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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to Too Much Information, the show that brings

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Speaker 1: you the secret histories and little known fascinating facts and

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Speaker 1: figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows and more.

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Speaker 1: We are your two analog synths of anaonine Certitudes. One

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Speaker 1: felt like a reach that stop bad though, Okay, okay,

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Speaker 1: sir Dukes of details that said it should have been. Oh,

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Speaker 1: that was a good one. Thanks, good one. Can you

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Speaker 1: punch that for me later for you? All right? Thanks.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alex Sigel and I'm Jordan run Tag and Jordan.

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Speaker 1: Today we're talking about one of the highest artistic achievements

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Speaker 1: of the seventies, a towering musical monument to creative drive

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Speaker 1: and joyful self expression. That's right, we're talking about Zanado again. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Actually, what we're doing is wrapping up

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Speaker 1: Mummuary by talking about Hammers nineteen seventy one masterpiece Blood

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Speaker 1: from the Mummies Tomb. No, I'm just kidding again. I

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Speaker 1: love how much you committed to Mummuary. I never thought

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Speaker 1: that joke would live on past the Mummy episode. But wow,

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Speaker 1: where's our last week of Mummuary? You're right, You're absolutely right. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. We're talking about Stevie Wonders undisputed masterpiece

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Speaker 1: Songs in the Key of Life, the high watermark of

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Speaker 1: wonders classic period, which includes Music of My Mind and

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Speaker 1: Talking Book in nineteen seventy two, Inner Visions in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy three, Fulfillingness's first Finale in nineteen seventy four, I

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Speaker 1: think the last three of those one Album of the Year,

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Speaker 1: and then Songs in the Key of Life came out

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Speaker 1: in seventy six and then won the Grammy of the Year.

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Speaker 1: So this caps off that run where he was just

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Speaker 1: like the Beatles and the credence rolled into one. He

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Speaker 1: was releasing new, towering artistic achievements and pushing the form

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Speaker 1: forward at a pace that would be the envy of

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Speaker 1: your local tweaker's. It is funny like going back and

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Speaker 1: thinking about him in context, and I'm like, I, you know,

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Speaker 1: he had an imperial phase. That seventy stretch is insane

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Speaker 1: and then and I'd forgotten. I knew they did well

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Speaker 1: commercially and everything, but I'd forgotten that they also won

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Speaker 1: like three back to back. The only year that he

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Speaker 1: didn't win a Grammy was the year that he was

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Speaker 1: ineligible because he was making songs in the key that

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Speaker 1: would then win the Grammy. You know, that's it's really wild.

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Speaker 1: And didn't Paul Simon win that year, and he went

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Speaker 1: out of his way to thank Stevie Wonder in his

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Speaker 1: acceptance speech for not releasing an album that year. I

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Speaker 1: didn't know that, but that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how. Yeah, it boggles my mind, man. I

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Speaker 1: mean it's like, you know, it's funny because, like you

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Speaker 1: think about this, there's other periods. I made the credence

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Speaker 1: comparison because didn't they put out like three records in

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Speaker 1: a year at one point? Oh, I was trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out where you were going with that. I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, bad business deals and lost his song, yeah,

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Speaker 1: fought with his brother. Yeah. Now there's and then the

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Speaker 1: classic other one is Miles Davis made like five records

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Speaker 1: in a week at one point when he was on Prestige.

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Speaker 1: He was like a jazz Yeah, well that's exactly what

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Speaker 1: I'm saying. Yeah, like you just go in and count

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Speaker 1: off a bunch of standards that you played the previous night,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, in six hours you get an album,

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Speaker 1: but just the stuff that Stevie was doing with the

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Speaker 1: synths and one hundred and thirty people per record, like anyway,

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Speaker 1: put the card ahead of the horse. Songs in the

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Speaker 1: Key of Life ended up being wonders defining musical statement,

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Speaker 1: the summary of the last decade and change of his life.

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Speaker 1: Stevie took his life experiences and put them all into

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Speaker 1: Songs in the Key of Life. Motown founder Berry Gordy

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Speaker 1: reflected in a nineteen ninety seven documentary for the Classic

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Speaker 1: Albums series, and it worked, and boy howdy did it?

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, what the hell can I possibly say

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Speaker 1: about Songs in the Key of Life that not only

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Speaker 1: hasn't already been said in a much more eloquent, better

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Speaker 1: way by you, but by many other people as well.

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Speaker 1: I mean, trying to sum it up on a podcast intro,

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Speaker 1: it's embarrassing. Frankly, It's like trying to do a thumbnail

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Speaker 1: sketch of Guernica, like making the elevator pitch for the

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Speaker 1: Godfather or something. I mean, it's one of the most

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Speaker 1: perfect pieces of music of the twentieth century. The scale

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Speaker 1: on scope of it is matched by the musical precision

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Speaker 1: and virtuosity that it took to make it. Every track

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Speaker 1: is its own little musical universe. So I think we

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Speaker 1: were talking about that on the Revolver episode, how every

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Speaker 1: song is just sonically so different from one another. I

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Speaker 1: think it's through with this ten years later on Songs

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Speaker 1: in the Kio Life. You know, usually double albums for

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Speaker 1: me can get a little tedious, but no filler, all killer,

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Speaker 1: no notes. And also, I mean the thing that really

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Speaker 1: stuck out to me listening back in anticipation of this

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Speaker 1: episode was just how much joy is in that. That's

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Speaker 1: the number one word that I think of when I

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Speaker 1: think is Stevie wonder Man. I mean not that he doesn't,

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Speaker 1: and his explicit statement on this one was writing about

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Speaker 1: the bad parts of life as well as all the

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Speaker 1: good ones. But you know, it is just such unfettered joy.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he's happy to be alive, he's happy to

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Speaker 1: be as creative as he is, he's happy to be

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Speaker 1: uh making the music, he's happy to be a father,

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Speaker 1: and it just all comes through and it's still so

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Speaker 1: vibrant and it doesn't feel forced. I mean, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: feel like like a weird party in record or like

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Speaker 1: we'd like a hedonistic kind of thing. It just there's

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Speaker 1: a there's just a zest for life that oozes from

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Speaker 1: every note of this record, and it's beautiful. I mean,

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Speaker 1: Sir Duke, is there a better song about loving music?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't. I can't think of On

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Speaker 1: that's the song about him falling in love with music

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Speaker 1: and all the people who made that possible for him.

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Speaker 1: I can't think of Yeah, a song and is polished

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Speaker 1: and as polished and labored over as this stuff is.

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Speaker 1: There's so so many great little off the cuff moments

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Speaker 1: in there that just it's that, it's yeah, exactly, it

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Speaker 1: just it just you know when he inserted Duke right

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Speaker 1: before the one big shout chorus, you just he when

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Speaker 1: he goes yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like, yeah, you are

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Speaker 1: having that much fun? Or I forget the one so

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Speaker 1: the one song where he goes he's like and now

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Speaker 1: there's a saxophone, like right before the sax solo. I'm

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Speaker 1: just like, yeah, man, you are really just having the

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Speaker 1: having a ball. And it is just such a wonderful

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Speaker 1: ride to be along with on him up, to be

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Speaker 1: along with him on See, it's rendered me inarticulate. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it reminds me of I know this isn't non songs

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Speaker 1: in the Key Life, but one of my favorite Stevie

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Speaker 1: moments in his entire song history is on Do I

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Speaker 1: Do from Original Music Aquarium the full like ten minute

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Speaker 1: long version or something where he just announces Dizzy Gillespie

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Speaker 1: like the ladies and gentleman I have the privilege to

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Speaker 1: welcome on my album. And it's like you could hear

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Speaker 1: how thrill he is that he got Dizzy to play

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Speaker 1: of his songs. I mean, it's you know, it would

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Speaker 1: be somebody that would be name checked in Serge. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I just love how much he obviously continued to love

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Speaker 1: music in general, but especially the people that made them

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Speaker 1: want to make it as a kid. Yeah, and that

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Speaker 1: comes through so much on this album. Yeah. And like

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Speaker 1: you said, there's there's nothing cliche about it. There's no platitudes,

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Speaker 1: there's no I mean so many songs that I mean

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Speaker 1: it it's become a whole bad genre of music of

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Speaker 1: like the songs that people write when they become parents

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Speaker 1: for their kids that are kind of like treakily I

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Speaker 1: have to say, I think like Beautiful Boy by John

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Speaker 1: Lennon's like the one I think that like gets a

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Speaker 1: pass for me, mostly because it just makes me cry.

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Speaker 1: But like, yeah, there's just the exuberance is just all

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Speaker 1: over this album. It's it's so good just talking about

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Speaker 1: the whole Imperial phase and incredible run. How would you

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Speaker 1: rank those records? Oh jee um, I mean I'd have

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Speaker 1: to look at them. I'd have to look at all

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Speaker 1: the tracks. Yeah, because I'm not you know, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of embarrassing. But like I didn't really get into Stevie

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Speaker 1: until later in life, Like I just kind of knew

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Speaker 1: all the hits, right, and then I didn't realize that

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Speaker 1: like this was never like it was never contextualized for me,

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Speaker 1: like like someone was like, oh, by the way, he

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Speaker 1: made all this stuff in like five years, like by himself.

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Speaker 1: He played every instrument on this. You know, it was

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Speaker 1: just you grow up with like seeing him on Sesame

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Speaker 1: Street or whatever. You're like, oh, that that whips that

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Speaker 1: that's awesome, and then like only later you've learned that

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Speaker 1: he's like a you know, one of the towering geniuses

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Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, and his whole phases from being

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Speaker 1: like kind of the wonder kinned in Motown into being

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Speaker 1: this very you know self directed, very confident, just machine.

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Speaker 1: I think it might be this is number one for me,

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Speaker 1: it really is, Yeah, and then maybe fulfillingness and then

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Speaker 1: inn visions don't sleep on Music of My Mind. That

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Speaker 1: first side of Music of My Mom is really good.

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Speaker 1: There's just so much, like he said, it's and everything

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Speaker 1: is a world into itself well, from the wild negotiations

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Speaker 1: with Motown that preceded the album, to the equally wild

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Speaker 1: parade of guest stars and almost guest stars on the record,

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Speaker 1: to the cutting edge keyboard technology that Wonder utilized on it,

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Speaker 1: to the even more mind boggling work habits that Stevie

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Speaker 1: kept during the creation. Here's everything you didn't know about

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Speaker 1: Stevie Wonders songs in the Key of Life. Stevie Wonders

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Speaker 1: story is inextricable from that of Motown. He had been

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Speaker 1: under contract to Gordy's groundbreaking record label since he was

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Speaker 1: just eleven years old. There's a great story about Stevie

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Speaker 1: as a little kid when I think this was before

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Speaker 1: he was even signed the Motown where he went up

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Speaker 1: to one of the non Smokey Robinson Miracles guy named

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Speaker 1: Ronnie White and said, I can sing batter than Smokey

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Speaker 1: Love the Hotspot. Yeah, and he hung around with all

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Speaker 1: the Funk Brothers and everybody. He basically learned how to

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Speaker 1: play drums from Benny Benjamin and picked up you know,

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Speaker 1: his because those guys were all jazz cats, right, and

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Speaker 1: really serious jazz player And so a lot of Stevie's

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Speaker 1: harmonic sophistication, the substitutions and tricks that he pulls on

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Speaker 1: keyboard and songwriting come from just kind of studying and

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Speaker 1: absorbing what those guys had to show him. I think

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Speaker 1: it's in the Standing in the Shadows of Motown documentary

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Speaker 1: where they talk about like, oh yeah, Stevie just like

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Speaker 1: came in and just absorbed everything. I just want to

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Speaker 1: reflect on the fact that the Motown rhythm section the

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Speaker 1: drummer was Benny Benjamin and the basic players James Jamison.

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Speaker 1: Surely that wasn't on purpose. But by the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: Stevie was experiencing a quarter life crisis. He began openly

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Speaker 1: discussing quitting the music industry altogether and moving to Ghana,

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Speaker 1: where he believed his ancestral lineage could be traced to,

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Speaker 1: and where he planned to devote his resources to assisting

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Speaker 1: handicapped children and other humanitarian causes like Marvin Gay. About

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Speaker 1: five years earlier, Wonder had begun chafing under Motown Berry

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Speaker 1: Gordy's strict image policies, and had started doing things like

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Speaker 1: replacing the standard shoe sort of maud suits that they

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Speaker 1: made all their acts wear with brightly colored dashiki tunics

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Speaker 1: and braids. I Wonder had spoken publicly about his fascination

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Speaker 1: with Ghana's recently is nineteen seventy three in an interview

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Speaker 1: with Rolling Stone, and by nineteen seventy five he was

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Speaker 1: talking about doing a farewell tour with all the proceeds

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Speaker 1: airmarked for Ghanaian charities. He told the Associated Press around

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Speaker 1: this time, I've heard of great needs in that part

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Speaker 1: of the world, the African countries. I believe that you

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Speaker 1: have to give unselfishly. You can sing about things and

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Speaker 1: talk about things, but if your actions don't speak louder

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Speaker 1: than your words, you're nothing. All that said, though, there

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Speaker 1: were rumblings that this was all just some clever public

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Speaker 1: maneuvering timed to his upcoming contract renegotiations with Motown, which,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, he didn't really need the leverage. Modown

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Speaker 1: had lost the Four Tops, Gladys Knights, the Jackson Five,

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Speaker 1: Marvin Gay and Diana Ross were on their way out,

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Speaker 1: and Berry Gordy would have been well aware that Wonder's

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Speaker 1: epic run through the first half of the seventies had

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Speaker 1: basically underwritten everything Motown had done at that point, including

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Speaker 1: his disastrous for rays into Hollywood, and so, while Wonder

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Speaker 1: was also talking about the follow up to fulfilling this

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Speaker 1: first finale, God that's a tongue tire, he in an

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Speaker 1: interview with Nemy and New Musical Express, he was saying

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Speaker 1: that it wouldn't be out before his contract with Motown

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Speaker 1: was up. I might wait a long time, maybe more

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Speaker 1: than a year before I released another album, he told them. So.

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Speaker 1: All of this public maneuvering had Barry Gordy's sweating, and

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Speaker 1: that was probably the point of it, not to totally

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Speaker 1: derail this. But there was also a cataclysmic event that

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Speaker 1: occurred in Stevie's life in August nineteen seventy three, Well

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Speaker 1: I might nearly killed him. He was traveling on a

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Speaker 1: foggy highway in North Carolina on his way to a

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Speaker 1: radio benefit concert when his car rear ended a logging

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Speaker 1: truck in front of him. And there's multiple versions of this,

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Speaker 1: but the most dramatic one is that one of the

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Speaker 1: logs in the truck came loose and smashed through the

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Speaker 1: windshield of the car and struck Stevie in the head,

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Speaker 1: which left him in a coma for several days. He

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Speaker 1: got final destinationed, Yeah, seriously. There's the other version is

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Speaker 1: that it was almost like a Jan's Mansfield situation where

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Speaker 1: just in front of the car went under like the

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Speaker 1: flatbed of the truck. Other way not good. He wound

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Speaker 1: up in a coma and he was hospitalized for two weeks,

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Speaker 1: including a week in intensive care, And when he gave

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Speaker 1: his first interview when he came out of it, he

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Speaker 1: said he didn't really remember much of the crash itself.

