Stevie wonder great biography rolling stone

Gonna keep on tryin', 'til I reach my Highest ground. It was on the way back just outside Durham, North Carolina that Stevie's life almost taken from him. Stevie was asleep in the front seat of a car being driven by his friend, John Harris. They were snaking along the road, just behind a truck loaded high with logs. Suddenly the trucker jammed on his brakes, and the two vehicles collided.

Logs went flying, and one smashed through the wind shield, sailing squarely into Steve's forehead. He was bloody and unconscious when he was pulled from the wrecked car. For ten days he lay in a coma caused by severe brain contusion, as friends, fans, and relatives prayed. It was his friend and tour director Ira Tucker who first elicited some response from him: "I remember when I got to the hospital in Winston-Salem.

His head was swollen up about five times normal stevie wonder great biography rolling stone. And nobody could get through to him. I knew that he likes to listen to music really loud and I thought maybe if I shouted in his ear it might reach him. The doctor told me to go ahead and try, it couldn't hurt him. The first time I didn't get any response, but the next day I went back and I got right down in his ear and sang Higher Ground.

His hand was resting on my arm and after awhile his fingers started going in time with the song. I said yeah! This dude is going to make it! It was still a long, slow climb back to health, though. When Stevie regained consciousness, he discovered that he had lost his sense of smell, perhaps permanently. And he was deeply afraid that he might have lost his musical faculty too.

Finally Ira Tucker said, "We brought one of his instruments--I think it was the clavinet--to the hospital. For a while, Stevie just looked at it, or didn't do anything with it. You could see he was afraid to touch it, because he didn't know if he still had it in him--he didn't know if he could still play. And then, when he finally did touch it - man, you could just see the happiness spreading all over him.

I'll never forget that. Still, he had to take medication for a year, tired easily, and suffered severe headaches. That he lived at all is miraculous. But that he lived to reach higher and higher ground--personally, musically, spiritually--at least in part because of the accident makes you wonder. A confirmation of his belief in destiny.

Michael Sembello, Wonderlove's lead guitarist at the time said, "Well, I think he'd always had some awareness of the spiritual side of life. But the accident really brought it to the surface. Like now I know he really sees--and uses--every concert as the spiritual opportunity it is, to reach people. The accident made him recognize God, it changed him a lot.

Some times he'd just drift off in conversation, he'd just. He got really intense after the accident, his ESP got really strong. Naturally, life is just more important to me now. The song Higher Ground, written a couple months before the accident, was truly uncanny. I would like to believe that there is another life. I think that sometimes your consciousness can happen on this earth a second time around.

For me, I wrote Higher Ground even before the accident. But something must have been telling me that something was going to happen to make me aware of a lot of things and to get myself together. This is like my second chance for life, to do something or to do more, and to value the fact that I am alive. Before the accident. Steve had been scheduled to do a five-week, twenty-city tour in March-April of It was postponed, with the exception of one date in Madison Square Garden in late March.

That concert began with Stevie pointing to his scarred forehead, looking up, grinning, and giving "thanks to God that I'm alive. He gave himself about a month and a half of recuperation before heading back to the studio to work on his next album. By mid-November he was on stage again, for the homecoming benefit of Shaw University, where he was a trustee.

The university was facing financial difficulties; the performers at the wildly successful fundraising show included LaBelle, Wonderlove, Exhuma, and Pride of the Ghetto, in addition to Steve himself. Later in the month, he was a surprise guest at an Elton John concert in Boston. But, according to Esquire's Burr Snider, Elton never finished the sentence: "The immense cavern began to rumble.

It went on and on and it seemed as if it would never subside. I found to my surprise that tears were tracking down my face. Although he had originally planned to go to Africa that winter, that trip too was postponed. Late January and February found him knocking out audiences in Europe. March brought the Grammy awards. The nominations list had been announced in January, and Steve had been nominated in seven categories.

