School of HONK charts here. Audio mock-up here.
Stevie Wonder original on TV’s Soul Train:
Lady Gaga tribute performance:
Stevie Wonder in London 2008:
Stevie Wonder wrote I Wish following a Motown Records picnic that was so fun he forgot about his bad toothache, reminding him of his playful childhood days. When it came to lyrics, he first thought of “a lot of cosmic type stuff, spiritual stuff. But I couldn’t do that ’cause the music was too much fun.” With a clever earworm of a bass line, a catchy call-and-response chorus, and bluesy, funky horn riffs that evoke 1960s r&b, the song connotes a feeling of pure juvenile exuberance, powerful enough to reawaken the kid in all of us. Our overall arrangement stays close to the original, and divides the call and response in both the verse and the chorus into an easier “main” part everyone can learn first, and a “melody” part for other players with more experience. In place of Stevie’s original tight-ensemble sound, we aspire to recreate and revere his infectious call to sing and play with gratitude and abandon.
Stevie Wonder is a true giant of 20th century American popular music, leaving his indelible mark in the worlds of pop, rock, soul, jazz, funk, disco, hip hop and more. Not only a prolific and ingenious songwriter and performer, he revolutionized the use of electronic instruments, and pioneered the use of sampling that would become a central feature of rap, hip hop and acid jazz. And he insisted on artistic control early on, in part to invent and develop the “concept” album, with tracks like “movements” of a larger work, with social and political themes, which would become a new standard. He is frequently compared to Ellington and Gershwin for his innovative chord progressions and arrangements, he has a keen ear for using synthesizers and percussion to provide extra texture and feel to a groove, and his melodies are often so exotic and acrobatic that only he can sing them, in a beautiful tenor with extraordinary range and agility. But beyond a time-tested ability to churn out catchy songs, like the Beatles who were a first influence, Stevie’s music is infused with his love of life and of others, his progressive politics, and his universalist faith in the power of music to unite and heal.
Blind since early childhood, Stevie taught himself piano, drums and harmonica, playing with friends on the streets of Detroit before Motown signed him for his first record at age 11. He’d already released dozens of hit records before his 21st birthday, and he would go on to record some of his most beloved music before his 30th, culminating in his third consecutive Grammy for best album, for Songs In The Key Of Life (with it’s first #1 hit, I Wish) now #5 in their Best Albums of All Time and found on numerous “desert island” lists. Stevie won a total of 25 Grammys as well as their Lifetime Achievement Award, and remains their youngest #1 artist ever. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame. He’s received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he was a driving force behind the campaign to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day, he’s been a UN Messenger of Peace in honor of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, he received France’s National Order of Arts and Letters, and on his 74th birthday, Stevie Wonder was granted Ghanaian citizenship by the nation’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo. Click here for an introduction to some of his most beloved songs, click here for a VH1 documentary about Songs In The Key Of Life, and click here for an analysis of this most beloved albums