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Speaker 1: I think he was like a sleep in the passenger seat,

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Speaker 1: listening to music through headphones or something. But he said

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Speaker 1: his period in a coma had a really profound effect

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Speaker 1: on him. He said, the only thing I know is

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Speaker 1: that I was unconscious, and for a few days I

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Speaker 1: was definitely in a much better spiritual place that made

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Speaker 1: me aware of a lot of things that concerned my

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Speaker 1: life in my future. And what I have to do

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Speaker 1: is reach another higher ground, and he later elaborated to

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Speaker 1: Crawl Daddy magazine, saying that he felt like he had

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Speaker 1: a second chance at life following this accident. He said,

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Speaker 1: what happened to me was a very very critical thing,

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Speaker 1: and I was really supposed to die. And this is

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Speaker 1: something that he didn't really speak much about after, but

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Speaker 1: he carried it with him the rest of his life.

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Speaker 1: I guess some people close to him suggested plastic surgery

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Speaker 1: to try to remove the mark left bot you know,

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Speaker 1: from the accident, and he said no. He said, I'll

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Speaker 1: leave it as one of the scars of life that

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Speaker 1: I went through. So it's something that he kind of

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Speaker 1: wore as a badge of honor in a funny way,

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Speaker 1: or something that he wanted to keep close to him.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of those close to Stevie noticed a

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Speaker 1: profound change in him after this accident. The then Motown

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Speaker 1: president Ewart Abner, I think he saw you say that,

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Speaker 1: told The New Yorker in nineteen ninety five. Stevie was

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Speaker 1: already on the path and his music told you that,

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Speaker 1: but the accident heightened and escalated his reaching who he is.

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Speaker 1: There was a calmness that set in after that I

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Speaker 1: don't think I've ever seen him get truly agitated or

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Speaker 1: upset to the point of becoming immobilized. I've seen him

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Speaker 1: in patient, excited and anxious, But after the accident there

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Speaker 1: was a maturity that was unusual for his age and

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Speaker 1: obviously the fulfilling This first Finale album was the next

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Speaker 1: one that released after the accident. But I'd say that

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Speaker 1: Songs in the Key of Life is the album that

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Speaker 1: really bore the effects of this psychological spiritual shift. So

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Speaker 1: all this was the backdrop to which Wonder and his

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Speaker 1: high powered attorney Johannan Vigoda, Right, yeah, not Abe Vagoda.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if there be a bummer, I could see

289
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Speaker 1: eight Vagoda being a hell of a negotiator too, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah yeah. This was the backdrop to which Stevie and

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Speaker 1: his lawyer went to negotiate with Ewart Abner and Barry Gordy,

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Speaker 1: who was then chairman of the board of Motown. Gordy

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Speaker 1: described the negotiations in his memoirs as the most grueling

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Speaker 1: and nerve racking we ever had. Ultimately, Stevie Wonder walked

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Speaker 1: away with a seven year contract that promised him a

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Speaker 1: thirteen million dollars advance, with the opportunity to garner up

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Speaker 1: to thirty seven million dollars if he delivered more than

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Speaker 1: his album per year minimum twenty percent royalty rate, and

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Speaker 1: control of his publishing. At the time, this was the

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Speaker 1: biggest deal that had ever been done in the music

301
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Speaker 1: industry period. Time magazine contextualized that by saying that it

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Speaker 1: was more than Elton John and Neil Diamond's contracts combined.

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Speaker 1: I had to do it because there was no way

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Speaker 1: I was going to lose. Stevie Gordy said in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven Classic Albums documentary, I was shaking in

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Speaker 1: my boots. Barry Gordy whining about how much stuff costs

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Speaker 1: is my favorite Berry Gordy moment. Yeah, I mean. In

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Speaker 1: the same interview, he literally wails, thirteen million dollars was

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Speaker 1: a lot of money, and Stevie's so smug. In the

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Speaker 1: same documentary, he says, with just uncontained glee, Barry was

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Speaker 1: brave enough to take the chance to take the challenge

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Speaker 1: and say, you know what, I believe in him, Stevie

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Speaker 1: enough to do this. I believe in the gamble, and

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Speaker 1: he was a smart man. He chuckles a little bit

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Speaker 1: as he says it. Also, in this contract, Stevie had

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Speaker 1: the creative freedom to work anywhere he wanted with any

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Speaker 1: artist he wanted to, so he could produce outside of Motown.

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Speaker 1: He had veto power over any potential singles. He was

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Speaker 1: upset that there was going to be a triple disc

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Speaker 1: Greatest Hits album that was going to be coming out

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Speaker 1: that didn't feature songs from his seventies run, so they

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00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:35,000
Speaker 1: canceled that at his behest and sent all two hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand copies they'd already pressed of it to the incinerator.

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Speaker 1: And lastly, and most remarkably, if Motown was ever to

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Speaker 1: be sold in the future, the deal would require Stevie

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Speaker 1: Wonders permission. That's insane. Let's not mean the Beatles, Elvis Presley,

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Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra, none of them had that kind of influence

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Speaker 1: over their own label. I mean, granted, I think they

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00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:03,200
Speaker 1: still were hanging on to the last illusions that this

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Speaker 1: was a family run business at that time. So maybe

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Speaker 1: it's not quite on par of like Capital or EMI

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Speaker 1: being souled or something like that, but still that's nuts.

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Speaker 1: And then what Motown was ultimately sold to MCA in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight. Stevie, he didn't stand in the way,

335
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Speaker 1: but he made it very clear that he would have

336
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Speaker 1: preferred Motown to remain a black owns business and made

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Speaker 1: a soap box moment of it. And so Stevie's non

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00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:34,639
Speaker 1: studio activities were decidedly reflective of this widening worldview and

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00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:38,400
Speaker 1: growing maturity. In June of nineteen seventy five, he performed

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Speaker 1: in San Francisco at a benefit for the National Newspaper

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Speaker 1: Publisher's Scholarship Fund. Then in August at the One to

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Speaker 1: One concert at Madison Square Garden to benefit mentally handicapped children,

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Speaker 1: Wonder would donate ten thousand dollars personally to that cause,

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Speaker 1: and the evening's encore from that concert, in which Stevie,

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Speaker 1: John Lennon and ROBERTA. Flack jam On Give Piece a Chance,

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Speaker 1: would later appear on a John Lennon record called Shaved

347
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Speaker 1: Fist Fish. Shave Fish sounds gross and weird. Yeah, it

348
00:19:10,640 --> 00:19:14,160
Speaker 1: sounds vaguely I've seen my favorite Stevie Wonder. John Lennon

349
00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:17,720
Speaker 1: anecdote took place in nineteen seventy four when Stevie was

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Speaker 1: part of the Jam session. That is why we believed

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Speaker 1: to be the last time that John Lennon and Paul

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00:19:23,240 --> 00:19:27,440
Speaker 1: McCartney were together in a recording studio, and the lineup

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Speaker 1: for this was insane. It was John and Paul, Stevie Wonder,

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Speaker 1: Harry Nilson, Rolling Stone, sax player Bobby Keys, session guitarist

355
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Speaker 1: Jesse A. Davis, and despite this blinding waddage of star power,

356
00:19:41,119 --> 00:19:44,639
Speaker 1: the results were a drugged out, shambolic mess. You can

357
00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:47,119
Speaker 1: hear them online on a bootleg called A Toot and

358
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:49,600
Speaker 1: a Snort or a Toot and a Snore in seventy four,

359
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Speaker 1: and it's so named because of a comment that John

360
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Speaker 1: makes about cocaine that's being passed around during these sessions,

361
00:19:55,800 --> 00:20:00,119
Speaker 1: and it's, yeah, it's pretty shockingly bad considering I mean,

362
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:01,719
Speaker 1: the only part that's like kind of cool because it's

363
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Speaker 1: sort of sad, is that John and Paul do this

364
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:08,480
Speaker 1: like I mean, it sounds like they're drunk doing karaoke, really,

365
00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:11,920
Speaker 1: but they do a version of stand By Me, and

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Speaker 1: they do it together, and it's just really touching to

367
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Speaker 1: hear those voices. You know, that's sweet and sour, bland.

368
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Speaker 1: One last time doing something like stand by Me, which

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Speaker 1: is I mean, it's almost a cliche. I mean doing

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Speaker 1: a song like that, these two old friends, and the

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Speaker 1: roughness kind of adds to it. It's that's part sweet. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of not great moments on there, but

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Speaker 1: Stevie's there. Underutilized, Yeah, but Stevie's there. Stevie also played

374
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Speaker 1: the most Blackshaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he

375
00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:05,320
Speaker 1: established a fund to keep the school from closing. He

376
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:08,520
Speaker 1: gave forty thousand dollars to a Jamaican home for blind

377
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Speaker 1: and mentally disabled children that would bear his name. He

378
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:13,280
Speaker 1: linked up with the Reverend Jesse Jackson at a push

379
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Speaker 1: for a quality concert in Memphis, and he had lunch

380
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Speaker 1: with a Black Congressional congress. But amid all of this

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00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:21,640
Speaker 1: globe trotting and high profile public performance, there was little

382
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:25,080
Speaker 1: news of the first record on this new insane contract,

383
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Speaker 1: and people began the music press industry people began questioning

384
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Speaker 1: what exactly was going on in Wonder's camp. The answer

385
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 1: was chaos, which was more or less business as usual

386
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Speaker 1: for Stevie Wonder. Michael Simbello, the lead guitarist in Stevie's

387
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Speaker 1: backing band Wonder Love, who would go on to write

388
00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:46,080
Speaker 1: Maniac from the Flashdance soundtrack, told Mark Brabowski for that

389
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:49,879
Speaker 1: Mark's Stevie biography, Signed, Sealed and delivered The soulful Journey

390
00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:52,639
Speaker 1: of Stevie Wonder. We called what was Happening running up

391
00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:55,159
Speaker 1: a wall because we'd start to go and wind up

392
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Speaker 1: where we started. Stevie would hire people. Basically, he hired

393
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Speaker 1: his whole family. There was his brother who's been studying

394
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Speaker 1: to be an accountant for like thirty years. I love Calvin,

395
00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 1: but oh my god, he'd give jobs to all of

396
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,359
Speaker 1: his relatives, a cousin or a nephew or a cousin

397
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:13,120
Speaker 1: of a nephew, Guys with no experience, and they'd piss

398
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:16,960
Speaker 1: everybody off. Stevie he's such a child, such a beautiful

399
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:19,399
Speaker 1: human being, but it was so sad you couldn't get

400
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 1: anything done. You'd go weeks months and you wouldn't hear

401
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:24,800
Speaker 1: from him. Then out of the blue, he'd call at

402
00:22:24,880 --> 00:22:27,520
Speaker 1: four am, because Stevie never sleeps, and he'd want to

403
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 1: record something, or he'd tell you to get to the

404
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 1: airport in an hour for a trip to wherever it

405
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:35,440
Speaker 1: had been decided he was going. It was Crazy Time magazine,

406
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: and a profile from around this time wrote, Life with

407
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:42,000
Speaker 1: Stevie is a circus of indecision, chaotic scheduling, and the

408
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 1: totally unexpected. They quoted a friend is saying, it's not

409
00:22:45,960 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 1: that he's a prima donna or purposefully rude. He just

410
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:51,840
Speaker 1: doesn't have days or nights, and he's seldom thinking more

411
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:54,920
Speaker 1: than ten minutes ahead. We'll talk more about this later,

412
00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 1: but there's a New Yorker profile on Stevie from nineteen

413
00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:00,080
Speaker 1: ninety five that have this amazing insight into it. A

414
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 1: sleep pattern. This indifference to the passage of time is

415
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 1: frequently traced to his blindness. Wonder is inclined to be

416
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: a little looser sleeping when he is tired, which maybe

417
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: in hours or half hours, snatched in planes or limos,

418
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 1: or he may drop off during an interview for Italian television,

419
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 1: as a Motown publicist told me he did in nineteen

420
00:23:19,160 --> 00:23:22,679
Speaker 1: ninety one. Time is altogether another type of trip for him,

421
00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:26,159
Speaker 1: Sereda write. His ex wife said, so, yeah, remember this

422
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:29,680
Speaker 1: as we talk about his punishing workload and insane schedule.

423
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: Michael Simbella has a great story about auditioning for Stevie

424
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:36,080
Speaker 1: Wonders band. He talks about he said, at the end

425
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties there was still this whole segregation

426
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: theme between blacks and whites. There's a great interview about

427
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: this album or oral history of this album for a

428
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 1: site called Okay Player Really in Depth, has a lot

429
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,640
Speaker 1: of stuff. Williams, Yeah, a lot of details I hadn't

430
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,639
Speaker 1: seen before. Most Motown bands didn't have more than one

431
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,360
Speaker 1: white player in their band. Stevie already had a white

432
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: trumpet player, and there was an argument going on in

433
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:00,440
Speaker 1: the corner of a studio. Ira Tucker, who was the sis,

434
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,200
Speaker 1: told Stevie, look, you don't realize you hired a white guy.

435
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 1: So Stevie motioned me to come over to him and

436
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 1: he said, hey, man, what's your sign. I didn't know

437
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: what he meant, so I thought he was asking me

438
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: what my nationality was, so I answered him, I'm Italian.

439
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: Stevie turned around and said, guys, he's Italian. He's not white.

440
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: He's in the band. Also in that article, drummer Raymond

441
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: Pounds were called going to Stevie's house to audition, and

442
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: Stevie greeting him by going, if you don't play good,

443
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:32,399
Speaker 1: we're going to kick your ass. Stevie is funny and

444
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: he does these really good impressions of people. You see

445
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: it in interviews and documentaries with them. His like generic

446
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: white dude voice is Eddie Murphy level. It's so funny,

447
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: it's so so good. And I think this was in

448
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 1: the New Yorker piece. A blind fan with a white

449
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 1: cane came up to him to get his picture taken

450
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 1: with him, and Stevie said, quick, take the picture before

451
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: I steal his stick. It's just like he has like

452
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 1: a real irreverence side. And I'm working on a podcast

453
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 1: right now. I think I'm allowed to say about the

454
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones nineteen seventy two tour of the United States,

455
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: where Stevie Wonder was the opening act and he used

456
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: to memorize the floor plans of the hotels where they

457
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: were staying and then walk around by himself in order

458
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,719
Speaker 1: to trick people into thinking he could see. And Lionel

459
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: Richie he tells this great story of a night when

460
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: he went to visit Stevie at his house and Stevie

461
00:25:22,040 --> 00:25:23,600
Speaker 1: told that he had a song that he wanted him

462
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: to hear on cassette, and Stevie was like, let's go

463
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: out to the car. So they go to the car

464
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: and Stevie gets in on the driver's side, and to

465
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: Lionel's horror, puts the car in reverse and starts to

466
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:37,880
Speaker 1: back down the driveway and they go a little ways

467
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 1: before Stevie's like, gotcha, Yes, So Stevie loves messing with people.

468
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:46,160
Speaker 1: Lionel said that he greets them every time he sees

469
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: Stevie by, and Stevie says, good to see you. So

470
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:53,959
Speaker 1: parts of songs in the Key of Life had been

471
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 1: in place as early as nineteen seventy four. There's a

472
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 1: really amazing performance by Wonder parts of Wonder Love Michael

473
00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:05,000
Speaker 1: Sombello's in there. Uh on the German TV show Music

474
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:09,680
Speaker 1: Laden Uh and they played Contusion. They play the really bruising,

475
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 1: bruising uh fusion track It's It's It's It's jazz Fusion,

476
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: and they talked about someone talks about like, oh they

477
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 1: that was Steve's being like, um, being interested by stuff

478
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: that like Chickoree and Herbie Hancock were doing and just

479
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 1: basically wanting to write a song that was like, oh yeah,

480
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: I'm not just like a singer. I also shred so

481
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: uh that that track had been in place as early

482
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: as nineteen seventy four, doesn't Contusion mean bruising it does.