Although Innervisions was recorded before the accident, it was released after, and most people associates it with Stevie's miraculous recovery. Indeed, in many places it is weirdly prophetic. The New York Times review of the album says "Stevie, identifies himself as a gang and a genius, producing, composing, arranging, singing, and, on several tracks, playing all the accompanying instruments yes, it is impossible, or used to be.

But Stevie Wonder, you see and want to know more. At the center of his music is the sound of what is real. Vocally, he remains inventive and unafraid, he sings all the things he hears: rock, folk, and all forms of Black music. The sum total of these varying components is an awesome knowledge, consumed and then shared by an artist who is free enough to do both.

The first track released as a single was Higher Ground a song encouraging people to get up and keep on doing what they need to keep the world turning. He relates it to himself saying that his last time on earth he did not make the best use of life and hence in this life he intends to keep on trying till he reaches the highest ground. The album opens with Too High, Stevie's statement of his position on the use and effects of drugs.

Visions describes a utopia as he perceives it, but the next track Living For The City, the albums second single, brings us back to the reality of the harshness of life for blacks in the in the city. After Higher Ground, is Jesus Children Of America asking if those that prayed really did so from the bottom of their hearts or if they felt what they were praying.

All Is Fair In Love the most pop orientated track on the album sounds as though it was written about the break-up in his marriage with Syreeta. All in all, it is possibly the greatest collection of songs put on a single album. Writing all eleven songs, some with Syreeta, his trademark arrangements coming across beautifully complimenting Syreeta's soft sultry voice.

An essential album for any Stevie Wonder collection. Syreeta's album, One To One, featured only the one song written, produced and arranged by Stevie. A sprightly acoustic guitar track with a reggae feel and Stevie on background vocals that certainly deserved better chart placing. The single Lovin' You brought Minnie to the public's attention, aptly displaying her multi-octave vocal range capability.

In the mean time Stevie was busy in the studio putting the finishing touches on his next album, to be called Fulfillingness' First Finale. Its an album that may not have had the raw edge as did its stevie wonder great biography rolling stone, but taken song by song, Fulfillingness' is virtually unflawed, full of emotion without being maudlin.

Its lyrics range from the political to the spiritual to the romantic, its music from gentle to forceful to jive--a dazzlingly beautiful and innovative collection. An album that truly showed Stevie writing what he felt deep inside - a gift not many can claim. Stevie WonderFulfillingness' kicks off with the lovely and cheering Smile Please, a song many claim to be the best opening track on any of Stevies albums.

Boogie On Reggae Woman, the second single to be culled from the album was a sensual and rythmic number that encouraged the listener to get up on their feet and get down. His spiritual thoughts were revealed without being preachy but subtley pointing to a higher being ,on the tracks, Heaven is Ten Zillion Light Years Away and They Won't Go. The Brazilian flavoured Birds of Beauty is an enlivening number both musically and mentally, in that it speaks of freeing the mind and body of harmful external influences.

The album ends with an emotional plea Please Don't Go that sees Stevie at his finest together with chorus belting out an almost gospel flavoured appeal. A proclamation had been drawn up. Representatives from the press and photographers had been invited to the Mayor's office. However Stevie was in New York unaware of the ceremony at the mayor's office.

On the 22nd, Stevie finally arrived. Before he could make it to the Mayor's office, however, some seventy-five school children who were touring City Hall caught wind of his presence and engulfed him. Stevie Wonder. The Mayor's ceremony was full of cliches, with the Mayor praising Steve's musical genius, versatility, concern for other people and social problems, and ability to "transcend boundaries of race, age, and nationality.

Around this time Stevie had fallen in love with a young woman named Yolanda Simmons. She had joined Stevie's entourage as his secretary-bookkeeper, and in a short time they had fallen in love.

