"Songs in the Key of Life" – Stevie Wonder

Hey, Peter, what's up?

Today we're talking about Stevie Wonders immortal

Songs in the Key of Life album.

We're talking specifically about the four

singles that were released.

Two of them got to be number one hits on the billboard

Hot 100. Can you name all four singles?

I think so. I mean, definitely.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I Wish. Great

call. Three to go. Oh,

Three to go, Sir Duke.

Well done, Pete. Two to go.

Okay. Two more. Now it's getting a little, oh,

There. Yeah.

Another Star. Great song. You got one more single.

What do you think was one

of the singles, one of the hits that got released? One

Of the hits. So that's gotta be,

You would think.

Isn't she lovely? A million father-daughter dances.

Not a single, not a hit. Really? Yeah. What else

You got? Oh, maybe

Summer Soft. Perhaps the

best song on the album.

Very popular with musicians. Not a single, not a hit. Okay.

Hit. Gotta get back on hits. Okay. So it's gotta be,

If it's magic, unbelievable.

Not a single, not a

Hit. Well, it's a hit for me.

Well,

Let me hit you to some real magic here.

How about this?

Ah, that one's good too. Yeah.

I am Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Music

Explored. Explored, brought to

you today by Open Studio.

Go to openstudiojazz.com for all

your jazz lesson needs. Peter.

He's back. He's, no, you never left. Peter.

It's another big day. I know you're shocked to hear that.

It's, you know what? We're just gonna assume

that it's always a, a big day. We're

living a big life. We're

living a big life.

It is seem like it's getting bigger and bigger

and with our guests today.

For sure. It's, it's going to, we're we're gonna top the,

we're gonna top the charts today. I can tell you

That we're gonna try to, because we are listening to,

I mean, one of, I, I'm not even gonna say one of, yeah.

It's our all time favorite album.

Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life. Yes. I dunno.

It's my all time favorite album.

You just set the bar high, Sir.

I don't want to speak for you.

I love This album. Um, not only that,

but we've got a very special guest

from the Hit Parade podcast.

The great Chris Molanphy is here.

Chris, thank you for joining us.

Thank you. We, we are so excited to talk

to you today about Stevie Wonder

and about your expertise with this, which is about

how these things have charted when they've been released,

and how they've done even since.

And, uh, yeah.

I'm stoked to listen to this music

and talk to you guys about it.

Yeah, me too. Yeah. Thanks for being here, Chris.

Yeah. Well, and when you guys gave me the selection

of albums and I saw songs in The Key

of Life was on the list, first of all, it's a great album.

And second of all, it's like a great chart album

because it, there are so many superlatives around it,

the way it charted and what a big hit it was.

So yeah, we can get into all that.

Yeah. And I'm really excited

because, you know, we talk about the singles, we talk about,

you know, the charts and stuff,

but I think we kind of gloss over it a little bit, um, in,

in Pursuit sometimes of like,

which is the track that Herbie played on.

That's my number one.

And we, we throw around like, personal charts

and musicians charts and maybe even jazz pianist charts.

Turns out that's not the same

as the general populations charts.

So I'm really excited to learn more about that

and really even just like what that means, you know,

chart topping billboard we throw around.

Yeah. Uh, these terms.

And in fact, I've been in the Recording Academy

for many years now, and I get a huge,

still get a huge Billboard magazine, uh,

every month or so to my house.

And I'm like, what is this exactly?

And it just sits there awaiting my perusal.

I think Chris might encourage you Touse a little more.

'cause there's some interesting stuff going on. Indeed.

Um, no, If you haven't checked that, I

Mean, you have to, you have to be a nerd for this kind

of thing, you know, cer certain people are wired

for this prereq, and I am one of those people. Well,

Prerequisite, uh, is is done right here.

I can tell you.

Well, before we get into the music,

let's get a little background here.

So, this double album released in 1976 was in

that string of what people often refer to

as Stevie's Classic period.

Mm-hmm. From music of my mind, uh,

through Songs in the Key of Life.

Um, you want to be a little annoyed with something?

Stevie started working on this album

when he was 24 years old.

Mm-hmm. And recorded it when he was god dammit.

I know, right. When he was 25.