483
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, the word play for you yeah um. And

484
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,439
Speaker 1: he was talking about the follow up to Fulfilling This's

485
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: First Finale, which he titled predictably Fulfilling This's Second Finale

486
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 1: UH to writers from Crawdaddy and Melody Maker in nineteen

487
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: seventy wards as well, but they were dark songs. One

488
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 1: was influence by the televised police ambush of the Symbionese

489
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: Liberation Army, who is a far left revolutionary group then

490
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:10,479
Speaker 1: on the run with Ariss Patricia Hurst, who they had

491
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: kidnapped and possibly brainwashed, and which many members of the

492
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: organization were killed in that ambush. Yeah. That song was

493
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: called the Future, which featured a cushionary line don't look

494
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 1: at the world like a stranger, because you know we're

495
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,440
Speaker 1: living in danger. And there was also another song for

496
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: that proposed album called Living off the Love of the Land,

497
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: which contain lyrics like seems the wisdom of man hasn't

498
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 1: got much wiser. Seems to me that fools are even

499
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: more foolish. Bomber and, perhaps wary of alienating his audience

500
00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: with such downer material, Wonder decided to scrap the songs

501
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: and start fresh with new concept. He initially titled it

502
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,119
Speaker 1: Let's See Life the Way It Is, but the final title,

503
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,159
Speaker 1: Songs in the Key of Life, came to him in

504
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: a dream. I'm not over the fact that there's a

505
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: missing Stevie Wonder album from his Imperial phase, not to

506
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,680
Speaker 1: mention the two hundred plus outtakes from Songs in the

507
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:08,160
Speaker 1: Key of Life and later in the seventies, the two

508
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 1: instrumental records he cut with the Meters. Right, and did

509
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 1: he do an album with Jeff Beck? I know there

510
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:18,159
Speaker 1: was an unreleased album with Jeff Beck on Motown. One

511
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: of my favorite things are like long lost albums, like

512
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 1: shelved album I did an article on like the most

513
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 1: mysterious unreleased Albums for Rolling Stone a long time ago,

514
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: and I know that there was a Jeff Beck Motown album.

515
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I mean, I know the story

516
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 1: about Superstition, which is that they wrote it together and

517
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: then and then Steve Yeah, this is good. Yeah, Jeff

518
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: Beck made a record for Motown in nineteen seventy, right,

519
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: and it's still shelved, right. Yeah. I don't think maybe

520
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: there'll be like a sunder thing or it will come

521
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: out now that he has passed. Oh it was James Jakes.

522
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: What that is? Why? Yeah? No, it's like it was

523
00:28:57,320 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: a Jamerson on base. Yeah, James Jamerson and bass earl

524
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: and Dyke on keyboards. Oh it was no joke, Like

525
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: I would do anything to hear that. Yeah, that's wild.

526
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: The title Songs in the Key of Life reflected Stevie's

527
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: desire to address a broader range of material. I challenged

528
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: myself to write as many different things as I could,

529
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: to cover as many topics as I could in dealing

530
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: with the title and representing what it was about, he

531
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 1: says in the classic album's documentary What's what We Do

532
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 1: on This show? The title would give me a challenge,

533
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: but equally important as a challenge, it would give me

534
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: an opportunity to express my feelings as a songwriter and

535
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: an artist. And right he did. John Fishbach, who co

536
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: engineered the majority of these sessions with Gary. Gary's name

537
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: at that point was Gary Olazabal. I believe he has

538
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: changed it. He's now going by Gary Adamte, but it

539
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: makes citing him very confusing. Why did he change it?

540
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's just named so the people on

541
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: podcast and have an easier time saying it maybe. Yeah.

542
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: Now in that Okay player thing, he's named Gary a Dampte,

543
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 1: and it took me a while to find that he

544
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: was the same Gary who was previously Gary Olazabal. Well,

545
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this. There are actually

546
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: only I think six Gary. It went on for two years,

547
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: almost every day, many hours, into huge amounts of material.

548
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: John Fischbach, who co engineered the majority of the sessions

549
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: with Gary Olazabal Andante, told Sound on Sound I guess

550
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 1: it was really his most prolific time. He did more

551
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: songs in those two years than I think he had

552
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: done before. Yeah. The whole emo of songs in the

553
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 1: Kilif can be found in the opening track Loves in

554
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 1: Need of Love Today, which kind of serve as like

555
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: a musical mission statement. Stevie told Mark Meyers, the author

556
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: of Anatomy of a Song. The concept that had in

557
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 1: mind was that for love to be effective, it has

558
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: to be fed. Love by itself is hollow. It's an

559
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: interesting sentiment. He came up with the initial concept for

560
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: the song on a cold day in nineteen seventy four,

561
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: when he was staying at a hotel in New York

562
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: City with Yolanda Simmons, who was pregnant with her daughter Ayisha,

563
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: who would be immortalized Isn't She Lovely? Which would get

564
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 1: too later, And then he started writing the song and

565
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: got bits of it down on a tape recorder. He said,

566
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: I just play and songs sort of happen. Like a painter.

567
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: I get my inspiration from experiences that can be painful

568
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: or beautiful. I always start from a feeling of profound gratitude.

569
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: You know, only by the grace of God am I hear,

570
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: And right from there it's good advice. I think most

571
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: songwriters are inspired by an inner voice in spirit. God

572
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: gave me this gift, and this particular song was a

573
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: message I was supposed to deliver. And the intro to

574
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: the song, you know, good morning or evening, friends, here's

575
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: your friendly announcer. I have serious news to pass on

576
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: to everybody. That came from a memory that Stevie had

577
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: of the church radio programs he used to listen to

578
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: when he was a child, and an announcer would come

579
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: on and say, good morning or good evening everyone in

580
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: radio land. I want to give you a message. And

581
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: you know that was the whole deal. Stevie said, My

582
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: inspiration for that song was the gospel quartets of the

583
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, like the one Sam Cook was in. When

584
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: I sang my final vocal on top of that song,

585
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: I imagine Sam in the studio with me, his spirit

586
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,719
Speaker 1: and energy. I wonder if they played together, they might

587
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 1: have Sam Cook shot in December sixty four. Yeah, that's

588
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: a question for Peter garralnick A. Yeah, actually, hold on,

589
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: have that biography. They played together at Blues under the Stars,

590
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: which was a concert at Wrigley Field in Chicago that

591
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: had like Marvin Gay and Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy and

592
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: A James and Sam, so they would have crossed paths.

593
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: There you have it. Thank you, Peter for all that

594
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: you do. As you meditate on that. We'll be right

595
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: back with more too much information after these messages. What

596
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: the hell are we talking about? Okay? Though the exact

597
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: count is unknown, Wonder claims to a recorded several hundred

598
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: tracks during the songs in the Key of Life sessions,

599
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: which is nuts, nearly all of which remain in the vaults.

600
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: That prince like figure is corroborated by Fishbach, who puts

601
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: the number at something like two hundred songs in various

602
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: stages of completion. Some would be sketched out, some are

603
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: more finished than others, and we just kept working until

604
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: we had what he wanted. And on top of the

605
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: songs that we mentioned earlier from the Fulfilling a Second

606
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: Finale project, not much is really known about these unreleased songs.

607
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: In May twenty fourteen, a snippet of a previously unheard

608
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: track called so Much in Love surfaced on the Internet

609
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: just in time for Stevie's sixty fourth birthday, and when

610
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: discussing just this incredible volume of unissued songs in the

611
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: Keylife material in that classic album's documentary, Stevie he couldn't

612
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: resist them as cheevy as he been discussing them, giving

613
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: hope to fans that you know will hopefully have some

614
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: kind of master plan for these lost gems from his

615
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: golden era. GARYA. Dancy told Sound on Sound that Wonder

616
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: is frighteningly spontaneous. When he starts writing a song, he

617
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: can hear its entire production as a finished piece in

618
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: his head. Obviously this changes as the song develops, but

619
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: in his mind he hears the finished master initially sitting

620
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: at the keyboard. He doesn't have a lyric, so he

621
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: might come up with a hook or an idea for chorus,

622
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: and everything will flow from there. Rob Arbidier, a keyboard

623
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:24,800
Speaker 1: player who started working with Stevie as a programmer in

624
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, added, Stevie has a better grasp of

625
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: what he's trying to accomplish than anyone else I've ever

626
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: worked with, And while he might not always express it

627
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: in a real obvious logical way, he knows when he

628
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 1: hears through his ears what he's hearing in his mind,

629
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,840
Speaker 1: and he knows how to steer something towards what it

630
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: wants to be. Fishbach told Tape Op magazine certain things

631
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: he'd lay on tape in a particular order that didn't

632
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: make any sense to me. He'd already hear it as

633
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 1: a complete song. He'd lay strange harmonies, and you'd be like,

634
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, and he'd tell you to shut up.

635
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: He had it sketched out in his head and to

636
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: just wait. Doubling vocals were pretty much useless because he

637
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 1: could double a vocal so perfectly you couldn't even tell

638
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 1: it was there. That's insane. As far as being a

639
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:10,359
Speaker 1: studio professional, I've never worked with anyone as in their

640
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,239
Speaker 1: element as Stevie. There are lots of bands that are great,

641
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: they play great, sing great, but you get them in

642
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: the studio and they're kind of lost. They don't know

643
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: how to work the mic. Stevie just has all the

644
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: nuances down. He knows how to control everything in the studio.

645
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: He is a brilliant man. Well, his ears, I mean,

646
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: his ears is that famous story, and I feel like

647
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: we talked about it on here, but I can't remember

648
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: one episode where his hearing was so acute. As is

649
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: often the case with people who are unfortunately can't see,

650
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: their brain compensates. It's like a neuroplasticity thing. He could

651
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: tell you the denomination of a coin by the sound

652
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: it made when it hit the floor. That's wild, like yeah,

653
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: and he would do it was like a party trick.

654
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: He would do as a little kid, be like okay, oh,

655
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,879
Speaker 1: that one's a dime, and then somebody family member would

656
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,120
Speaker 1: drop another one like that's a quarter. Yeah. I mean

657
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 1: for people who don't know, we didn't really talk too

658
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 1: much about this, but you know, there are tracks on

659
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: here where he plays everything. He plays drums, he plays keyboard, bass,

660
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,720
Speaker 1: he plays all the other keys, obviously all the singing.

661
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: He's a better bass player with his left hand than

662
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the world is with both of theirs.

663
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: And he didn't have any special setup I was reading

664
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,239
Speaker 1: he didn't really have any special setup for drums. He

665
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: learned how to play on a standard drum set, So

666
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: the only problem that they ever really had was sometimes

667
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: he would damage mikes by hitting them, but they said

668
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: he could just sit down at our standard drum set

669
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,720
Speaker 1: and just start ripping. Did he really play much guitar

670
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,800
Speaker 1: for some reason, I hear so much about rhythm instruments,

671
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: but I don't think he was. I don't think he

672
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: was as comfortable on guitar, And I think part of

673
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: his whole thing with synths was that they let him

674
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: kind of get single note guitar sounds without really having

675
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: to clav a chords. Yeah, without having to play guitar.

676
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 1: Dante said, there can definitely be frustrations working with him,

677
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 1: yet I've also never met another artist who can make

678
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: you forget about these so easily. He can keep people

679
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 1: waiting for hours or days, and then he'll show up

680
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 1: and they'll immediately forget about it, to which Rob Barbdier added,

681
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: that's a really annoying ability. He continued, he knows when

682
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: he finally gets there, it'll be worth the weight, whether

683
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: that's because the music is great or he's just such

684
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: an engaging personality. On that same topic, there's a great

685
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 1: passage from that New Yorker profile from nineteen ninety five.

686
00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: We keep mentioning that's the way it goes. A close

687
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,839
Speaker 1: friend of Stevie's once said, he's late. Everybody gets mad.

688
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 1: He turns up. It doesn't matter anymore. Despite Wonder's personal

689
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 1: genius being as reliable as ever, his musical team was

690
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: somewhat in flux. He abandoned the fruitful four year partnership

691
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: he developed with the producing and engineering team Robert margu

692
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,439
Speaker 1: Lef and Malcolm Cecil, who we will talk more about later,

693
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: and he elevated Lazabel Addante from assistant to main engineer

694
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: and paired him with Gary Fishbach, who owned LA's Crystal

695
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: Sound studios, where big chunks of songs were cut. Other

696
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 1: parts were done worked on at the record plants in

697
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: La and Scelito, and the Hit Factory in New York,

698
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,320
Speaker 1: and apparently they tracked some stuff at Bob Marley's studio

699
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: in Jamaica that has never come out. Nobody thought this

700
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:13,240
Speaker 1: project would go on as long as it did. Fishbuck

701
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: told Sound on sound Gary had made an arrangement with

702
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: another group to engineer their album and he couldn't get

703
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: out of it. So during the time he did that,

704
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 1: I worked alone with Stevie at the Hit Factory in

705
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:23,760
Speaker 1: New York for about a month and a half. Drummer

706
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: Raymond Pounds told Okay Player that he joined Wonders backing

707
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 1: band Wonderlove in spring of nineteen seventy four. We were

708
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: working on songs in the Key of Life as soon

709
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: as I got in the band and didn't realize it

710
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 1: until the album was done. After the second week I

711
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:39,399
Speaker 1: became his drummer, he called me on the phone and said,

712
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: I want you to come to the studio. I'm in

713
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: the studio. Pounds would show up at the studio just

714
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: to watch Wonder because frequently he wouldn't even end up

715
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: playing on the songs. He played the drums on all

716
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 1: his albums. He doesn't even let the drummers play on

717
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: his album. Most of the bass he also plays. When

718
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: I went up to the studio he was recording. Then

719
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: I started going to the studio with him. Some of

720
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: the songs he would develop there is She Lovely? We

721
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,719
Speaker 1: recorded a few songs that were sort of like that song,

722
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 1: and I realized later a couple of songs that he

723
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 1: wrote were parts of Isn't She Lovely? He would say, oh,

724
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: I take from that and I make a song out

725
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 1: of it. He was always recording. Once I started with

726
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: his band, he was recording all of the time. Why

727
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: would he call drummers, you know, sometimes insane hours. If he,

728
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 1: for the most part, intended to stract the drums himself,

729
00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 1: maybe you just see if they could do it in

730
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:29,399
Speaker 1: a way that would make It's probably the same reason

731
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: with the bass. I mean, he would write the bass

732
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 1: lines and then bring Dathan East in and be like,

733
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: all right, if you can play this and I like

734
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: that better than what I have, then we'll keep it.

735
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 1: But I guess in most cases he liked his own

736
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: drumming better. If you wanted to play in a song,

737
00:39:41,239 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: you had to hang around. Pounds continued. He'd created a

738
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 1: song and I'd say, hey, Stevie, can I play on

739
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: this one? Sometimes he would say yes. Most times he'd

740
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: say no, I'm going to play on it because I

741
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: know exactly what I want. But there was twenty one

742
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: songs on this album. I'm only on three. I had

743
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,760
Speaker 1: to beg because we were recording for three half years

744
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: before that album was finished. Every time he would write

745
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 1: a song, we would record it and finish it. I

746
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: played on a lot of songs. Then we come to

747
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: the studio the next night and he go check this out.

748
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: I wrote this song. It's going to replace so and

749
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: so all those good songs I'm playing on and they

750
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: kept getting bumped off the album frustrating well. With Stevie's

751
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: sleep schedule not dictated by sunlight, he would work for

752
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: up to forty eight hours on end, and Sabella said

753
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: it could sometimes be as much as three or four days.

754
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: Keyboard I could never says name Greg Fillings, filling Gaines,

755
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 1: filling keys, filling Gaines. I don't know. He's very famous.