Stevie wonder great biography rolling stone

Stevie was convinced that he would never fall in love with someone who was not, inside, a beautiful person. Some women can have a very beautiful outer face and a very ugly inner face. Yolanda was proud of his talent and pleased with his fame, but she loved Stevie as a person, not as a personality. She radiated the sort of inner beauty that he, perhaps better than sighted people, could identify.

In April their daughter was born. They named her Aisha Zakia, combining African words meaning strength and intelligence. By now Stevie had won awards in various music genres, Soul, Pop and Rock. He does not like labeling. It seems that every person is put into a certain bag. Being an artist is not being limited to one kind of music.

For instance, soul music was derived from gospel and early rhythm and blues. In my mind, soul means feeling. When a person is categorized as a soul artist because of his colour, I don't like it. True artistry is about variety, the real spice of an artist's life. In August of his contract with Motown was up for renewal again. The new contract a seven year thirteen-million-dollar deal was the largest ever made with a recording star.

But Motown expected to get more than that back, beginning with its share of the profits from Stevie's first double album, which was to be released in Few musical products were as eagerly awaited as Stevie Wonder's new album, but he was in no hurry to release it. A perfectionist who will spend hours on a single musical phrase, Stevie was not yet satisfied with the album.

By the fall of he still felt it needed much more work. He had not even decided on a definite title. The year ended, and it had been a rather unique one: in all ofStevie Wonder had not released a single record. Each year Grammy awards are given only to those artists who have released records during the previous year, so Stevie was not nominated for any of the Grammies presented in February In his acceptance speech, he thanked Stevie Wonder for not making an album in Stevie continued to work on his new album.

By the spring of he had decided to call it Songs in the Key of Life. He had also tentatively decided to release it in May. But May came and went, and still no album. By July Motown printed tee-shirts with the message, Stevie's almost ready. By the summer of the public and the record stores were clamouring for Songs in the Key of Life, but Stevie was still not satisfied with the album.

As hard as he tried, he could not get all the material he wanted to include in the album on four record sides. In the end it would be a double album plus a single, rpm disc containing four songs. At last, in Septemberit was ready. Reporters and music critics, everyone who had worked on the album, all of Stevie's publicity people and close friends, and Stevie, Yolanda, and Aisha traveled to a farm in Connecticut for a press preview of the album.

While Aisha played with the farm animals and romped in the grass under the watchful eye of her mother, Stevie autographed copies of the album and gave interviews. He hoped the reporters and critics like the album, he said, but it really didn't matter, because he knew he had given it everything he had and that it was the best he could do.

He need not have been concerned about others' reaction to the album. Not only did almost everyone like it, but most people were awed by it. It was like a guided tour through the whole range of musical styles as well as through the life and feelings of Stevie Wonder. It included recollections of childhood, of first love and lost love. It contained songs about faith and love among all peoples and songs about social justice for the poor and downtrodden.

It featured Stevie playing a host of instruments and manipulating his voice like only he could. It took no time at all for Songs in the Key of Life to reach the No. Songs kicks off with the evocative Love's In need of Love Today. Have a Talk with God co-written with brother Calvin suggests using God in time of need - He's the only free psychiatrist in town.

Village Ghetto Land with its string synthesisers provides a haunting feel while describing the life of those living in the ghetto. Contusion an instrumental, written and performed live about 3 years prior, was named after the injury he sustained in the car accident. The first side closes with Sir Duke, a tribute to Duke Ellington and other jazz greats.

Side 2 of the vinyl record opens with the happy reminiscing I Wish with its famous bass intro. The first love song on the record, Knocks Me Off My Feet, has Stevie extolling his love but not trying to bore his loved one. The use of the drums to emulate being knocked off his feet is ingenious. Pastime Paradise condemns those that live in the past harping on all the negatives that are now considered evil and praises those who look to future with the positives that make life better.

To add a touch of universality to the record Stevie has the Los Angeles Church Choir and the Hare Krishna devotees chant during the culmination of the song. Summer Soft plays on the theme of the changing seasons in relation to the ups and downs in love. Ordinary Pain closes side 2 with Stevie singing about the pain suffered as a result of a lost love, and then cleverly switches to the other side of the coin from where Kimberly Brewer provides her story.