What a genius for crying

Out Loud. What a genius. He'd

already recorded like

12 albums before this. I know too.

Right. And it's the last in that string

of five great albums, right? Yeah. I mean,

But we forget how young he was during this time.

He was in his early twenties making all of this music. Yeah.

And now his mid twenties making his masterpiece. Um, I think

When you do start that early, everything, like your,

his mid twenties is like mid thirties for most other,

I mean, really hundred percent in terms of sets

and reps, number of albums, number of compositions, tours,

performances, all that kind of stuff.

And I thought when you said you want to get really annoyed,

I thought you were gonna bring up the fact

that many folks were very annoyed

'cause this album was delayed.

Yes. And was there was a lot of lore around that as well.

Yeah. They actually made, uh, t-shirts

that said it's coming soon. You know, or

I think it was We're almost finished. We're

Almost finished. That's right. Yeah.

It was, it was before it was even coming. It was,

And by the way, way two years, that's all it was.

Nowadays. Two years is normal. Nothing. I know. Yeah.

Complete. You know, Taylor Swift now releases an album a

year, but like during the tens,

Taylor Swift released an album

every two years, like Clockwork.

And nobody thought that was ridiculous Right. Back then.

To wait two years was kind of like,

oh my God, what's taking so long?

Yeah. I mean, especially after the run he was on. Yeah.

He, he rattled off Music of my Mind.

72 Talking Book also 72 Intervision 73,

and Fulfillingness' First Finale, 74.

And then everybody was like, where's our 75?

Where's our masterpiece this year? Yeah.

Well, and shall we repeat the Paul Simon Grammy Quip?

I mean, why did Paul Simon win Album of the Year

for Still Crazy after all these years?

For 1975?

He literally stood up on stage holding the Grammy and said,

and I'd like to thank Stevie Wonder

for not releasing an album this Well,

Right. Wasn't it like the

main thing?

It wasn't like the first or main thing he

said when he stood up too. Yeah. Before he even thank

Everybody. It was like the, it

was like the, the little button on his,

he, he thanked, uh, his producer.

And, and I'd like to thank Stevie Wonder

for not releasing that one this year.

Because for those who'd forget Stevie Wonder,

to this day a record, he still holds.

Taylor Swift hasn't beaten this. Nobody's beaten this.

He had three album of the Year Wins in a Row. Crazy.

Taylor has had more, but Stevie had three in a row.

Nobody's ever pulled that off.

Innervisions Fulfillingness' First Finale.

Songs in the Key of Life back to Back to Back.

Well, and if he would've, if he would've planned

songs a little bit better

and done just two regular albums instead

of one double album, he could have gone four.

Paul wouldn't have won for Still Crazy, right? Yeah.

Paul would be in the gutter somewhere depressed.

You know, his whole trajectory would've changed,

you know? Well, can we just dig

In a little, Paul, Paul was fine.

'cause he won for, he'd won for Bridge Over Trouble Water

with Garfunkel, and he was gonna win

with Graceland a decade later, so he was fine.

Right. Okay. He's doing okay. Can

we just, uh, dig in a little bit into this idea

that you were just mentioning Chris about like two years was

an eternity back then.

Like, why is that, why have things changed?

Because, like, I was thinking,

you're talking about Taylor Swift, Beyonce, um, Kanye,

all these like mega artists now years go in between,

you know, we just lost DeAngelo last week.

I mean, he was an outlier in terms of, uh, decades going

between Yeah.

Right. Um, albums. But I mean, this idea, like

what was in the water in that early seventies, I mean,

even going back to like a lot of the jazz records Yeah.

And stuff in the sixties, they're

Make coltrane's making like three, four

or five albums a year sometimes. Yeah. But

Also, not only are they making albums every year, at least

they're like recording albums in September

and they're coming out in December.

Right. You know what I mean? It's like Right.

Even though the technology is so much better

and so much easier should be today.

But what, what's your thoughts on that first? I,

I think in 1965, the Beatles, uh,

were banging out rubber Soul

in time for the Christmas market.

And like they knocked it out in like two weeks

and it was in stores like a week or two later.

That's what it was like, because I think speaking

of the Beatles, I often do a before

and after with the Beatles.