756
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: I should know how to say his name. I feel bad.

757
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: But session keyboardist, legendary session keyboards, I should say Greg

758
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,879
Speaker 1: Filling Gaines said. There are sessions and then there's Stevie time.

759
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: We didn't have formal sessions. We went to the studio

760
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: and that was just where you were, and Stevie had

761
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: a mantra around this time. If my flow is going,

762
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 1: I keep on until I peak. And everyone seemingly associated

763
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: with these sessions has a story about Stevie's other worldly schedule.

764
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 1: Gary Byrd had a particularly stressful experience when he was

765
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: co writing the lyrics to the track Village Ghetto Land.

766
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 1: He told Stevie's biographer Mark Robowski, we wrote that song

767
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 1: in New York. Then he went to LA and I

768
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:23,800
Speaker 1: didn't speak to him for three months. Then suddenly he

769
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: calls at two am. Stevie has no idea about time

770
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: or time zones, and he never sleeps, and he says, hey,

771
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 1: I got to add a new verse. I'm in the studio,

772
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 1: call you back in ten minutes. Now. That was pressure,

773
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 1: good Lord Bassis Nathan Watts told Robowski for the Stevie Bio.

774
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: I had just gotten home and into bed, exhausted, when

775
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 1: Stevie called and said, I need you to come back.

776
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,359
Speaker 1: I've got this bad song. He had written an eighth

777
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: note keyboard bassline, and when I did it on the

778
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: bass guitar, Stevie liked it because he said it sounded angry. Well, yeah,

779
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: you bet it sounded angry because it was three am

780
00:41:58,040 --> 00:41:59,279
Speaker 1: and I had to come all the way back to

781
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,720
Speaker 1: the studio. In his interview with Okay player Nathan Watts

782
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: elaborates saying I Wish was a song that we never rehearsed.

783
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 1: He wrote the song in one day. I was there

784
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: with him the whole day and we did nothing that day.

785
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 1: I was there until one o'clock in the morning, and

786
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:17,800
Speaker 1: I told Stevie I was leaving because I was tired.

787
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:20,120
Speaker 1: He told me to go ahead and head home. He

788
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:22,160
Speaker 1: called me back at three thirty in the morning and

789
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 1: told me to come back to the studio. He said,

790
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 1: I got a song and it's gonna be good. You

791
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: gotta hear it. You have to play on it. I

792
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: finished my part at five o'clock in the morning and

793
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: went back home. That might not even be the craziest

794
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: bass part on the record, Sir Duke, which as written,

795
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,280
Speaker 1: does not have a note that was fredable on whatever

796
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 1: bass that Nathan Watts was playing, So he had to

797
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: hit the highest note available to him and then bend

798
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: up a half step, which is no joke on a

799
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 1: bass guitar. I think it's I think it's the high

800
00:42:56,560 --> 00:43:00,399
Speaker 1: note and you can hear it. Kind of not it out,

801
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: but you can hear it sound like a little bit

802
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: of a a squeeze. So it's just wild that he

803
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: had You don't You don't really do bends on bass

804
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 1: unless you're especially with like an R and B bass

805
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: set up where you're playing big heavy strings. Watts was

806
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 1: one of the newest additions to the band at this point.

807
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: He'dn't have been playing bass. I think he'd been playing

808
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: bass for like two years when Stevie hired him. Easy

809
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: Going Evening my Mom was called that song. That was

810
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: the first time he ever played upright bass. He learned

811
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 1: it just to record that song. How did he get well?

812
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: A that good and B He was playing a James

813
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: Jamerson song for his audition and then I guess Stevie

814
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 1: sprung contusion on him. Was like that was how Steve

815
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:41,960
Speaker 1: Stevie went through a boatload of bass players trying to

816
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 1: find a new one for Wonder Love, and he auditioned

817
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 1: Nathan wattson was ran through some old songs of his

818
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: and then he tried to He made him play try

819
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: and play follow him on Contusion, and Nathan Watts said

820
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 1: that he only got through it by um watching Stevie's

821
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: left hand and trying to catch his left hand as

822
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:04,439
Speaker 1: he played. All that stuff was just insane. Michael Simbello said,

823
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: for Sir Duke, we would basically sleep at the studio

824
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 1: most of the time. I remember falling asleep in the

825
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 1: vocal booth and I knew I had to do my

826
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: guitar part in the song. I would wake up every

827
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 1: few minutes and ask is it time? Yet they would

828
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: tell me no. Two days went by and it was

829
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: like six am, and Stevie said it's time. It was

830
00:44:25,719 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: a fun environment, though it was a busy environment. Drummer

831
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: Raymond Pounds told Okay player, the studio was blocked out

832
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 1: and everybody heard that Stevie Wonder was working on his album,

833
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:36,399
Speaker 1: so everybody came there. Barry Gordy dropped by to see

834
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: was going on. Diana Ross, Carol King, Andy Williams, Alex Haley,

835
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: author of Donna Summer, and Rick James used to come

836
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,920
Speaker 1: by before he got hits. Rick was a determined guy

837
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: who acted like a star before he was a star.

838
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 1: He used to come by the studio in a limousine

839
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:56,439
Speaker 1: because at that time in Los Angeles, anybody could rent

840
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: a limousine for twenty five an hour. With a five

841
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: hour minimum. He did that three or four times, and

842
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,279
Speaker 1: then later Rick James got a hit Rick James and

843
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 1: the Sixties. Was in that band with Neil Jone, the

844
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 1: Mining Birds, and then he got I think arrested for

845
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 1: going a wall yep from the Navy or Coastguard Navy. Yeah,

846
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and thirty

847
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: people worked on songs in the Key of Life. Some

848
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 1: of the biggest names are jazz luminaries like Herbie Hancock,

849
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: George Benson, uh Sneaky Pete Klein. Now my favorite La session.

850
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: Pedal Steel Vet Guy was in Flying Burrito Brothers and

851
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: the Birds and also throughout this time was pioneering the

852
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: art of stop motion animation. I've told you this before,

853
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 1: Yeah you have, and I forget what was this for,

854
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 1: like the Point or something. Gumby He composed the Gumby

855
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:51,280
Speaker 1: theme song and was and did work on Outer Limits,

856
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: Davey and Goliath song or the show The Show worked

857
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: on Gumby and Day David and Goliath, doing all this

858
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:02,960
Speaker 1: stop motion animation for them while also cutting Pedal Steel

859
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,439
Speaker 1: record on some of the most iconic records at the time.

860
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: So he's on there. Raymond Pounds maintains that Alice Friggin

861
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 1: Coltrane was brought into play harp on this. Um. I

862
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:17,800
Speaker 1: don't know if they knew each other. I this is

863
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 1: the only place that I saw this mentioned people. I

864
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: so we have him to take take his word on it.

865
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:26,400
Speaker 1: She was from Detroit. They would have been known quantities

866
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: to each other. Stevie listened to John Coltrane, so he

867
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:32,320
Speaker 1: would have known who Alice was. But he told okay

868
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,800
Speaker 1: player that when she showed up. She showed up to

869
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: play harp on if It's Magic, which is the song

870
00:46:37,320 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: that has harp. It's just harp and voice on the

871
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 1: on the record, And she showed up with her harp,

872
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,359
Speaker 1: and Raymond Pounds said Stevie kept trying to tell her

873
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: how he wanted her to play, and she said, well,

874
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 1: this is the way I hear it, this is what

875
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: I feel. But Stevie, if he called you in to

876
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 1: perform on his record and it wasn't working out, he

877
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: won't argue with you and say I'm the producer, you

878
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,759
Speaker 1: need to do this. He'd just say okay, he let

879
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: let's play. And then he told her great, thank you.

880
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 1: Raymond Pounds pitched another black female harpist who is cutting

881
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,759
Speaker 1: jazz records at this time, probably the only other one

882
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:14,919
Speaker 1: woman named Dorothy Ashby, whose records are great. You should

883
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 1: check out her stuff. She came in and she is

884
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 1: the one who plays on that song. There's a really

885
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 1: good version. I heard it, I think first on the

886
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: classic album's documentary and I think it's floating around on

887
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: YouTube or something of if it's magic without harp but

888
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 1: instead of harps, Stevie playing a grand piano and it's

889
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 1: really beautiful. Yeah, like wasted it. Among the other people

890
00:47:55,160 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: who contributed, Loving You, vocalist Minnie Ripperton whistle magister Rudolph's dad. Yeah, Mom,

891
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: I mean a guitarist named WG. Snuffy Walden who would

892
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:09,279
Speaker 1: go on to win an Emmy for writing the theme

893
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:14,360
Speaker 1: song to the West Wing. And Bob Dylan's secret second wife,

894
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 1: Carolyn Dennis, friend of the pod. Bob Dylan's secret second

895
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: wife daily mail headline, Well, this is the woman he

896
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 1: was married to and had a child with, and nobody

897
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:26,359
Speaker 1: knew until there was a Dylan biography that came out

898
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 1: and the biographer had uncovered it. Oh my god. They

899
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: have since divorced. One guest spot that didn't happen. According

900
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:39,879
Speaker 1: to GARYA. Dante Oldzibal, He says Frank Zappa was brought

901
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: in to contribute guitar for All Day Sucker. I went

902
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: to Frank Zappa, who I had a relationship with because

903
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: I had worked with him on a few things. I

904
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: liked Frank and we tried it. He was amazing, but

905
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 1: it was one punch that he couldn't replay what was

906
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 1: on the track. It just really wasn't as great as

907
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,800
Speaker 1: we'd hoped it would be. So Frank Zappa is thanked

908
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,319
Speaker 1: in the liner notes to songs in the Key of Life,

909
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 1: which is something that has baffled people for years. When

910
00:49:04,719 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 1: I was researching this, there's all these like Steve Hoffman

911
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: forums and like writ it forums where people were like,

912
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: why is Frank Zappa thanked in the liner notes for

913
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 1: songs in the Key of Life? And a bunch of

914
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: people were like, well, maybe he loaned Stevie like keyboards

915
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,000
Speaker 1: or equipment or whatever. Maybe they you know, it is

916
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 1: because he came into play and his contributions were canned.

917
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: Another fun set of guests were the Harry Krishna's friend

918
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:36,360
Speaker 1: They sing on the end of Belief of pastime Paradise,

919
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 1: John Fishbach told the sound on sound GARYA. Dante rounded

920
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:42,359
Speaker 1: them up on a Hollywood boulevard. We decided it would

921
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 1: be great to have them on the song, so we

922
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: went and talked to a bunch of those people and

923
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:48,240
Speaker 1: Nate arrangements for them to come to the studio. GARYA.

924
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 1: Dante picks up the story. Crystal Studios was located on

925
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: the east side of Hollywood, and they walked in a

926
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: line all the way from the Self Realization Fellowship, which

927
00:49:56,239 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 1: I believe is a decent distance away. There must have

928
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 1: been about one hundred of them chanting and praying as

929
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:04,400
Speaker 1: they showed up to perform on the song. But Stevie

930
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: never showed up. We didn't know what to do, so

931
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:08,879
Speaker 1: we just let them go into the studio. The main

932
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: room was not very live sounding, but it was very big. Well.

933
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: They were in there for hours chanting. They didn't really

934
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: interact much in any other way, and when Stevie didn't appear,

935
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: we knew they'd have to walk all the way back

936
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: and return another day. There was not a lot of

937
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 1: hostility except from us. It wasn't easy to listen to

938
00:50:26,719 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: that chanting for our son end and I guess like

939
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: Harry christ was, weren't the only choir on that track.

940
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,440
Speaker 1: There was also the West Angelo's Church of God choir

941
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:38,879
Speaker 1: that sings on the outo of Pastime Paradise as well.

942
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: No word on whether or not they also walked there

943
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: from their church. Two other prominent guests on the record,

944
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:49,840
Speaker 1: making it a family affair Wonder's daughter first daughter, Aisha Morris,

945
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 1: who can be heard on Isn't She Lovely? Frolicking in

946
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: a Bath? They recorded at their home in New York.

947
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 1: So cute. The baby heard at the beginning of the song, though,

948
00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 1: is not Aisha. Yeah. Apparently it's the sound of a

949
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:05,880
Speaker 1: baby being born that Stevie got from a doctor friend.

950
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: He called him at three thirty the morning. He was like,

951
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 1: I need the sound of a baby being born. Run

952
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 1: it down to the studio. Want you want the sound

953
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 1: of a baby being born, dude, I can get you.

954
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:16,959
Speaker 1: Can get you the sound of a baby being born, dude.

955
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 1: A cute story about this song. It was performed in

956
00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen by Neo at one of those all Star

957
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: Grammy Salute tribute concert things, and he was joined midway

958
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:30,440
Speaker 1: through by Aisha Morris, surprising Stevie, who didn't expect to

959
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: hear his daughter's voice that night, so that was cute.

960
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 1: I Wish is also a family affair. That is, that's

961
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: maybe my favorite song on this I Wish. That song

962
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 1: goes so hard it pisces me off to nowhere say

963
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 1: even after Will Smith yes that I heard Wild Wild

964
00:51:45,320 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: West before I heard I Wish. So now it's just

965
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: inextricably like in my brain stem before this version of

966
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: the song, the original version of this song. One of

967
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 1: the many reasons I'll never forgive Will Smith sunshine that

968
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: and just like with enough alcohol, that's wonders sister Renee

969
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 1: Hardaway delivering the punched in line, you nasty boy, I

970
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:13,880
Speaker 1: could have splice that out, and he said, as the

971
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 1: sound whenever he text me, I love the reason that

972
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:22,520
Speaker 1: he wrote or I guess rewrote. I Wish reportedly the

973
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 1: last song completed for Songs in the Keio Life. Originally,

974
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 1: it's lyrics dealt with war and to quote him, cosmic

975
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:32,800
Speaker 1: spiritual stuff, including the Eastern religious concept of the wheel

976
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:37,080
Speaker 1: of eighty four. Google it. Then Stevie attended the Motown

977
00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: Company picnic, which is adorable. It was chock full of

978
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: contests and games, and you know, I mean, Motown had

979
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 1: basically been Stevie's Grammars school. He's a child star, and

980
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: this fun afternoon triggered a whole wave of nostalgia and

981
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,279
Speaker 1: it came out in this song I Wish, And he

982
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 1: later said, I had such a great time at the

983
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: picnic that I want the Crystal Recording studios right afterward,

984
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,799
Speaker 1: and the vibe came right into my mind. And there's

985
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:03,520
Speaker 1: also the track on the songs in the Key of

986
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:07,879
Speaker 1: Life bonus EP Saturn, and that also began a sort

987
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: of a fond look backwards for Stevie. The lyrical location

988
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 1: was originally Saginaw, which was Stevie's Michigan birthplace, and so

989
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 1: the song was intended to be an homage to his hometown,

990
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:20,399
Speaker 1: sort of in the mold of the Jackson Fives going

991
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: back to Indiana, But the song was shifted into outer

992
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 1: space when Mike Sambello, the g session guitarist, misheard the

993
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 1: title as Saturn. You know, And it kind of works

994
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: because much like the past, Saturn is described as this

995
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:38,799
Speaker 1: idealized utopia just out of reach. So in a way

996
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:41,280
Speaker 1: it kind of is. It comes from the same emotionally

997
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:45,400
Speaker 1: authentic place. I hate that song. That's my least favorite

998
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 1: song on this record. Yeah, People's unsaturned. People lived to

999
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: be two hundred five years old. What I know? I

1000
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: know the traces of Stevie's family and personal history really

1001
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:00,279
Speaker 1: can be found all over the album. And adition to

1002
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 1: the family members we mentioned earlier, Stevie's brother Calvin Hardaway,

1003
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 1: who I think is the one we talked about earlier,

1004
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 1: who to be an account I co wrote have a

1005
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 1: Talk with God? And also Stevie's former wife, Serta Wright,

1006
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:17,839
Speaker 1: provides the backing vocals on Ordinary Pain. That's a great song.