Side 3 opens with the cries of a baby, though not Aisha, on the song Isn't She Lovely written about the joys of his baby girl. Joy Inside My tears is a very emotional track praising the joy that the love of someone has brought into a sad life. Black Man played on that theme by announcing all the great things achieved by Americans, though of all colour, throughout the years.

If Its Magic is a witty song about love, though the word love is never mentioned. As features jazz keyboardist Herbie Hancock on electric piano. Its a song with some of the most beautiful lyrics that Stevie has so graced the world with. An open-ended expression of infinite love. Another Star is a high spirited though sad love song featuring George Benson on guitar and Bobbi Humphreys on flute.

At eight minutes long its a wonderful sing-a-long to bring to an end side 4 of the album. The original album came with a Something's Extra bonus EP containing 4 songs. Ebony Eyes extols the beauty of the woman even though she may be from ghetto streets. Saturn, co-written with Michael Sembello places Stevie in the role of a being from the planet Saturn looking on at the chaos humans are creating for themselves and comparing it with his peaceful life back home.

All Day Sucker is about as funky as anything you will ever hear and to close of the masterpiece Stevie provides the ideal wind-down instrumental, Easy Goin' Evening My Mama's Callthat would contrast with the beauty of the setting of the sun. Shortly after the album's release, Stevie went on a national tour to promote it, and early in the record industry also did some promoting of the album and its artist.

Stevie was not present at the awards ceremonies as he, off late had an interest in visiting Africa and that February he went to Nigeria for two weeks, primarily to explore his musical heritage, as he put it. He did give a few concerts, however, one of which was scheduled at the exact time of the Grammy awards ceremony back in the United States.

A satellite hook-up was arranged so that Stevie could be awarded his Grammies from across the sea. However the video signal was poor and the audio inaudible. Andy Williams went on to make a public blunder at the US end when he asked, "Stevie can you see us? Taking a break from the recording studio he became a father for the second time. In April Yolanda gave birth to an eight-pound, seven-ounce baby boy.

They named him Keita Sawandi, meaning "worshiper" and "founder. As far back asMichael Braun approached Stevie to write a theme song for a movie he was making called the Secret Life of Plants. The stevie wonder great biography rolling stone was to be based on a best selling book of the same name authored by Christopher Tompkins and Peter Bird.

However after Stevie presented the song, the film producers requested that Stevie do the entire soundtrack to the movie. Having never attempted such a task, Stevie felt it would be a challenge for a blind person to not just score a movie but one with a very unusual subject matter. It did not help that the movie was not generally released, hence the public never had a chance to see the movie and appreciate and understand the soundtrack as intended by Stevie.

As expected the stevie wonder great biography rolling stone was a complete evolution in style, surpassing in scale anything he had since produced. He incorporated much symphonic musical styles, blending African, Indian and Japanese music also in the fray, showing the diverse life and understandings of plants from various cultures worldwide.

However being released in an era where disco was the fad, it was not surprising that Secret Life of Plants failed to garner the public acceptance afforded Stevie's albums since Music Of My Mind. Well, I say supershit! It was like … I mean it was as if they decided that stevie wonder great biography rolling stone music was the thing that was going on now.

It was as if they looked around and said … hey! Such as it is. We may be talking about specious labels here. You can say … uh … well this dude here is obviously a rock singer … or this cat here is a country-western thing … you know? So now that I know what he isI know all about him! How can I not sound like me? What the public will accept. Crazy things like that.

The reporter hunched forward and rested his elbows on his knees; he looked as if he were carrying a great weight on his shoulders. You understand all this? Stevie began to clap his hands and dance around in the middle of the room. They said I was lowering myself because I was doing all this shit. Now, I was enjoying myself … and the audiences, they were enjoying themselves … and yet people seemed to take this as a sign that I was never going to do anything worthwhile again.