Yeah. With Sergeant Pepper.

It isn't that Sergeant Pepper was the first concept album.

You have Frank Sinatra albums

before Sergeant Pepper that were concept albums.

It's that Sergeant Pepper changed the record industry's

understanding of the commerce behind albums.

Mm-hmm. Because now for starters, first of all,

Sergeant Pepper had no singles released from it.

That was a new concept that you would release an album

and not put, take any singles off

of it for the American market.

Right. Um, and the album has statement kind

of gains currency, and then it becomes the core unit

of measure of the record industry.

The folks may not remember this,

but you know, in the fifties

and early sixties, the single easily outsold the album.

Right. And the single was kind of like the core unit

of measure of the music business.

It's only when starting around rubber sole

and then gaining traction with Revolver

and Sergeant Pepper, that the music business kind of

re it reorganizes itself around the album.

Yeah. And yeah, in the early sixties,

you might have a band like the Beach Boys

or you know, smokey Robinson

and The Miracles putting out two or even three

or four albums a year

because the album is not necessarily a statement back then.

And then it becomes Pet Sounds

with The Beach Boys is a statement.

Like, and, and the commerce kind of builds around that.

Right. Um, and so by the seventies, an album a year,

maybe two albums a year, if you're Elton John

and his, his prolific period, or Carol King

and her Prolific period, yeah.

That would, you know, you would still have

that album a year cycle.

But for Stevie to take two years coming off

of all those hits to put together an album,

the music business was not set up that way.

Mm-hmm. And I think Stevie, you can even say help change

the perception of how long a cycle a promotional

cycle for an album would be.

I know you guys talked about Fleetwood Max rumors. Yeah.

It took them two years to follow that up with Tusk.

It took the Eagles two years, almost three

to follow up Hotel California with the long run.

So suddenly all these artists are taking

routinely two and three years.

And it, it's kind of like, you can point it as

before Songs in the Key of Life

after Songs in the Key of Life.

Right. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

I, I always, um, it's funny you mention The Beatles

with the, that Sergeant Peppers,

because I, you know, especially starting at Talking Book,

I don't know if this is true,

but to me, I hear Stevie saying, uh, listening to Abbey Road

and saying, I can do that, but better, you know, like,

I can make a better version of that.

And he starts making these albums

that are a little bit more, like less single driven,

a little bit more in that vein using synths

and things like that and, and really takes

what The Beatles did and, and improves on it Yeah.

Through this period, you know, in my opinion. Yeah.

And, and less kind of Motown soul.

I mean, not that he was always really that restricted to

that sort of sounding grooves,

but even less so, more rock stuff, more bluesy, more jet,

like, more cross genre kind of just like, what is that?

Oh, that's a Stevie record.

And then it builds up year after year.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Music of my mind you.

Exactly. Well, I think, right. I think about Music

of My Mind with Jeff Beck, you know,

playing on that, for example.

For sure. And Think, think about him covering The Beatles.

Uh, we can Work it out.

And I think that was 71 just

before the, the, the run that he did with all the albums.

And frankly, it's, it's probably the one time a cover

of a Beatles song actually improved upon the Beatles song.

That's true. Um, so, so, yeah.

So Stevie is thinking differently at this time. Yeah.

And he's thinking more album and,

and also in terms of the commerce, he had resigned.

He'd, he'd gotten through his little Stevie Wonder period.

Right. His first Motown contract expires.

He demands and gets artistic freedom. Yeah.

And that's part of what you're hearing

during the five album run is Stevie's artistic Freedom.

Frankly, you're hearing it even after the five album run.

'cause after this he does Journey Through The Secret Life

of Plants, which is about as free in album.

Oh. May not be a great Stevie Wonder album,

but it's about as really

As talk about was a chart topper.

That's a chart topper with jazz musicians for sure.

Yeah. Jazz is, Yeah. I, I believe that. Yeah.

Yeah. Super interesting. Well, I mean, speaking of,

of like, uh, playing the music that he wants to, to play,

he starts off his, you know,

this two year wait for this album.

And the first track you get is this.

Good Morning Evening Friends,

here's your friendly announcer.