1007
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:23,440
Speaker 1: That songs incredible. Were really talk enough about um knocks

1008
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:25,800
Speaker 1: me off my feet. I don't think there's any anecdotes

1009
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:27,719
Speaker 1: we have about that song. But that song rules. Let

1010
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:29,640
Speaker 1: me see if it's in the Okay player thing. Oh no,

1011
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to work for you. It's just I

1012
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 1: just want to say that song rules. It's a good song.

1013
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: Let's see this. The cover the art for this is

1014
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:41,319
Speaker 1: Stevie and his cowboy outfit. I always wonder, what's uh

1015
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: does he tell people how to dress him? I don't know,

1016
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 1: you know, I was wondering that, like because you see

1017
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: his style change so abruptly from the sixties of the seventies. Yeah, yeah,

1018
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:52,759
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know, and do people like they

1019
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 1: described the clothes to him and then it's so nuanced though,

1020
00:54:57,680 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, I mean, maybe he just has

1021
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:02,879
Speaker 1: people that he us to be like, you know, make

1022
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 1: me look cool. And then yeah, conceptually, when he started

1023
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:09,440
Speaker 1: getting into like the chikis and braids, it was like, no,

1024
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:12,040
Speaker 1: this is more authentic to the place that we are,

1025
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: you know, from historically and ancestrally, and maybe he just

1026
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:17,080
Speaker 1: thought that was really cool. It was like, yeah, I

1027
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:19,360
Speaker 1: want to I want to embrace that. And then he's like,

1028
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 1: and Nan, I want to be at Cowboys. We're gonna

1029
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:26,320
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back with

1030
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: more too much information in just a moment. Songs is

1031
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 1: in a really touching way. Equally, I wrote haunted, but

1032
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: I want to say informed by or visited haunted seems

1033
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 1: too negative. Um infused, infused by Yeah, but all the

1034
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 1: people that Steve was influenced by, um, you know. Gary

1035
00:55:56,239 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: and Dante told Okay Player that a few days before

1036
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 1: Stevie was going to record the vocal for Loves and

1037
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:07,520
Speaker 1: Need of Love Today, Jackie Wilson, who was, you know,

1038
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:10,800
Speaker 1: one of the most iconic soul singers of the sixties,

1039
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:16,360
Speaker 1: had collapsed on stage, and Gary continues that Jackie was

1040
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:19,480
Speaker 1: in the hospital. Stevie was really super emotional because he

1041
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:21,239
Speaker 1: thought that Jackie wasn't going to come out of it.

1042
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 1: Stevie would sing a line or so, and we had

1043
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:25,919
Speaker 1: to stop recording and turn off the mic several times

1044
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:27,839
Speaker 1: just to get through it because he would get over

1045
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: emotional and couldn't carry on. I will always remember that

1046
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: it wasn't anxiety. It was just hard to witness. That's

1047
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you don't forget. Stevie kept saying,

1048
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 1: I've gotten all these Grammys, I've gotten all these accolades,

1049
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:42,200
Speaker 1: and Jackie Wilson never got any of that. He felt

1050
00:56:42,239 --> 00:56:44,759
Speaker 1: like it was this guy who is obviously somebody that

1051
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: Stevie looked up to and emulated, possibly that never received

1052
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 1: the respect that he deserved. Yeah, that was a really

1053
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 1: sad situation for Jackie Wilson. He collapsed on stage after

1054
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: suffering a massive heart attack right in the middle of

1055
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 1: the song Lonely Tear Drops, and he fell to the

1056
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 1: floor just after seeking the line my heart is crying,

1057
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: and the crowd went nuts because they thought it was

1058
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:08,759
Speaker 1: part of the act. And he was incapacitated for the

1059
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 1: rest of his life. And I think he died very young.

1060
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 1: I want to say. I think he died in nineteen

1061
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: eighty four, and for a time his medical bills were

1062
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 1: covered by Elvis Presley. I don't really know what their

1063
00:57:18,840 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 1: connection was, but I guess see. Jackie Wilson used to

1064
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 1: always drink a lot of water and take salt tablets

1065
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:27,560
Speaker 1: before going on stage because it made him sweat profusely,

1066
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 1: and he told Elvis, oh, yeah, yeah, the ladies love

1067
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: love the sweat. Maybe I don't I don't know if

1068
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 1: that had anything to do with you know, sodium makes

1069
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 1: your blood pressure spike. I don't know if that had

1070
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 1: something to do it or not. But yeah, but we

1071
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier the Joyful Tribute to Jazz icon Duke Ellington.

1072
00:57:46,600 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 1: Sir Duke Ellington died in May of nineteen seventy four,

1073
00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:52,080
Speaker 1: and he had been an early musical role model to Stevie,

1074
00:57:52,120 --> 00:57:53,960
Speaker 1: but the pair never had an opportunity to work together.

1075
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:57,080
Speaker 1: Stevie said, I knew the title from the beginning, but

1076
00:57:57,120 --> 00:57:59,040
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be about the musicians who did

1077
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 1: something for us so soon they are forgotten, and I

1078
00:58:02,040 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 1: wanted to show my appreciation. He named checks Count Basie,

1079
00:58:05,400 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, although Count Basie and

1080
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 1: Ella Fitzgerald were still alive at the time, and some

1081
00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: believe that Ebony Eyes, with its lyrical reference to a

1082
00:58:17,160 --> 00:58:21,920
Speaker 1: mis beautiful Supreme, is an ode to wonders childhood infatuation

1083
00:58:22,520 --> 00:58:25,520
Speaker 1: with his Motown label mate Diana Ross, who's a few

1084
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:27,960
Speaker 1: years older than him. I had a crush on her,

1085
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:29,960
Speaker 1: he admitted to Vanity Fair in two thousand and eight.

1086
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: When I came to Motown, she walked me around the

1087
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:35,440
Speaker 1: building and she showed me different things. She was wonderful.

1088
00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 1: But there's also this theory that the tune is actually

1089
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,840
Speaker 1: a tribute to another Supreme, Florence Ballard, who had died

1090
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:45,000
Speaker 1: in February nineteen seventy six of cardiac arrest at the

1091
00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: age of thirty two. She had been fired from the

1092
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 1: trio nine years earlier for erratic behavior stemming from substance

1093
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 1: abuse and her resentment over being usurped by Diana Ross

1094
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 1: as the band's frontwoman. It was actually Florence Ballard that

1095
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:01,320
Speaker 1: came up with the name Supreme. I think the original

1096
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,760
Speaker 1: name was the Primates. Yeah, and there and her career

1097
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:12,120
Speaker 1: never recovered. She was dragged down by lawsuits, domestic assault incidents, poverty, alcoholism,

1098
00:59:13,160 --> 00:59:16,480
Speaker 1: and wonder would have been as acquainted with Florence Ballard

1099
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 1: as he had with Diana Ross and her death recent enough,

1100
00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:22,720
Speaker 1: you know, to where on his mind and memorializing her

1101
00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,520
Speaker 1: in the song and placing her in the lineage of

1102
00:59:25,560 --> 00:59:28,560
Speaker 1: the other black artists that he mentions and on the

1103
00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: record would have been a very Stevie thing to do. Yeah,

1104
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:35,120
Speaker 1: you know, he's writing songs about all aspects of life

1105
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: and including death. Found a lot of really interesting stuff

1106
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: about Stevie's keyboard style researching this episode. A lot of

1107
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 1: his songs, especially on this record, are written keys that

1108
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:47,880
Speaker 1: make extensive use of the black keys and the piano

1109
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:52,479
Speaker 1: G flat E flat minor B major D flat major.

1110
00:59:53,360 --> 00:59:55,560
Speaker 1: We've talked a little bit before about the pentatonic scale,

1111
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 1: which is the basic five note organizational melodic grouping that

1112
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:02,640
Speaker 1: is common to pretty much every culture across the world.

1113
01:00:03,720 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 1: But the black keys and the piano, starting with the

1114
01:00:05,960 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 1: F sharp and slash G flat key, form a major

1115
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 1: pentatonic scale. So a lot of blues gospel music is

1116
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:17,960
Speaker 1: written in those keys. There's a lot of gospels like

1117
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 1: if you if you watch a lot of gospel piano

1118
01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: tutorials as I have, those guys play in F sharp

1119
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 1: a lot. And another reason that those that those kinds

1120
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:30,920
Speaker 1: of music are written with that is because you can glisz.

1121
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: You can hammer down from the black keys to the

1122
01:00:33,960 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 1: white keys to kind of mimic like the bends that

1123
01:00:36,160 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 1: you would get on blues guitar, and that it's not

1124
01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 1: quite as easy to do that going up from a

1125
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 1: white key to a black key. So there's different physical

1126
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:47,680
Speaker 1: things that play into that, and the glissandos that you

1127
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:49,800
Speaker 1: can do, the kind of dragging your fingers up. The

1128
01:00:49,920 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: keys work differently in key signatures that are heavily feature

1129
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:57,440
Speaker 1: the black keys, so that's another thing that goes into it.

1130
01:00:57,880 --> 01:01:02,840
Speaker 1: And for a blind person, Stevie, you can navigate those

1131
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: keys more easily by touch because they are raised. And

1132
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:10,720
Speaker 1: I read a really interesting comparison about him and Ray Charles.

1133
01:01:11,360 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: Ray Charles had started playing music when he was three

1134
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: and didn't fully lose his sight until he was seven,

1135
01:01:18,000 --> 01:01:21,360
Speaker 1: and so he could read braille sheet music. He had

1136
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 1: been taught to read Braill sheet music and would have

1137
01:01:24,280 --> 01:01:27,000
Speaker 1: to read it with one hand. He would read it

1138
01:01:27,080 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 1: with his right hand and learn the left hand part

1139
01:01:29,240 --> 01:01:31,840
Speaker 1: of the piano piece, and then switch over and read

1140
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:33,800
Speaker 1: with his left hand and learn the right hand part

1141
01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 1: of the piece. But it was so labor intensive that

1142
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:37,640
Speaker 1: he preferred to learn by ear and memorize all of

1143
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:40,560
Speaker 1: his all of his songs. And Stevie had been blind

1144
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:43,880
Speaker 1: from birth, so he learned pretty much by touch and

1145
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: feel and ears. And so the contrasting thing with this

1146
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 1: is is that stuff like country music and other pop

1147
01:01:52,320 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 1: pianists don't focus as much on those keys. You know

1148
01:01:56,360 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: Elton John by example, some of his songs like Tiny Dancer.

1149
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:02,840
Speaker 1: I guess that's why they call it the Blues. Saturday

1150
01:02:02,920 --> 01:02:05,640
Speaker 1: Night's all right, Daniel. Those are all in C major,

1151
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: which are the entirety the key signature that uses only

1152
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:12,800
Speaker 1: the white keys crocodile rock bending the jets. Those are

1153
01:02:12,840 --> 01:02:16,280
Speaker 1: in G major, which only has one black key in it,

1154
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:20,200
Speaker 1: the F sharp. Funnily enough, Irving Berlin, though, is famous

1155
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,680
Speaker 1: enough for only playing the black keys of his piano,

1156
01:02:23,040 --> 01:02:25,760
Speaker 1: to the point that he had a transposing piano built

1157
01:02:26,040 --> 01:02:28,560
Speaker 1: so he could always play in the key of F sharp.

1158
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:31,960
Speaker 1: That's insane to me. I was looking that up trying

1159
01:02:32,000 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 1: to see, so what is it? Is it just that

1160
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: like if you play what looks like a middle C

1161
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:39,560
Speaker 1: note on the piano, it's actually the sound that it's

1162
01:02:39,600 --> 01:02:41,640
Speaker 1: making is an F sharp I think I didn't. I

1163
01:02:41,640 --> 01:02:44,720
Speaker 1: didn't look into it as much as you did. I mean,

1164
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:47,160
Speaker 1: it's funny. It's interesting because if you do sit at

1165
01:02:47,160 --> 01:02:50,640
Speaker 1: a piano, you know you and you're just playing the

1166
01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:53,200
Speaker 1: black keys, like you can kind of start to sound

1167
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:57,400
Speaker 1: like you're playing, you know, melodies pretty easily because that's

1168
01:02:57,440 --> 01:02:59,920
Speaker 1: just the pentatonic scale. That's the way that that's kind

1169
01:02:59,920 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 1: of arranged. Curtis Mayfield, who also grew up kind of

1170
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:06,680
Speaker 1: singing in church, and even though he was primarily a

1171
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 1: guitar player, he actually tuned his guitar to mimic the

1172
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:16,240
Speaker 1: F sharp major pentatonic scale, which was pretty unusual in

1173
01:03:16,560 --> 01:03:19,800
Speaker 1: as far as being the soul kind of R and

1174
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:24,040
Speaker 1: B guitar. You mostly hear open tuned guitars in like

1175
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:27,200
Speaker 1: rural blues or or electric blues. You don't really hear

1176
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:29,480
Speaker 1: like a lot of the Motown stuff is in standard tuning,

1177
01:03:29,600 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 1: So that's a little a little digression there. I don't know,

1178
01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:38,840
Speaker 1: that's all neat. This sneakier side, though, of Stevie's keyboard

1179
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:42,000
Speaker 1: legacy is how he was involved with just decades of

1180
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:46,400
Speaker 1: technological advancements in the industry. Superstition is like the most

1181
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:52,200
Speaker 1: recognizable song played on a clavinet period, right, Cripple Creek

1182
01:03:52,320 --> 01:03:56,520
Speaker 1: is maybe number two, But he told a website called

1183
01:03:56,600 --> 01:03:58,880
Speaker 1: kron dot com that the clavinet was my electric guitar.

1184
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:01,120
Speaker 1: There would have been no other way to get that sound.

1185
01:04:01,320 --> 01:04:04,800
Speaker 1: No other synthesizer had that snap. Other synthesizers are more

1186
01:04:04,920 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: accessible and not as difficult to keep in tune, but

1187
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:09,400
Speaker 1: you can bend the notes on them. You can't bend

1188
01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:12,400
Speaker 1: them on a clavinet. Nothing is as raw sounding as

1189
01:04:12,440 --> 01:04:15,240
Speaker 1: a real clavinet. And the reason that that instrument sounds

1190
01:04:15,240 --> 01:04:17,640
Speaker 1: the way that does is because their keys are hammering

1191
01:04:17,880 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 1: strings with like an electric piano, they're hammering ties, and

1192
01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 1: obviously on a grand piano they're hammering, you know, eight

1193
01:04:30,160 --> 01:04:32,960
Speaker 1: feet of strings in some cases, but on a clavinet

1194
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 1: they are hammering shorter strings, and those vibrations are picked

1195
01:04:37,080 --> 01:04:39,120
Speaker 1: up by a pickup that works the same way to

1196
01:04:39,200 --> 01:04:43,200
Speaker 1: an electric guitar, so you get that really bitey, insistent attack.