Which is stupid, naturally. Stevie slapped his hands together happily and bounced around the room like a pinball. The filmmaker watched his performance with the detached curiosity of someone taking a bus tour through Europe. All this superstar shit can go out the window. I mean if there really was such a thing as number onewell then whoever that lucky cat was would have no place left to go.

You see? Just people coming to have a good time and letting me sing for them. You know, I feel like those people … I think of them as my best friends in the whole world. So I go on over. Now this cat had to be seen to be believed. So I go tell him to move, polite as can be and suddenly … bam! Pulls out a fucking gun! I mean just imagine this shit taking place.

Stevie Wonder fucks his mother! So the bouncers take him into the backstage area and push him into the bathroom. Then they just beat the shit out of him. Left him with his head floating in one of the toilet bowls. The two people from Human Kindness Day sat in a booth in Feathers waiting for Stevie to come downstairs. One was a muscular man with large sorrowful eyes and enormous hands; his hair was lined with ribbons of gray which ran like snail tracks to the back of his head.

His partner was a frail, neurotically composed white woman whose eyes blinked constantly from unspoken anxieties. She drew aimless circles on the table with her forefinger and glanced around the restaurant with apprehension. When we were in England last year, it took Steve three days to get on a plane and leave London. But you just have to go with it.

The black man looked at Tucker with obvious sadness, as if there were far too many things in the world that could not be properly explained. The woman with the blinking eyes pulled a Kleenex out of her purse and blew her nose; the story apparently offered her no consolation. Suddenly, dig, as the tension mounts, the phone rings. Guess who?

He was calling from L. Missed the plane. And I said, okay … now we have a problem. Now anybody who wants to panic can go right ahead. The woman from Human Kindness Day was visibly disturbed. She opened her mouth as if to speak but no words came out. The woman shivered and pulled her arms around herself. She looked away from Tucker in the direction of the adjoining booth; it was occupied by a young man with shoulder-length hair and a cowboy hat.

She was amazed to find him waving at her. Tucker looked at the young man who waved at him also. Tucker saluted him in return. Robert Friedman continued to smile benevolently. Latest Issue. We already know their ubiquitous singles, and their world-beating albums. Buy Now. Subscribe Today. Rob Hughes. Uncut — February How about the Bag [a throat-sound amplifier made by Kustom]?

What does that do for communication? It creates an emotion in that the voice is low. And it frightens you a little. What else are you checking out these days? You tune it like a harp to a certain chord scale. In concert, your opening number includes African scatting. I got that from this thing called The Monkey Chant that we used in different rhythms, and we came up with [chop-chants, in speedtime] ja-ja-ja-jajajajajaja….

And there are three pairs of drumsticks going. Do you know Sly Stone? He influenced you to a degree. It used to tickle me…. Did it make you feel that you could be more loose yourself? Same thing about keys. I understand that in the old days at Motown, groups had to compete for tracks. Writers would come up with a song and a track, and artists would all sing over it, and the best would get a single released.

I could see why that would happen, though. I think for the most part they should listen in advance and know the artists. What about you? Did you always have more independence? I had the independence because I was somewhat distant, because I was in school, and I would just come back home sometime and do some singing. Most of them came about from doing gigs and wanting certain kinds of tunes.

Writers are so important. Did you hang out around Studio A at Motown? I used to play on a lot of gospel sessions. I will get another tune to him that I think is as exciting, and if he wants to do it, cool. Was Keith pretty friendly throughout the tour? What climaxed the whole thing was, we got into an argument. Were you treated fairly, financially, for the tour?

I want to reach the people. This article appeared in the April 26, issue of Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. All rights reserved. View all posts by Ben Fong-Torres. May 13, The Greatest Albums of All Time. The Greatest Singers of All Time. FireAid L. In this article: Stevie Wonder. Music Music News.

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