It's approaching the 50th anniversary of another landmark Motown album,
remember Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" half centenary was commemorated with an expanded reissue last month.
Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" was released 47 years ago today on 28 Sep 1976.
Both Wonder and Gaye had disagreements with Berry Gordy over musical
direction in the early 70s as both wanted to do their own thing and get
away from the formulaic Motown sound. Gordy didn't like Gaye's "What's
Going On" as he was concerned that the social and political statements
may damage 'the brand'. Both have been proven to be correct as that particular album has gone on to
be one of the most seminal musical works in music, never mind just soul,
history consistently topping Rolling Stone's 100 best albums of all time. It
currently tops their
2020 poll
with "Songs in the Key of Life" positioned at #4.
In 1975 Wonder was seriously considering quitting music and prepared a
farewell tour, remember his previous album was titled "Fulfillingness'
First Finale"! However, Motown persuaded him to sign a 7 year / 7 album
deal with full artistic control. The alleged $37m offer (the largest
recording contract at the time) no doubt helped to twist his arm to
stay. "Songs in the Key of Life" was his first of these albums and was
his 18th studio album. It's a double album consisting of 21 tracks (the last 4 tracks were originally on a separate 7" EP) and
won 3 Grammys: Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance (Male) and Best R&B Vocal
Performance, Male for "I Wish".
The album produced five singles, two reaching #1 on Billboard's Hot 100,
i.e. "I Wish" and "Sir Duke" / "He's Misstra Know-It-All", the other three being "Isn't She Lovely", "Another Star" and "As".
Of course many other tracks are well known even though they were never
released as singles. For example "Summer Soft" was covered recently by Karlos Edwards and "Pastime Paradise" has been
sampled multiple times, perhaps most famously by Coolio in "Gangsta's
Paradise" in 1995? "As" (which featured George Benson on guitar) we featured only yesterday by The Family Tree on the
forthcoming "With Love Volume 2" compilation and "Another Star" (which featured Herbie Hancock on keys) has been covered many times, perhaps one
of the earliest by Joe Bataan's LaSo in 1977 and another notable cover by (Sister) Kathy Sledge in 1995 with others including Ike Noble (1980) and Soul II Soul's Caron Wheeler (2003).
Everyone knows, but perhaps doesn't necessarily 'love', "Isn't She Lovely"
which surprisingly wasn't a hit and wasn't released as a single in the US
because Wonder refused to shorten the track from the album's 6:34 for 7"
release. However, it was covered by David Parton and reached #4 on the UK
pop chart in 1977 which is perhaps why we assume that it was a hit single?
Wonder's version did eventually become a hit in the UK after he performed it
at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
Click on image below for link to where you can buy from.
| Rating: | 9 |
| Explicit: | N |
| Genre/Style: | 70s Soul / Motown |
| Format: | Album |
| Media: | Digital |
| Label: | Tamla |
| Cat No: | None |
| Date: | 28/09/1976 |
| Price: | £5.99 |
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