I have serious news to pass

On to Everybody

what I'm about to

Say.

Couldn't mean the world's disaster

Could Change your joy,

Laughter.

And

I,

I still think that this, in this run,

this is the best sounding of the albums in the run.

Mm. For me, like the sound that's,

That's probably accurate.

I mean, I just think the recording technology, I mean,

you guys were talking about this when you talked about Asia

and, uh, rumors, how by 76, 77,

it's kinda like everybody had figured out the re the

recording technology and the,

those are just clean sounding albums, right.

Clean sounding albums. The low end is incredibly

rich and detailed.

Like, when that bass comes in for the first time,

it just drops your heart into the pit of your stomach.

At least for me, because it just feels

so big all of a sudden.

Um, which we don't get on music of my mind

or Talking Book as much, you know,

it's not as full of a sound.

It's not as rich of a sound. Yeah.

And I mean, this is, this is definitely a little bit more

smoothed out, uh, sound in terms of like,

the way it's eq the way it's mastered, I think.

Mm-hmm. For sure.

The recording technology, I mean, we forget about, we think,

oh, the seventies, it was one thing,

but things were moving pretty quickly then even

before you got into the eighties with, you know, you know,

serious drum machines

and all these kind of things that affected the music.

But I, I also think he's out in the West Coast.

I mean, all, all the music in my mind,

Talking Book, Fulfillingness', I believe those were all recorded

with the same production crew, same studios in New York.

Um, this is an la kind of sound. Yeah.

You know, some of it was recorded at the,

uh, actually at the Rumors.

Good point Studio, right? Mm-hmm. Record Plant.

Um, but it's, you know, it's, you know, Stevie,

his voice, I think is the thing

that's most consistent from the period right before.

Well, it's the same period. I always consider this

as like a mini different period from the

Earlier ones. Partly comes almost,

almost how

there's, there's some kind of, I

Don't think you're wrong. Yeah.

I I I, I do think it,

it stands apart even though it's part of the five album run.

Sonically it stands apart from Son Other Four for sure.

Which is such A huge part of it.

Think about one, just one album previous.

Think about Fulfillingness' First Finale.

Think about a song like Creeping, for example, which I love.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but like, there's a wooliness

to the sound of that record.

Yeah. It's, it's a, a fuzzy funk sound Yes.

On that album that I love, by the way. Great.

But it very different than the vibe

on songs and the Key of Life.

Yeah. And I might be oversimplifying with this new,

you know, east Coast to West Coast, but it's definitely a

Oh God damn

Great song. This

Is more raw too. This

has like a herbie's head hunter's vibe. Yeah,

Totally. Where,

Where songs has more of a, of a rumors Asia vibe.

Exactly. And this, I believe is Stevie on Drum.

Like, so Yeah, there's definitely Stevie on drums.

Woo. It's so good.

All we gotta do fulfilling this at some point,

I know it's, it's happening. It's gonna happen.

Fulfilling. This is the,

the underrated gem in the run, frankly.

I I Totally agree. My theory is

it's just so hard to say

That people Don't recommend it enough.

Um, yeah. I love the, I love that this is sort of like,

sonically is kind of lives in its own world.

Some, like, some generations have little crossover,

you know, I don't know, like, uh, 77 to like 82

als have a, I don't know if you guys know.

Anyway, uh, moving on.

But the thing too is I, what are those?

I, I think this idea, so I don't,

is there any ste I don't think there's any Stevie drumming

on songs of the Key of Life, actually.

Um, like I think that

Has that's interesting. I've

I never knew that. Yeah.

'cause his drumming is actually one of the appeals

of those first records in the run. Yeah.

I could be totally off and I don't have the, uh,

You keep talking. I'll

Yeah, please keep.

So I could No, but I, I know on that track, it wasn't,

and this is the thing, it's like that contributes to, I,

I don't think it's a better or worse.

It's, it's not about that. It's just different.

Like, the drums are so important, obviously, in any kind

of groove oriented music,

but Stevie's like, concept of playing the drums is

so unique, you know, even though I know, like,

if you look at the live stuff,

especially the live stuff from Europe that's available,

the videos 74, 75 with this man.

Um, and actually Greg Brown is

playing drums on a lot of those videos.

