Innervisions: The Music of Stevie Wonder

And I think the primary reason for this is the man's unwillingness to pigeonhole himself. All Stevie ever wanted was to get the chance to take chances. And once he got the go-ahead from Motown in 1971, he didn't drop the ball. Music of My Mind, and to a lesser extent, Where I'm Coming From, was pure revelation, proving someone could reinvent himself--or, better yet, reassert himself--if he so desired. And this need to express himself--in the way he truly wanted to express himself--burned so deeply in Stevie Wonder that his "new" music couldn't help but light a fire under all who heard it.

"I feel there is so much through music that can be said, and there's so many people you can reach by [giving them] another kind of music besides what is considered your only kind of music," was how Stevie put it in 1973 to Rolling Stone. "That's why I hate labels where they say 'This is Stevie Wonder and for the Rest of His Life He Will Sing 'Fingertips'.' "

Stevie's songs--especially his '70s output--have always appealed to many diverse groups of the listening public, something which pleases him and something for which he always strived. "I think the only way that people will ever be able to see a picture of unity is through music, through dance and rhythms coming together," Stevie said in Rolling Stone in late 1987.

Because of this desire to cross ethnic barriers, it bothered Stevie when NARM, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, once gave him an award for being the "best-selling soul artist." "To say I'm just a soul artist is wrong because all those songs are typical ballads of America," he said at the time. "I am a black man but music is music. I want to be an inspiration to my people, but I don't want to be categorized."

Stevie the Songwriter--when given the opportunity to write his own stuff--has written about a wealth of diverse subjects--be it love songs, end-of-love songs; lust songs, unrequited love songs; the bliss of marriage songs, the pain and sadness of divorce songs; political songs, religious songs, spiritual songs; social comment songs, including songs about poverty, drug abuse, racial strife, prejudice and unfeeling/uncaring politicians. He has sung about both the good and the bad in the world--the love of music and of life, the struggle for civil rights and equality, a call-to-arms against injustice and tyranny. He's sung about feeling good, feeling bad, feeling contented, feeling sad. But his underlying message--borne out in his tireless quest to spread it for more than thirty years and counting--is one of HOPE. The Gospel According To Stevie Wonder holds that there is too much good inherent in Man and in Life not to be optimistic. In any case: keep on keepin' on. It can't hurt to keep up the good fight. Even if we fail in the end.

As for the music, Stevie has done R&B, soul, rock, ballads, MOR, funk, Big Band, jazz fusion, mood music, urban contemporary R&B, reggae and other Third World-type rhythms--even some music that doesn't even have a label (see: "They Won't Go When I Go"). Naturally, he handles all of these styles effortlessly.

Stevie truly believes he was just as "adventurous" with his songwriting from 1982 through 1991, his dreaded dry spell, as he was with his '70s stuff. But I just don't see it that way. "The Woman In Red" basically was filled with cliched claptrap, while on In Square Circle, Characters and the "Jungle Fever" soundtrack, Stevie simply settled into an overly-computerized/synthesized/mechanical groove that differed little from song to song. My gosh, Songs In the Key of Life had about a million different kinds of music, and a zillion different subject matters. And Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale sport tracks so powerful and alive, each song is like a full-length album all by itself.

Stevie admitted to his reliance on electronically-processed sounds from 1985 to 1991, but believed that to be a plus in his quest to remain current. In an interview in Rolling Stone when Characters was released in late 1987, Stevie addressed this controversial issue: "And even with technology today--the computers and synthesizers, the sampling, and the sequencing--you still have to have some kind of feel for the groove, putting the puzzle together to make the pieces fit right."

I feel, however, that he was having Big Trouble trying to make those "pieces fit right," and it was taking him longer and longer to finish albums as a direct result. (I mean, come on, only four studio albums since 1985?!!)