound. As with most musical adventures, we hope you will find something unexpectedly nice along with way.
Special thank you – assembling this playlist wouldn’t have been easily possible without the massive amounts of information on the fan website www.steviewonder.org.uk .
“I’m thrilled to take part in Good Black News’ monthlong celebration of Stevland Hardaway Morris aka Stevie Wonder’s 70th Birthday.
My first offering is this collection of him performing covers and standards. Stevie Wonder’s songs have provided the soundtrack to our lives. Though he has been able to make so many other songs “his own.”
Starting with his childhood idol, Ray Charles, here’s a collection of songs by a wide-ranging batch of artists including Marvin Gaye, The Beatles, Cher, B.B. King, GlennMiller, The Doors, The Supremes and so many others.
Do enjoy. Stay safe, you all and “see” ya next week! Take care!!”
On May 13, 1950 a celestial event occurred: musical genius and living legend Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan, and the world has reaped the benefits ever since.
In commemoration of our collective extraordinary fortune, Good Black News is offering not just a day, but a month’s worth of Stevie Wonder-related content and playlists.
GBN contributors Jeff Meier (“The Clark Sisters”), whose brilliant idea this was, Marlon West (“Afrofuturism”, “Hidden Jazz Figures”, “Soul Jazz”) and I will be posting eclectic playlists and words about Stevie in the coming days and weeks, starting with my all-encompassing, comprehensive thoughtpiece:
STEVIE WONDER IS THE BEST MUSICIAN AND SONGWRITER ALIVE!!!!!!
That’s it.
Stevie Wonder (photo via commons.wikipedia.org)
As Stevie’s music speaks for itself, to kick off GBN’s tribute I offer an 80-track Spotify playlist of his Billboard Chart hits across six decades, in chronological order, from “Fingertips” from 1963 all the way through his 21st century hits from his last studio album, 2005’s “A Time To Love” so listeners can 1) hear the evolution of Stevie’s genius from child prodigy working in within the Motown sound to adult visionary who revolutionizes it and 2) hear all the hits you know and love (and some you don’t!) in one, grand compilation.
(Track 81, called “Stevie’s Dream” from Janelle Monae‘s “Dirty Computer” was not a chart hit, I know, but I added it as a “one to grow on” because it’s Stevie speaking about his mission in music and for the planet and it’s beautiful!)
Although I’m typically calm-if-a-bit-nerdy when I meet artists I admire, there is one time in my life I fully lost my natural mind for someone. That someone was the woman and musical legend Good Black News is celebrating today, April 25, on what would have been her 103rd birthday – Ella Fitzgerald.
To set the scene, it was the day of my college graduation in June of 1990. I was standing in my black cap and gown next to my roommates, as the graduating class formed something akin to a Soul Train line for alumni, professors and distinguished guests to walk through on the way to taking the stage for the ceremony. I’d spent four long, great years earning a bachelor’s degree at Harvard in American History and Literature with a minor in African-American Studies. I also DJ’d at the college radio station 92.3FM WHRB all four of those years.
In addition to being all about hip-hop, house, R&B and dance music, I fell in love with jazz at WHRB, too. So much so that I got up several mornings a week to jock the 6-8am “Jazz Spectrum” program at WHRB, and even found a way to incorporate jazz into my senior thesis by comparing jazz autobiography to the slave narrative. Not exactly everyone’s idea of a page-turner, I know, but it was nice and egghead-y, earned me high honors from my department, and was a sneaky way to earn credit while spending time deepening my nascent love of jazz and jazz history.
So when I heard Ella Fitzgerald – the singer whose interpretation of “Lullaby of Birdland” took my heart and mind to heights of joy so unexpected that I immediately began to consume her versions of every standard as if they were musical narcotics – was on the list of people receiving honorary degrees from Harvard that year, I was beyond thrilled. Ella, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson were my personal Mt. Rushmore of jazz singers, and having her name indelibly connected to my class was momentous.
But I also knew she’d had some recent health issues (she was 73 at the time) and did not expect her to accept her doctorate in person. In fact, I was saying pretty much that to my roommate Susan as several of the distinguished graduation guests filed past us. And then I turned. And saw her. Elegant. Beautiful. Smiling. Ella.
There was a consistent smattering of applause accompanying every step she took. When I finally caught my breath, all that came roaring out of my mouth was the primal scream – “ELLLLLLLAAAAA!!!! ELLLLLLLAAAAA!!!” I couldn’t stop. I was hopping up and down and cheering and – as I said before – losing my natural mind.