1197
01:04:44,480 --> 01:04:47,360
Speaker 1: And then the other half of all of this is

1198
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:52,640
Speaker 1: Stevie's interest in synthesizers and keyboard technology. A big part

1199
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 1: of that early side of his seventies sound was a

1200
01:04:55,760 --> 01:04:59,920
Speaker 1: device called Tonto, which is an acronym for the original

1201
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:03,920
Speaker 1: all New Timbrel Orchestra, and that this device was the

1202
01:05:04,280 --> 01:05:06,520
Speaker 1: brainchild of the engineers who he mentioned at the top

1203
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:10,360
Speaker 1: of the episode, Robert Margot Left and Malcolm Cecil. Tonto

1204
01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:13,760
Speaker 1: began in nineteen sixty eight when Margot Left bought a Mogue,

1205
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:17,520
Speaker 1: one of the first complete systems that Mogue was marketing

1206
01:05:17,560 --> 01:05:18,640
Speaker 1: as a synth. You know, it was one of the

1207
01:05:18,680 --> 01:05:23,120
Speaker 1: first people to buy a Moog. Nickey Dolans are the Monkeys. Yeah,

1208
01:05:23,160 --> 01:05:25,440
Speaker 1: Stevie was really interested in keyboard sounds. I mean, there's

1209
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:27,640
Speaker 1: a whole thing where he h You know, he showed

1210
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:31,240
Speaker 1: up at Wendy Carlos's place in New York after Switchedean

1211
01:05:31,240 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 1: Bach came out wanted to talk to her about synth sounds,

1212
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:37,520
Speaker 1: and so Margot Left met Malcolm Cecil or Cecil who

1213
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:39,680
Speaker 1: is a bassist in London. I mean He had been

1214
01:05:39,720 --> 01:05:42,720
Speaker 1: a co founder of the Blues Incorporated, which is one

1215
01:05:42,760 --> 01:05:46,680
Speaker 1: of the big sort of finishing schools for young London

1216
01:05:46,800 --> 01:05:50,760
Speaker 1: blues musicians. Jack Bruce is in there. Charlie Watts, Ginger Baker,

1217
01:05:51,360 --> 01:05:54,040
Speaker 1: and Malcolm Cecil had also been the principal basis for

1218
01:05:54,080 --> 01:05:57,040
Speaker 1: the BBC's Radio Orchestra, but he moved to New York.

1219
01:05:57,160 --> 01:05:59,040
Speaker 1: That's where he met Margot Left and the two of

1220
01:05:59,080 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 1: them barked on this Tonto project where they were going

1221
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:05,960
Speaker 1: to create all the sounds of an orchestra with synthesizers,

1222
01:06:06,480 --> 01:06:12,560
Speaker 1: and they basically incorporated modules from other synth companies like Oberheim, Mogue,

1223
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:17,920
Speaker 1: arp Ems and just stuff that they designed and controlled

1224
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: all of these with a computer that Cecil designed himself

1225
01:06:22,280 --> 01:06:25,720
Speaker 1: to basically get all of these synth modules to work

1226
01:06:25,760 --> 01:06:28,000
Speaker 1: in tandem. This thing was the size of a room

1227
01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:32,720
Speaker 1: and they put together a recording project called Tonto's Expanding

1228
01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:36,720
Speaker 1: Headband and released a record called Zero Time, which got

1229
01:06:36,800 --> 01:06:39,080
Speaker 1: reviews and Rolling Stone and came to the attention of

1230
01:06:39,120 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder. Stevie is also one of the first people

1231
01:06:41,600 --> 01:06:44,720
Speaker 1: to own the Fairlight CMI in nineteen seventy nine, which

1232
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:47,880
Speaker 1: is the one of the early samplers. I mean you

1233
01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:50,280
Speaker 1: mentioned Wendy Carlos a moment ago. I'm guessing she was

1234
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:54,080
Speaker 1: probably a big inspiration for Past Time Paradise because that

1235
01:06:54,480 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: borrows the first I think eight notes from Johan Savastan

1236
01:06:58,120 --> 01:07:01,720
Speaker 1: Bok's Prelude number two in c although I guess Stevie

1237
01:07:01,760 --> 01:07:03,600
Speaker 1: said he wanted it to be like a really spiky

1238
01:07:03,800 --> 01:07:09,640
Speaker 1: string figure, kind of like eleanor Rigby. Cecil Cecil Cecil.

1239
01:07:09,880 --> 01:07:12,680
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, dude, I don't know your name. Bite. Oh oh,

1240
01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:14,760
Speaker 1: I'm talking to him, not you. I know your name,

1241
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:22,560
Speaker 1: is it Cecil? I think in England at Cecil? Yeah, okay, well,

1242
01:07:22,680 --> 01:07:26,640
Speaker 1: Malcolm was apparently said that Stevie was apparently quite taken

1243
01:07:26,680 --> 01:07:28,640
Speaker 1: by the idea that this was a keyboard instrument that

1244
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:31,360
Speaker 1: he could possibly play that made all these sounds. This

1245
01:07:31,520 --> 01:07:33,840
Speaker 1: is he told the BBC in a twenty interview he

1246
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:35,520
Speaker 1: was tired of having to play his songs to an

1247
01:07:35,560 --> 01:07:37,760
Speaker 1: arranger who would then go away and write the arrangement

1248
01:07:38,040 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: and record the track with the band, called Stevie in

1249
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:42,760
Speaker 1: after it was recorded, tell him where he had to sing,

1250
01:07:43,000 --> 01:07:44,680
Speaker 1: what he had to sing, and then send him away

1251
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: while they did the mix. And Stevie said it sounded

1252
01:07:47,320 --> 01:07:49,280
Speaker 1: nothing like what the sound sounded like in his head.

1253
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:53,320
Speaker 1: Stevie told A and E's biography, the reason I got

1254
01:07:53,360 --> 01:07:55,760
Speaker 1: involved with the synthesizer was because I had ideas in

1255
01:07:55,840 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 1: my head and I wanted those ideas to be heard.

1256
01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:00,600
Speaker 1: And I could have Bob and Malcolm in various programmers

1257
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:02,400
Speaker 1: that I worked with, kind of create the sound that

1258
01:08:02,440 --> 01:08:04,880
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear in my head. So their first

1259
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:08,920
Speaker 1: collaboration on Music of My Mind, Stevie plays everything except

1260
01:08:08,960 --> 01:08:13,520
Speaker 1: for guitar and trombone through this Tontos system. But sadly,

1261
01:08:13,720 --> 01:08:17,520
Speaker 1: even as their creative partnership continued with Talking book Intervisions

1262
01:08:17,600 --> 01:08:21,760
Speaker 1: and Fulfillingness's first finale, Cecil and Margotle were kind of

1263
01:08:21,800 --> 01:08:24,959
Speaker 1: written out of it. They never got thanked at the Grammys.

1264
01:08:25,479 --> 01:08:28,360
Speaker 1: They were essentially co producers on these records, but they

1265
01:08:28,439 --> 01:08:31,120
Speaker 1: really only got thanked for their synthesizer contributions in the

1266
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:36,639
Speaker 1: liner notes, and perhaps even most tragically, in Rabowski's book,

1267
01:08:37,240 --> 01:08:40,320
Speaker 1: Malcolm recalls on the very first day, and I'll never

1268
01:08:40,439 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 1: forget this, Stevie told us, I want you to be

1269
01:08:43,560 --> 01:08:46,479
Speaker 1: directors of my company. Oh, and I also want you

1270
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 1: to get a point on my records, and obviously that

1271
01:08:49,400 --> 01:08:52,839
Speaker 1: never happened. The relationship between the three of them soured

1272
01:08:53,000 --> 01:08:57,040
Speaker 1: during the sessions for Fulfillingness's first finale, and so by

1273
01:08:57,080 --> 01:08:59,120
Speaker 1: the time they get to working on songs in the

1274
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:01,160
Speaker 1: Key of Life, or by the time Stevie gets to

1275
01:09:01,240 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 1: working on songs in the Key of Life, sons them

1276
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:07,920
Speaker 1: you needed a new keyboard toy. And what a toy

1277
01:09:08,040 --> 01:09:11,880
Speaker 1: it was. This toy was a state of the art

1278
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:17,120
Speaker 1: analog synthesizer called the Yamaha GX one. And please everybody

1279
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:20,040
Speaker 1: pause this, go google it. It is quite a sight.

1280
01:09:20,600 --> 01:09:25,400
Speaker 1: The enormous instrument boasted three keyboards, multi octave foot pedals,

1281
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:28,840
Speaker 1: a ribbon controller, a whole galaxy of buttons to recall

1282
01:09:29,000 --> 01:09:32,120
Speaker 1: sounds and modulate pitches, and there was even a built

1283
01:09:32,200 --> 01:09:36,400
Speaker 1: in bench. Greg Field and Cheez later said, with only

1284
01:09:36,520 --> 01:09:40,600
Speaker 1: slight hyperbole, it could house a family of eight. It

1285
01:09:40,880 --> 01:09:46,040
Speaker 1: was huge. It's very impressive. The Yamaha GX one was

1286
01:09:46,080 --> 01:09:48,639
Speaker 1: retailing at the time in the mid seventies for sixty

1287
01:09:48,800 --> 01:09:52,840
Speaker 1: grand or three hundred and twenty thousand dollars adjusted for inflation.

1288
01:09:54,040 --> 01:09:57,960
Speaker 1: It was intended basically as a prototype for more consumer

1289
01:09:58,040 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 1: oriented synthesizers, so a handful of these were ever made,

1290
01:10:01,520 --> 01:10:04,800
Speaker 1: let alone sold. One of these synthesizes landed in the

1291
01:10:04,880 --> 01:10:07,719
Speaker 1: hands of Keith Emerson from Emerson, Lake and Palmer Enemy

1292
01:10:07,840 --> 01:10:12,320
Speaker 1: to Pod Keith Emerson led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones ABBA

1293
01:10:12,400 --> 01:10:20,320
Speaker 1: composer Benny Anderson. Stevie Wonder bought two. I'm one in

1294
01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:24,400
Speaker 1: New York one in LA I don't know. Yeah. The

1295
01:10:24,520 --> 01:10:27,360
Speaker 1: g X one had a lot to recommend itself to Stevie,

1296
01:10:27,760 --> 01:10:30,759
Speaker 1: I had realistic for the time, at least instrument samples,

1297
01:10:30,840 --> 01:10:34,799
Speaker 1: which allowed him to single handedly layer complex orchestral beds,

1298
01:10:35,200 --> 01:10:38,560
Speaker 1: and unlike other synthesizes available at that time, it was polyphonic,

1299
01:10:38,680 --> 01:10:40,760
Speaker 1: which meant that you could play multiple keys on the

1300
01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:43,240
Speaker 1: keyboard at once. Most of the synth at the time

1301
01:10:43,280 --> 01:10:45,840
Speaker 1: were monophonics. You could just only play one key, so

1302
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:49,040
Speaker 1: we could create these lush, backing tracks in a fraction

1303
01:10:49,120 --> 01:10:51,680
Speaker 1: of the time. You know, be annoying to harmonize, just

1304
01:10:51,800 --> 01:10:55,040
Speaker 1: going one note at a time. Stevie dubbed this machine

1305
01:10:55,280 --> 01:10:58,840
Speaker 1: the dream Machine promptly put it to use on many

1306
01:10:58,920 --> 01:11:02,680
Speaker 1: of the album's tracks. It's sound is probably most recognizable

1307
01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:05,719
Speaker 1: in the opening of Village Ghetto Land and the opening

1308
01:11:05,760 --> 01:11:09,600
Speaker 1: of Pastime Paradise. I have a question for you, go on.

1309
01:11:09,840 --> 01:11:13,599
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that Stevie since I think nineteen

1310
01:11:13,720 --> 01:11:17,599
Speaker 1: ninety five, has only released two albums, one in ninety five,

1311
01:11:17,680 --> 01:11:20,760
Speaker 1: I believe in one in two thousand and five. It's

1312
01:11:20,800 --> 01:11:22,760
Speaker 1: just as sad to me that at the time when

1313
01:11:23,200 --> 01:11:26,160
Speaker 1: medi technology is basically caught up, and I think he

1314
01:11:26,240 --> 01:11:29,680
Speaker 1: could make these orchestral rangements on a synthesizer keyboard that

1315
01:11:29,800 --> 01:11:34,760
Speaker 1: sounds almost indistinguishable from a real orchestra for the most part. Yeah,

1316
01:11:34,840 --> 01:11:36,879
Speaker 1: it's just interesting to me that by the time technology

1317
01:11:36,960 --> 01:11:38,719
Speaker 1: caught up to the kind of stuff that he wanted

1318
01:11:38,760 --> 01:11:41,960
Speaker 1: to do, he doesn't seem as interested in actually doing it.

1319
01:11:42,439 --> 01:11:43,840
Speaker 1: I know you probably don't have the answer to that,

1320
01:11:44,040 --> 01:11:47,120
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's this era

1321
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:50,800
Speaker 1: of technology is interesting because it was so cutting edge

1322
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:54,439
Speaker 1: at the time, but it sounds distinctive for what it's

1323
01:11:54,520 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: not exactly and that and those are the sounds that

1324
01:11:57,360 --> 01:12:00,519
Speaker 1: people are nostalgic for it, you know, and like like

1325
01:12:00,640 --> 01:12:03,919
Speaker 1: the kind of jankiness of these like early string synths

1326
01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:07,519
Speaker 1: like the arp and the selena, like these weird Russian

1327
01:12:08,200 --> 01:12:10,679
Speaker 1: you know, string synths that are like joy Division used,

1328
01:12:10,720 --> 01:12:12,559
Speaker 1: like that's what people want to hear now. I mean

1329
01:12:13,080 --> 01:12:17,679
Speaker 1: you've you've certainly heard programmed everything on a pop track

1330
01:12:17,760 --> 01:12:19,760
Speaker 1: by this point, and it just it sounds so good

1331
01:12:19,800 --> 01:12:22,599
Speaker 1: that people don't even They're like, okay, whatever. Now people

1332
01:12:22,640 --> 01:12:24,880
Speaker 1: want to hear like, you know, stuff that sounds a

1333
01:12:24,880 --> 01:12:28,479
Speaker 1: little chintzy, and analog synths are super hot again. So

1334
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:31,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if Stevie's like hip

1335
01:12:31,120 --> 01:12:33,639
Speaker 1: to that or he just doesn't care. I mean he's

1336
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:37,280
Speaker 1: also old, like let him live, although he did put out,

1337
01:12:37,360 --> 01:12:43,040
Speaker 1: he released two songs and did he twenty It is

1338
01:12:43,120 --> 01:12:45,320
Speaker 1: interesting to me to think, because these sounds are so

1339
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:50,320
Speaker 1: distinctive to our years now, that we forget that they

1340
01:12:50,360 --> 01:12:52,880
Speaker 1: were meant to be emulators. They were meant to be

1341
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:56,320
Speaker 1: to approximate real instruments. I always think of them now

1342
01:12:56,400 --> 01:12:59,280
Speaker 1: as a stylistic choice of oh, you use a synth

1343
01:12:59,360 --> 01:13:01,720
Speaker 1: because you want to sound spacey and all that. It's like,

1344
01:13:01,760 --> 01:13:04,400
Speaker 1: oh no, they just wanted to be able to orchestrate

1345
01:13:04,439 --> 01:13:07,240
Speaker 1: and arrange on their own. I mean that Brian Wilson

1346
01:13:07,360 --> 01:13:11,080
Speaker 1: used one during kind of one of his most reclusive

1347
01:13:11,160 --> 01:13:14,280
Speaker 1: periods in seventy seven seventy eight for that album Beach

1348
01:13:14,360 --> 01:13:16,760
Speaker 1: Boys Love You, and it was kind of for the

1349
01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:19,760
Speaker 1: same reason. Yeah, he just wanted to create these lush

1350
01:13:19,840 --> 01:13:21,439
Speaker 1: sounds in his head that he would have made ten

1351
01:13:21,520 --> 01:13:24,320
Speaker 1: years earlier at you know, gold Star Studios with the

1352
01:13:24,560 --> 01:13:26,799
Speaker 1: Wrecking Crew, and now he just wanted to do it alone,

1353
01:13:27,240 --> 01:13:28,840
Speaker 1: and that was how you did it. And I kind

1354
01:13:28,840 --> 01:13:30,360
Speaker 1: of forget that. I think a lot of people forget

1355
01:13:30,439 --> 01:13:34,679
Speaker 1: that too, that these weird cynthy sounds weren't a stylistic choice.