Very young. Greg Brown. And he's influenced

by Stevie's drumming.

'cause you can tell he's checked out Talking Book and,

and fulfilling this and stuff.

And like Stevie's fills and stuff were so unique.

But when we get to this, where we've got

what could be perceived, at least technically in terms of

for drummers, more seasoned drummers, more trained drummers,

it kind of changes this sound a little bit.

It looks like Stevie has a couple of drum credits on this.

He's, uh, according to our research here,

he's the only person playing on knocks me off my

feet. Okay. Oh,

That's Amazing. And he, that's

One of my very favorite

tracks on the album. That's great.

Yeah. He has a drum credit on, uh, isn't she Lovely?

But also Raymond Lee Pounds has a drum credit, so Yeah.

I don't know who's doing what there,

But those, but the earlier records,

it's like he's almost playing everything.

Oh, yeah. Even, even though there's a fair amount

of other credits, there's usually background vocals.

Yeah. Like Sanborn playing. I

Think Super Superstition is all Stevie except

for the horns, if I, if I'm not

Mistaken. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Viss that we,

we just talked about a few weeks ago.

Uh, he's all over that on drums. I mean, the whole thing.

And playing a lot of mo bass on that stuff here.

We've got, you know, NA uh,

who's playing bass on here? Nathan,

Nathan Watts. Nathan Watt's. A lot of

Stuff. Yeah. So see,

he's really getting into

the, to the band concept.

And I think it, you, you hear that.

I mean, this is a more polished record.

You can already hear it at the beginning.

So we got you here, Chris,

and we thought maybe we'd listen to some hits.

So next up we have have a Talk With God, which is one

of my favorite songs on the album, village Gito.

I mean, this whole, the entire first, like, you know,

I mean the whole, the whole album

Pretty bad. I know. Where do you,

where do you bad cut it off? Yeah.

Um, but I thought we would, we would actually talk about

some of the chart toppers here.

So the first single that was released was

Sir Duke. Is that right?

No, I wish, I wish, wish.

And by the way, a de an interesting detail,

the album drops in September, 1976.

They don't release a single from this

album for another couple of months.

Why? Um, the, the, the person I would compare Stevie Wonder

to in 1970 six's Prince in 1985,

if you remember when he put out his first album

after Purple Rain around the World in a Day.

Yeah. He claimed he didn't wanna release any singles.

And finally the label kind of forced his hand

and he released his Raspberry Beret.

Stevie did something similar in 1976.

He's kinda like, no, here's the full album.

And eventually, I dunno if it was Barry Gordy,

but Motown prevailed upon him to release a single.

And the first single they release is, I Wish,

and it doesn't top the charts until January of 1977.

Wow. Like more than four months after the album is out. Oh

My gosh. Oh, that's, so

Here's the first single

Was For Christmas.

What would be

My dog?

Even Though we

Sometimes Would not get a bang we

Day with The hang

the outside.

I mean,

It just doesn't get any better than that.

The horns, by the way, are on trumpet.

Uh, Ray Maldonado on trumpet, Steve Meo on saxophone,

Hank Red and on tenor saxophone, Trevor Lawrence. And

Who's playing drums on that one? Raymond

Pounds. Raymond

Pounds on drums.

Yeah. Nathan Watts on the bass

and background vocals by, uh, Renie Linda Hardaway.

But man, that sounds good. Yeah. Talk about Clean.

Oh man. The Drum,

Right from the opening.

Yes. I mean, like that, that op that is one

of the best openings to a single I've, you know, that do,

do do do, do you know, when it comes in, there are rap songs

that came out decades later

that I think are an homage to that opening.

Right. That homage or inter interpolation.

That's always the question. I mean,

Have you ever heard the Song On Fire by Lloyd Banks,

which I think came out in like 2004.

I'm convinced the opening of

that record is like an homage to I Wish.

Right. Um, you know, stuff like that.

Um, nevermind the fact that I Wish also got actually sampled

by the likes of Will Smith.

Sure. Will Smith turned it into a number one hit right.

In, uh, 1999, I think. Wild, wild West and

Like Wild Wild West,

Like every Stevie song,

at some point on the album, he's gonna take you to church.