I saw on my roommate’s face and other faces around me that amused “Damn, what exactly is happening to her right now?” look, but that was all in slow motion and I did not care because a national treasure was walking towards me. The architect of vocal improvisation and scatting and so much pure jazz singing greatness was in my sights, and I could not contain myself.
I think Ella heard me before she saw me, because I saw her glance my way, smile, then veer close enough to lay her hand on my forearm. Yes, that’s right, I can now and forever brag that the one and only Ella Fitzgerald touched me.
As I observed her small but mighty hand on my forearm, it reminded me of my grandmother’s. From it I felt a gentle squeeze – and in that squeeze she communicated her amusement, her thanks, and, if I’m being 💯 about it, encouragement to get a gotdamn grip on myself and attempt some level of decorum. I was at my college graduation ceremony, her hand reminded me, not Showtime at the Apollo. And then she kept going down the line and when no more dignitaries were left to file past us, we collapsed the Soul Train line and headed to our seats.
https://youtu.be/or1kqkeGXrI
I have no idea what else was said or done during the rest of that ceremony – I spent most of it plotting with my wing woman Karen Moody on how to get close enough to the stage so I could ask Ella for her autograph. Moody offered to distract the security guard once the ceremony was over – she turned on her gift of gab and I was able to glide by and up to Miss Fitzgerald with a pen and the only paper I had, my graduation program. Ella graciously signed it and smiled at me once again as security quickly became undistracted and pointed me away.
Thirty years later, when I look back on this moment, I can’t help but ask myself exactly why I went so crazy. The obvious answer is, duh – ELLA FITZGERALD – but it was such lightning bolt of energy that came through me, it was more than that. Back then I didn’t know much about her life, her professional or personal struggles, but something in me knew to honor the totality of who she was, what she’d gone through and what she gave to this world.
Ella Fitzgerald deserved (and got) a full body-and-soul shout out from the younger generation through me that day. To let her know that she was seen, heard, loved and would never be forgotten, particularly by those, like me, who present to the world in the same type of package.
And here I am again, thirty years later, shouting out love and appreciation for the one and only Ella, master of tone, phrasing, intonation, improvisation and interpretation, so the next generation may know her and pass on to the next their appreciation for one of the best to ever do it.
Below is a playlist compiled in her honor, as well as several other resources and links to foster even more awareness of the “First Lady of Song.” Love you always, Ella!
GBN delights in the opportunity to commemorate the birth of Billie Holiday, one of America’s most talented singing artists, on what would have been her 105th birthday.
Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915 and raised primarily in Baltimore, MD, Holiday is best known for her signature songs “God Bless The Child,” which she co-wrote with Arthur Herzog, Jr. and “Strange Fruit,” the anti-lynching protest song she first recorded in 1939.
Slightly older generations may have become acquainted with Holiday through the 1972 film Lady Sings The Blues, which garnered Diana Ross an Academy Award nomination for the title role.
Above you can watch Lady Day in 1957 on CBS’ The Sound of Jazz performing “Fine and Mellow,” the blues standard she wrote and first recorded in 1939, with Jazz All Stars such as Lester “Prez” Young, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Milt Hinton and Mal Waldron.
Below you can experience a comprehensive compilation of Billie Holiday’s recordings in a Spotify playlist called Loving Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday. Click through to follow and/or download. Enjoy!
GBN would like to take a moment to commemorate the birth of one of the most talented musicians to ever grace planet Earth, Aretha Louise Franklin, on what would have been her 78th birthday.
Although 2020 will offer memorials to the Queen in the form of MGM‘s theatrical movie “Respect”starring Jennifer Hudson and the limited series under National Geographic Channel’s “Genius” banner starring Cynthia Erivo, it’s doubtful either will focus on an oft-overlook aspect of Franklin’s myriad talents: her songwriting.
Above you can watch Aretha performing “Think,” one of her best-known compositions in a clip from The Blues Brothers, while below you can listen to even more gems penned by Aretha in a Spotify playlist called “Rock Steady”: Songs Aretha Franklin Wrote:
by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)
The album kicks off with the elegant “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” – which has become Stevie’s most-covered song, with over 250 versions recorded by other artists through the years according to SecondHandSongs.com (a website devoted to cover songs).
But today, on May 13, Stevie Wonder’s actual birthday, we want to offer you links to all things Stevie, like his 
His unmistakable harmonica blowing is right there, easy to find in such Stevie favorites throughout his career including ‘I Was Made to Love Her,’ ‘Isn’t She Lovely,’ ‘For Once In My Life,’ ‘That Girl,’ ‘We Can Work It Out,’ ‘Boogie On Reggae Woman,’ and even 1990s gems like ‘Treat Myself.’