1356
01:13:34,720 --> 01:13:37,840
Speaker 1: They were just trying to approximate what you would do

1357
01:13:38,000 --> 01:13:40,240
Speaker 1: that would take ten times the time and a hundred

1358
01:13:40,280 --> 01:13:43,479
Speaker 1: times the money in a recording studio. Yeah, maybe he's

1359
01:13:43,760 --> 01:13:47,080
Speaker 1: working on stuff with Billy Joel. Oh my god, I

1360
01:13:47,120 --> 01:13:51,600
Speaker 1: would die. He says, there's an album. This was in

1361
01:13:51,680 --> 01:13:58,000
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He put out two songs on Republic Records. Oh,

1362
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:02,280
Speaker 1: I guess his first non motoon release. But at the

1363
01:14:02,560 --> 01:14:06,040
Speaker 1: bottom of this article he has it mentions a long

1364
01:14:06,280 --> 01:14:12,519
Speaker 1: ingestation album through the Eyes of Wonder, and he also

1365
01:14:12,720 --> 01:14:19,240
Speaker 1: has another album in progress, a gospel called Gospel inspired

1366
01:14:19,280 --> 01:14:22,720
Speaker 1: by Lula, which is who is his mother? So oh,

1367
01:14:22,960 --> 01:14:27,960
Speaker 1: I like, wow, that'd be cool. Maybe we heard Where

1368
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:30,880
Speaker 1: were we talking about? Since man I love talking about

1369
01:14:30,920 --> 01:14:34,400
Speaker 1: Since on Village Ghetto Land, Stevie played all of the instruments,

1370
01:14:34,520 --> 01:14:37,560
Speaker 1: Nathan Watts told Okay Player many people didn't realize that

1371
01:14:37,600 --> 01:14:39,799
Speaker 1: there were no strings on the song. They were actually

1372
01:14:39,840 --> 01:14:43,240
Speaker 1: synthesizing the strings from the Yamaha keyboard. We recorded the

1373
01:14:43,320 --> 01:14:45,719
Speaker 1: dream Machine as if it were an actual string section,

1374
01:14:45,840 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 1: with Stevie playing the cello part, violas and so on.

1375
01:14:48,360 --> 01:14:51,440
Speaker 1: A Dante told Sound on Sound it had these monolithic

1376
01:14:51,600 --> 01:14:54,040
Speaker 1: speaker cabinets and we would tilt them towards the ceiling

1377
01:14:54,080 --> 01:14:57,080
Speaker 1: and place overhead Mike's far away, capturing it as though

1378
01:14:57,080 --> 01:14:59,400
Speaker 1: it were a stringed instrument. We combined this with d

1379
01:14:59,520 --> 01:15:01,880
Speaker 1: I for presence, but basically we tried to treat it

1380
01:15:01,920 --> 01:15:05,280
Speaker 1: as an instrument in its own right. Sometime later, he continued,

1381
01:15:05,520 --> 01:15:08,080
Speaker 1: we were at the record plant up in Sacelito and

1382
01:15:08,240 --> 01:15:11,320
Speaker 1: we played the song for a legendary recording artist whose

1383
01:15:11,439 --> 01:15:14,160
Speaker 1: name I won't mention because I don't want to embarrass him.

1384
01:15:14,560 --> 01:15:17,559
Speaker 1: He asked Stevie where we did the strings, and Stevie

1385
01:15:17,600 --> 01:15:21,879
Speaker 1: replied that we'd use the London Philharmonic. This guy believed

1386
01:15:22,000 --> 01:15:24,519
Speaker 1: him and Stevie and I were giggling because we'd put

1387
01:15:24,560 --> 01:15:27,000
Speaker 1: one over on him, until eventually he was figuring out

1388
01:15:27,040 --> 01:15:29,600
Speaker 1: what was happening and left the studio, never to be

1389
01:15:29,680 --> 01:15:33,080
Speaker 1: seen again. I still feel embarrassed about that. So in

1390
01:15:33,160 --> 01:15:36,679
Speaker 1: other words, you could say there were no strings attached. Hell,

1391
01:15:39,880 --> 01:15:44,639
Speaker 1: who do we think it was? Oh gosh, um record

1392
01:15:44,720 --> 01:15:52,439
Speaker 1: Plant Sacelito nineteen seventy five. There's a Nils Loftgrin live album.

1393
01:15:53,240 --> 01:15:56,160
Speaker 1: What if it was sly Stone it would be wouldn't

1394
01:15:56,160 --> 01:15:57,960
Speaker 1: have been that easy to fool pull one over on

1395
01:15:58,680 --> 01:16:04,000
Speaker 1: sly that much man. Could have been Santana around this time,

1396
01:16:04,280 --> 01:16:08,880
Speaker 1: could have been Journey. Oh that's funny. Well, if you

1397
01:16:08,960 --> 01:16:13,880
Speaker 1: were loved one. No, who was fooled by the astoundingly

1398
01:16:13,960 --> 01:16:17,800
Speaker 1: lifelike strings on the Yamaha GX seven in nineteen seventy five,

1399
01:16:18,640 --> 01:16:21,160
Speaker 1: please get in touch with too much information in Jordan

1400
01:16:21,320 --> 01:16:26,320
Speaker 1: Venno you five bucks. As early as mid nineteen seventy five,

1401
01:16:26,400 --> 01:16:29,320
Speaker 1: Stevie had assured Motown Brass that songs in the Key

1402
01:16:29,320 --> 01:16:32,000
Speaker 1: of Life would be ready in weeks. He might have

1403
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:34,360
Speaker 1: even thought that was true at the time. He had

1404
01:16:34,400 --> 01:16:37,800
Speaker 1: paid between fifty and seventy five thousand dollars for a

1405
01:16:37,920 --> 01:16:41,640
Speaker 1: sixty by two hundred and seventy foot billboard occupying a

1406
01:16:41,720 --> 01:16:45,640
Speaker 1: full block in Times Square reading Stevie Wonder Songs in

1407
01:16:45,680 --> 01:16:48,200
Speaker 1: the Key of Life with his face on it. It

1408
01:16:48,439 --> 01:16:53,000
Speaker 1: was there for four months. It looks amazing. Look it up.

1409
01:16:53,200 --> 01:16:56,280
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Advance orders for the album began pouring in

1410
01:16:56,479 --> 01:16:59,200
Speaker 1: to the tune of one and a half million copies,

1411
01:16:59,400 --> 01:17:02,040
Speaker 1: so that it was it would have shipped platinum. But

1412
01:17:02,200 --> 01:17:05,360
Speaker 1: as the projected release dates came and went, pressure mounted.

1413
01:17:06,600 --> 01:17:09,320
Speaker 1: I just loved the million and a half units were

1414
01:17:09,360 --> 01:17:13,120
Speaker 1: sold for a record that didn't technically exist. Yeah. I

1415
01:17:13,200 --> 01:17:16,120
Speaker 1: think the original date was projected to be Halloween nineteen

1416
01:17:16,240 --> 01:17:19,679
Speaker 1: seventy five, and it was ultimately released on September twenty eighth,

1417
01:17:19,760 --> 01:17:24,320
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, so eleven months late, which for Stevie time,

1418
01:17:24,560 --> 01:17:27,519
Speaker 1: it's not that bad. There's an anecdote. Again, I keep

1419
01:17:27,600 --> 01:17:30,160
Speaker 1: citing this New Yorker profile, but this is just too good.

1420
01:17:30,800 --> 01:17:33,599
Speaker 1: Stevie called his manager thirty minutes before he was due

1421
01:17:33,640 --> 01:17:36,160
Speaker 1: on stage in Seattle just to let him know that

1422
01:17:36,240 --> 01:17:41,520
Speaker 1: he was leaving his home in Los Angeles. That's incredible,

1423
01:17:41,640 --> 01:17:45,200
Speaker 1: that's really stressful. Stevie used to take a long time

1424
01:17:45,280 --> 01:17:47,560
Speaker 1: doing things because he was on his own flow. And

1425
01:17:47,720 --> 01:17:50,880
Speaker 1: that's hard to be blind, and that's hard to do

1426
01:17:50,920 --> 01:17:52,639
Speaker 1: when there were a bunch of executives coming in every

1427
01:17:52,680 --> 01:17:55,639
Speaker 1: few days asking you questions. Michael Simbello, total okay player.

1428
01:17:56,120 --> 01:17:57,600
Speaker 1: The people who had the money to pay for the

1429
01:17:57,680 --> 01:18:01,200
Speaker 1: process were horrendous back then. They were saying, we don't

1430
01:18:01,240 --> 01:18:04,360
Speaker 1: hear a superstition type record in that bunch. They almost

1431
01:18:04,400 --> 01:18:05,600
Speaker 1: made him seem like he was some kind of a

1432
01:18:05,640 --> 01:18:08,479
Speaker 1: jingle writer. People don't realize that it's what's behind every

1433
01:18:08,520 --> 01:18:10,920
Speaker 1: great artist is putting up with the incompetent people who

1434
01:18:11,000 --> 01:18:14,840
Speaker 1: were paying for everything. Gary and Dante added, of course

1435
01:18:14,880 --> 01:18:16,519
Speaker 1: there were a lot of visits from the Motown Brass

1436
01:18:16,560 --> 01:18:19,680
Speaker 1: at the time. Stevie's attorney would corner John Fishbach and

1437
01:18:19,720 --> 01:18:22,000
Speaker 1: I had to try and hurry things along. My response

1438
01:18:22,080 --> 01:18:24,240
Speaker 1: was always like, I can't sing. I can only put

1439
01:18:24,360 --> 01:18:26,800
Speaker 1: up the microphone and when he gets here, I'll record it.

1440
01:18:27,040 --> 01:18:29,559
Speaker 1: But I can't hurry this process because I'm not the artist.

1441
01:18:29,920 --> 01:18:32,000
Speaker 1: I can only make it as easy, simple and as

1442
01:18:32,080 --> 01:18:35,360
Speaker 1: expedient as I can. Motown took the credit, but I

1443
01:18:35,479 --> 01:18:38,920
Speaker 1: made the T shirts that said we're almost finished. Then

1444
01:18:39,160 --> 01:18:42,120
Speaker 1: I made ones later that said let's mix contusion again.

1445
01:18:42,800 --> 01:18:46,280
Speaker 1: He said they mixed it thirty times. That song went

1446
01:18:46,360 --> 01:18:50,080
Speaker 1: through thirty mixes. I was just doing it because I

1447
01:18:50,120 --> 01:18:52,120
Speaker 1: thought it'd be funny. I would make them for me.

1448
01:18:52,439 --> 01:18:55,599
Speaker 1: John Fishbach and the assistant engineer Motown thought it would

1449
01:18:55,600 --> 01:18:57,479
Speaker 1: be a good marketing tool. I think they made a

1450
01:18:57,520 --> 01:18:59,920
Speaker 1: few thousand were almost finished T shirts to get people

1451
01:19:00,080 --> 01:19:04,040
Speaker 1: interested in it. That's yeah. There are pictures of Stevie

1452
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:07,519
Speaker 1: wearing them too, which is crave. Naturally, this whole thing

1453
01:19:07,640 --> 01:19:10,240
Speaker 1: was a huge headache for Motown. Not only was Gordy

1454
01:19:10,320 --> 01:19:13,960
Speaker 1: constantly having to fend off and then subsequently deliver conciliatory

1455
01:19:14,080 --> 01:19:17,240
Speaker 1: discounts for distributors who had paid in advance for a

1456
01:19:17,360 --> 01:19:22,240
Speaker 1: record that was not forthcoming. The record ended up costing

1457
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:26,000
Speaker 1: Motown supposedly around a million dollars. And this is all

1458
01:19:26,080 --> 01:19:29,040
Speaker 1: money only going out, not coming in, because he hadn't

1459
01:19:29,080 --> 01:19:32,080
Speaker 1: delivered a single in over a year. I just love

1460
01:19:32,160 --> 01:19:36,400
Speaker 1: how angry this must have made. Tremendously gives me such

1461
01:19:36,439 --> 01:19:39,599
Speaker 1: I mean light Barry Gordy wasn't the first song he wrote.

1462
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:43,680
Speaker 1: Money There was one of the early Motown songs. Did

1463
01:19:43,720 --> 01:19:46,000
Speaker 1: he write that? I thought he had a Barrett strong road?

1464
01:19:46,040 --> 01:19:48,800
Speaker 1: Are you right? He might have had a m Yes,

1465
01:19:49,160 --> 01:19:52,600
Speaker 1: Barry Gordy loves money. I mean he was, you know,

1466
01:19:53,160 --> 01:19:55,479
Speaker 1: Gary and Dante told Sound on Sound we didn't mix

1467
01:19:55,560 --> 01:19:58,719
Speaker 1: until the final stages because there was so much material recorded.

1468
01:19:58,720 --> 01:20:00,400
Speaker 1: We had to get a rundown of all the songs.

1469
01:20:00,720 --> 01:20:03,160
Speaker 1: There was a democratic process or where everyone voted for

1470
01:20:03,240 --> 01:20:05,880
Speaker 1: their favorite tracks, but then Stevie threw all that out

1471
01:20:05,960 --> 01:20:09,400
Speaker 1: and selected what he wanted anyway, par for the course.

1472
01:20:10,200 --> 01:20:12,280
Speaker 1: That's why there was an EP. He couldn't even fit

1473
01:20:12,439 --> 01:20:14,280
Speaker 1: some of the songs onto a double album, but they

1474
01:20:14,320 --> 01:20:16,360
Speaker 1: were important enough that he wanted them to be included

1475
01:20:16,400 --> 01:20:20,280
Speaker 1: in the package I Fall of nineteen seventy six, Wonder

1476
01:20:20,400 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: Was Ready. Songs in the Key of Life ended up

1477
01:20:22,240 --> 01:20:25,200
Speaker 1: being released as a double LP and bonus EP, and

1478
01:20:25,320 --> 01:20:28,880
Speaker 1: made its grand debut in the pastoral paradise of Longview

1479
01:20:28,960 --> 01:20:33,759
Speaker 1: Farm in rural north Brookfield, Massachusetts, property owned by Gil Markle,

1480
01:20:33,920 --> 01:20:37,960
Speaker 1: a music industry exact and buddy of Stevie's manager, Johannan Vagoda.

1481
01:20:38,200 --> 01:20:40,320
Speaker 1: This is so weird. That's like not that far from

1482
01:20:40,320 --> 01:20:42,439
Speaker 1: where I grew up, and I could confirm it is

1483
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:46,920
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere, but going to north Brookfield

1484
01:20:47,000 --> 01:20:51,160
Speaker 1: that was just the final destination in a long, arduous journey.

