Stevie Wonder turns 70 🕶

Happy 70th birthday to Stevie Wonder!

When I posted a list of "my top 20 favorite albums" with a rule of no more than one album per artist, it was a no-brainer to include a Stevie Wonder album. The hard part was deciding which one.

His string of 5 albums from 1972 to 1976 is probably one of the greatest things that's ever happened in music history.

At the end of this post, I've embedded one song from each of those albums, without including any of the hits, because he's about so much more than the hits. He's one of those artists where you have to listen to the full albums from start to finish. Of course he put out a lot of great songs before and after the 1972-76 albums, but those albums stand out. Of all the dozens and dozens of songs on those albums, there isn't a single dud, and there are many buried treasures.

His music from the late '60s onward still holds up well as a pure listening experience, with no need to explain why we should appreciate it or how he fits into the history of anything. At the same time, he's had a ubiquitous influence on the last 50 years of music — so many artists like Prince, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, etc. It's hard to imagine what pop music would sound like without him.

The combination of songwriting and performing is astounding. Not only did he develop a style of melismatic singing that generations have imitated, but he's also an excellent keyboardist, harmonica player, and drummer.

He's done all that with a physical condition many of us would think of as bringing unfathomable misery to anyone who suffers from it. Yet Stevie Wonder gives the impression that an effusive, impassioned joy flows out of him more naturally than from almost anyone else.

Isn't he lovely? Isn't he wonderful?


"Too High" from Innervisions (1973):




"Girl Blue" from Music in My Mind (1972):




"You Haven't Done Nothin'" from Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974):




Jeff Beck does some great guitar playing on "Lookin' for Another Pure Love" from Talking Book (1972):




"Joy Inside My Tears," from his double album, Songs in the Key of Life (1976):