1485
01:20:51,439 --> 01:20:54,479
Speaker 1: The world press met in the lobby of Manhattan's elegant

1486
01:20:54,600 --> 01:20:58,120
Speaker 1: Essex House on September seventh, nineteen seventy six, at seven

1487
01:20:58,320 --> 01:21:01,960
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning. There they chomped down a quick

1488
01:21:02,040 --> 01:21:05,920
Speaker 1: complimentary breakfast before being ushered onto three buses that drove

1489
01:21:05,960 --> 01:21:09,120
Speaker 1: them the Kennedy International Airport, but not before getting a

1490
01:21:09,200 --> 01:21:11,439
Speaker 1: quick detour through Times Square. Whether it took the peak

1491
01:21:11,520 --> 01:21:14,679
Speaker 1: at that massive Stevie Wonder songs in the Keelife billboard,

1492
01:21:15,680 --> 01:21:19,680
Speaker 1: Quick John through Times Square, that'll go well, yeah, I

1493
01:21:19,760 --> 01:21:22,240
Speaker 1: mean the traffic through They probably added like forty minutes

1494
01:21:22,320 --> 01:21:26,200
Speaker 1: with these massive buses just to look at this giant billboard.

1495
01:21:28,360 --> 01:21:31,160
Speaker 1: Well soon, thankfully, all of these reporters were on a

1496
01:21:31,280 --> 01:21:35,519
Speaker 1: charter DC nine, well stocked the champagne and appetizers, and

1497
01:21:35,680 --> 01:21:39,880
Speaker 1: then the plane touchdown at a small airport in Worcester, Massachusetts,

1498
01:21:40,200 --> 01:21:42,439
Speaker 1: where my sister was born, like twenty minutes where I

1499
01:21:42,520 --> 01:21:44,720
Speaker 1: grew up, and the journalists were then loaded onto a

1500
01:21:44,800 --> 01:21:47,240
Speaker 1: fleet of school buses for a short ride to the

1501
01:21:47,400 --> 01:21:50,679
Speaker 1: listening party and long View Farm. It is a hundred

1502
01:21:50,720 --> 01:21:53,559
Speaker 1: and forty three acre a questrian ground that had recently

1503
01:21:53,600 --> 01:21:56,840
Speaker 1: been renovated to include a world class recording studio which

1504
01:21:56,880 --> 01:21:59,880
Speaker 1: had been used by the Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens, Arrow

1505
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:03,240
Speaker 1: Smith and the Jay Giles Band, also New England based band,

1506
01:22:03,560 --> 01:22:07,600
Speaker 1: among many others. And guests retreated to hearty meals of

1507
01:22:07,720 --> 01:22:11,760
Speaker 1: roast beef pie and presumably lots of champagne while waiting

1508
01:22:11,800 --> 01:22:14,519
Speaker 1: for Stevie to make his grand entrance. And he arrived

1509
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:17,840
Speaker 1: resplendent in a gaudy cowboy get up, complete with a

1510
01:22:17,920 --> 01:22:21,920
Speaker 1: ten gallon hat, leather fringe and a gun holster emblazoned

1511
01:22:21,960 --> 01:22:25,240
Speaker 1: with the words number one with a bullet that's pretty funny.

1512
01:22:25,320 --> 01:22:27,960
Speaker 1: And then he announced, let's pop what's popping? As he

1513
01:22:28,080 --> 01:22:31,520
Speaker 1: did play on the real the real tape machine, unleashing

1514
01:22:31,560 --> 01:22:33,719
Speaker 1: the music that had been jest stating in the studio

1515
01:22:34,000 --> 01:22:42,360
Speaker 1: for so long. This gala alone costmo Town thirty crant well.

1516
01:22:42,680 --> 01:22:48,559
Speaker 1: His cowboy outfit was correct released finally on September twenty eighth,

1517
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:51,839
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, Songs in the Key of Life debuted

1518
01:22:51,880 --> 01:22:54,880
Speaker 1: a top the Billboard two hundred album chart remained there

1519
01:22:54,960 --> 01:22:57,439
Speaker 1: for a record breaking fourteen weeks and went on to

1520
01:22:57,520 --> 01:22:59,880
Speaker 1: sell more than ten million units in the US alone,

1521
01:23:00,320 --> 01:23:03,680
Speaker 1: earning an rid A Diamond Award in two thousand and

1522
01:23:03,720 --> 01:23:08,280
Speaker 1: five for its ten times platinum certification. On January fifteenth,

1523
01:23:08,360 --> 01:23:10,720
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, the album was finally knocked out of

1524
01:23:10,760 --> 01:23:15,000
Speaker 1: the top slot by The Eagles Hotel, California, and it

1525
01:23:15,080 --> 01:23:18,000
Speaker 1: fell to number four the following week, but on January

1526
01:23:18,040 --> 01:23:20,840
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, it returned to the top for a fourteenth

1527
01:23:20,880 --> 01:23:23,840
Speaker 1: and final week. By the end of its run, it

1528
01:23:24,000 --> 01:23:27,000
Speaker 1: had spent thirty five weeks inside the top ten of

1529
01:23:27,080 --> 01:23:29,360
Speaker 1: the Billboard Album's chart and was on the chart for

1530
01:23:29,520 --> 01:23:32,720
Speaker 1: total of eighty weeks. Eventually, it became the second best

1531
01:23:32,760 --> 01:23:35,400
Speaker 1: selling album of nineteen seventy seven in the US, behind

1532
01:23:35,520 --> 01:23:39,839
Speaker 1: only Fleetwood Max Rumors. At the nineteen seventy seven Grammys,

1533
01:23:40,120 --> 01:23:41,960
Speaker 1: Songs in the Key of Life scooped up awards for

1534
01:23:42,040 --> 01:23:44,720
Speaker 1: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Album of the Year,

1535
01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:47,560
Speaker 1: while I Wish won for Best Male R and B

1536
01:23:47,760 --> 01:23:51,400
Speaker 1: Vocal Performance, which Wonder accepted via satellite while he was

1537
01:23:51,520 --> 01:23:56,360
Speaker 1: visiting Nigeria to explore his heritage. The experience was only

1538
01:23:56,479 --> 01:24:00,679
Speaker 1: slightly marred by a poor connection, prompted presenter Andy Williams

1539
01:24:01,120 --> 01:24:07,880
Speaker 1: to ask Stevie, can you see us? Although I feel

1540
01:24:07,880 --> 01:24:10,760
Speaker 1: a little better knowing that Stevie probably loved that. Yeah,

1541
01:24:11,120 --> 01:24:14,759
Speaker 1: given his sense of humor, the album's legacy is apparent

1542
01:24:14,880 --> 01:24:19,920
Speaker 1: to anyone with ears. Yeah Wonder told Q magazine in

1543
01:24:19,960 --> 01:24:22,760
Speaker 1: April ninety five. Of all the albums, songs in the

1544
01:24:22,840 --> 01:24:24,960
Speaker 1: Key of Life is the one I'm most happy about,

1545
01:24:25,360 --> 01:24:28,280
Speaker 1: just the time just being alive, then to be a father,

1546
01:24:28,439 --> 01:24:30,479
Speaker 1: and then letting go and letting God give me the

1547
01:24:30,640 --> 01:24:34,519
Speaker 1: energy and strength that I needed. Right on the money.

1548
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:36,559
Speaker 1: For what we were saying at the top of the episode,

1549
01:24:36,600 --> 01:24:38,680
Speaker 1: I mean that just so clear. I mean, because that's

1550
01:24:38,720 --> 01:24:40,679
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that an artist would say about

1551
01:24:40,720 --> 01:24:43,920
Speaker 1: their favorite album, and you're just like, you know, thanks

1552
01:24:44,000 --> 01:24:50,280
Speaker 1: for you know, stadium, arcadium or whatever. But sorry, I

1553
01:24:50,320 --> 01:24:54,640
Speaker 1: didn't mean it, Andrew, But yeah, I mean that's just

1554
01:24:55,320 --> 01:24:57,720
Speaker 1: you can just get that sense really comes through on

1555
01:24:57,800 --> 01:25:02,760
Speaker 1: this record. I didn't know the but Elton John this

1556
01:25:02,920 --> 01:25:05,680
Speaker 1: is his favorite album and carries a copy of it

1557
01:25:05,800 --> 01:25:09,200
Speaker 1: wherever he travels in the world. That seems excessive that

1558
01:25:09,560 --> 01:25:13,040
Speaker 1: that worries me a bit. Maybe maybe that was pre

1559
01:25:13,240 --> 01:25:17,280
Speaker 1: iPods pre Spotify on what eight track? What do you

1560
01:25:17,320 --> 01:25:20,360
Speaker 1: think he brings it around? On Real the Real, Yeah,

1561
01:25:20,920 --> 01:25:24,360
Speaker 1: it was a security vinal. It was Michael Jackson's favorite

1562
01:25:24,360 --> 01:25:26,800
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder record. George Michael called it his favorite of

1563
01:25:26,800 --> 01:25:30,040
Speaker 1: all time, while Kanye West, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston

1564
01:25:30,080 --> 01:25:33,280
Speaker 1: of all name dropped into points pastime. Paradise, of course,

1565
01:25:33,600 --> 01:25:36,519
Speaker 1: served as the sample for Julio's Gangs to Paradise in

1566
01:25:36,600 --> 01:25:39,720
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, and then subsequently Weird Owl's parody of

1567
01:25:39,800 --> 01:25:44,280
Speaker 1: that Amish Paradise. The first version of Gangster's Paradise didn't

1568
01:25:44,320 --> 01:25:47,320
Speaker 1: meet with Stevie Wonder's approval because it contained curse words

1569
01:25:47,400 --> 01:25:50,519
Speaker 1: which I find adorable, and of course, who could forget

1570
01:25:50,560 --> 01:25:53,519
Speaker 1: Will Smith reworking I Wish into Wild Wild West, one

1571
01:25:53,560 --> 01:25:56,519
Speaker 1: of the worst song of his career and the soundtrack

1572
01:25:56,560 --> 01:25:59,000
Speaker 1: to a movie that permanently dented his reputation as an

1573
01:25:59,040 --> 01:26:03,000
Speaker 1: invincible box off Straw and rerec Barry Sanenfeld's career. Yes,

1574
01:26:03,640 --> 01:26:07,720
Speaker 1: that song man he find uses he how dare he

1575
01:26:08,320 --> 01:26:11,439
Speaker 1: he uses the He used the lyrics to that song

1576
01:26:12,600 --> 01:26:15,000
Speaker 1: to talking about Kenneth Branno's villain. He says, he's like

1577
01:26:15,160 --> 01:26:18,559
Speaker 1: he's he's stress in or step in and he you see,

1578
01:26:18,560 --> 01:26:20,960
Speaker 1: he says the phrase, now I must put his behind

1579
01:26:21,280 --> 01:26:27,120
Speaker 1: to the test. What was he huffing in? What in

1580
01:26:27,320 --> 01:26:30,000
Speaker 1: ninety eight or whatever? That was that he felt that

1581
01:26:30,120 --> 01:26:33,519
Speaker 1: he could get away with that over a Stevie wonderstand

1582
01:26:33,600 --> 01:26:37,439
Speaker 1: one of the greatest Stevie Wonder songs. How dare he?

1583
01:26:38,600 --> 01:26:43,320
Speaker 1: My God? That awe just makes me so angry. Despite

1584
01:26:43,400 --> 01:26:46,400
Speaker 1: some of the personal inconveniences to the musicians that went

1585
01:26:46,439 --> 01:26:49,599
Speaker 1: into making of the album and apparently anyone in Stevie's

1586
01:26:49,640 --> 01:26:54,559
Speaker 1: orbit around this time, including Italian television and He's kidding

1587
01:26:55,120 --> 01:26:57,720
Speaker 1: h I mentioned it. We mentioned that we went along

1588
01:26:57,840 --> 01:26:59,599
Speaker 1: ran about this earlier. It's hard to think of any

1589
01:26:59,640 --> 01:27:02,040
Speaker 1: word around Stevie and songs in the Key of Life

1590
01:27:02,160 --> 01:27:05,400
Speaker 1: other than joy. If you ascribe to the axiom that

1591
01:27:05,560 --> 01:27:08,000
Speaker 1: you stop maturing at the age that you become famous,

1592
01:27:08,439 --> 01:27:11,960
Speaker 1: then Stevie Wonder is still, in many respects just a

1593
01:27:12,080 --> 01:27:16,200
Speaker 1: prodigiously talented eleven year old boy with a big heart

1594
01:27:16,840 --> 01:27:20,160
Speaker 1: and a deep abiding love of music. And that innocence

1595
01:27:20,280 --> 01:27:23,320
Speaker 1: and love shines through even the darker aspects of songs

1596
01:27:23,320 --> 01:27:25,880
Speaker 1: in the Key of life. There's a great profile him

1597
01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:28,760
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety five in The New Yorker and someone

1598
01:27:28,920 --> 01:27:32,440
Speaker 1: is describing the earthquake that had just happened in Osaka,

1599
01:27:32,560 --> 01:27:36,320
Speaker 1: Japan to Stevie backstage. The writer of the piece asks

1600
01:27:36,880 --> 01:27:41,040
Speaker 1: if he had any friends living there, and Stevie replies, well,

1601
01:27:41,120 --> 01:27:45,440
Speaker 1: I know some people in Osaka. I just well, everyone's

1602
01:27:45,479 --> 01:27:51,520
Speaker 1: my friend. And that is just the most heartwarming, crushing

1603
01:27:52,280 --> 01:27:55,240
Speaker 1: I just it makes my heart growth three sizes, as

1604
01:27:55,320 --> 01:27:58,400
Speaker 1: does this album, and so I hope we've been able

1605
01:27:58,439 --> 01:28:00,920
Speaker 1: to instill a little bit more of that love and

1606
01:28:01,000 --> 01:28:02,600
Speaker 1: share a little bit more of that with all of you.

1607
01:28:03,160 --> 01:28:05,320
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you used that line because that really

1608
01:28:05,360 --> 01:28:07,280
Speaker 1: stuck out to me in that piece too. And you know,

1609
01:28:07,479 --> 01:28:10,320
Speaker 1: I wrote my little bit in the intro, you know,

1610
01:28:10,560 --> 01:28:14,280
Speaker 1: really underscoring the word joy, having not read this far

1611
01:28:14,400 --> 01:28:17,599
Speaker 1: to see that it was your outro, and I think

1612
01:28:17,640 --> 01:28:19,200
Speaker 1: that just goes to show I mean, it was the

1613
01:28:20,080 --> 01:28:22,160
Speaker 1: first word that came to mind for both of us

1614
01:28:22,280 --> 01:28:25,599
Speaker 1: in a really authentic way. Yeah. Beautiful soul, beautiful record.

1615
01:28:25,640 --> 01:28:27,680
Speaker 1: If you need a shot of pure undeluded joy in

1616
01:28:27,720 --> 01:28:31,880
Speaker 1: your life, slap on songs in the Key of Life

1617
01:28:32,880 --> 01:28:36,680
Speaker 1: at three in the morning, as Stev Wonder intended it

1618
01:28:36,800 --> 01:28:40,360
Speaker 1: for it to be heard folks. Thank you for listening.

1619
01:28:40,439 --> 01:28:43,120
Speaker 1: This has been too much information. I'm Alex Hegel and

1620
01:28:43,240 --> 01:28:50,840
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Runtog. We'll catch you next time. Too Much

1621
01:28:50,920 --> 01:28:54,639
Speaker 1: Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's executive producers

1622
01:28:54,680 --> 01:28:58,120
Speaker 1: are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk. The show's supervising producer

1623
01:28:58,280 --> 01:29:01,439
Speaker 1: is Michael Alder June. The show was researched, written and

1624
01:29:01,560 --> 01:29:04,800
Speaker 1: hosted by Jordan Runtog and Alex Heigel, with original music

1625
01:29:04,880 --> 01:29:07,640
Speaker 1: by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you

1626
01:29:07,720 --> 01:29:10,000
Speaker 1: like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review.

1627
01:29:10,280 --> 01:29:14,560
Speaker 1: For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1628
01:29:14,800 --> 01:29:16,519
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.