Yeah. Like, there's gonna be a, some church in the music

and this is break.

Perfect example Of that. Yeah.

And I think too, the idea of, well, one thing

with people using, you know, it's, it's just a

minor one to the four.

Like that's straight up church right

there, you know, one to the four. That's

The baseline, you know, that.

Yeah.

It's so simple, but so effective.

And people can take it pretty much copyright free.

'cause it's a baseline. I mean, you can't totally,

but I mean that's, that's why you hear it a lot, Chris.

It's like they're hiding behind.

They're hiding behind the baselines can't be

copywritten concept.

Yeah. Which doesn't always work.

But I mean, that's the thing too.

Like, it's such an unusual, it's, it wasn't that unusual at

that time, but maybe for it to be a number,

this was number one right on the pop chart, number

One, number one on both the pop RB charts popping

RB January of 77. But to have

Something that's like so well crafted

and starts out with a super melodic baseline, you know,

and then the drums coming in.

I mean, I'm listening on here.

Like, I, I think we can never, with with headphones,

I think we can never understate how,

and I'd love to hear your take on this, Chris, in terms

of like, stuff not just being like musicians geeking out

or big fans geeking out,

but like, how does it cross over into everybody being like,

well, I don't usually listen to Stevie,

but I heard it on the radio and this is a hit all

of a sudden is like the sound quality.

I mean, these drums are mixed so well,

like super hard pan on some of this stuff.

The guitar. Ah, I mean,

just, it's such a beauty.

You know, the plane's great. I mean Stevie,

Stevie was the leading edge of crossing over funk,

you know, and r and b in general Yeah.

To all audiences. Right? Yeah.

So like, I mean, some prior number

one hits by Stevie Wonder.

He, he not only takes Superstition number one,

that's no surprise, but like, you know,

the number one single from Fulfillingness' First Finale

is you haven't Done Nothing.

Yeah. Which is pretty funky for a record

that tops the pop charts. Yeah.

Very Funky. So like, or, you know,

I think Boogie on Reggae Woman peaks at number three

or number five, something like that.

Like, he's getting some pretty

funky stuff on pop radio even

before Songs in the Key of Life.

Right. So like, I Wish is just a, a gi

by the time that shows up.

Right. You know? Right. Because he's Stevie Wonder.

He can, he can sonically

do varsity level stuff.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. That, you know,

nobody else can do. So check out these,

These horns real quick for my wish.

Tight, tight.

It's punctuation, right? Yeah.

Even more than on most RB records for sure.

The way the horns function in that record is just like,

Yeah, no, that's, that's

Putting a button on everything. That's a

Great way to put it. Because you have

a lot of, I mean, there's

so many great horn sections that we're about

to get into Earth wind,

and actually it's already earth, wind,

and fire time with those incredible horns.

Sure. Where, where they really take over

for a while melodically.

And on this track especially, they don't take over.

It is, it's punctuation.

It's, it's like the syncopation

and like that part, ah, we, Dave bang,

it's called Response Cat.

Like that little 16th note accent in there is so slick.

And like most people, they don't know

what that is, but they feel it.

Right. It's that, it's that like Right.

Linking in with the drums and,

but like sonically, I mean,

this must've been such a hard track,

the whole hard album to mix.

'cause there's so many little details

that contribute, I think.

I mean, yeah, he's laying down a

funky groove, all that kind of stuff.

But like the Sonic

and then Stevie singing is like, has so much expansive,

you know, it could just take over the whole thing

with the mix and you could bring everything down

to just this little thing and let Stevie be over it.

But the way this is mixed is like, everything has sort

of has its place and it's, it's a very dynamic range on it.

Yeah. No, I I all, even down to the way Stevie kind

of chops up the vocal, like, he, he, he takes words

that are two syllables and why did those days, eh, ver have

to go ah, you know, like he's, yeah.

He, he, it's like the whole song is punctuation.

It's kind of like, you know, horns Stevie Horns Stevie.

Right. Um, that, that only enhances the,

the groove on the record. Yeah.

So, all right, Chris, what is the next single then

that was is SDU next after? I wish

Sir Duke is next. Sir Duke

is the second single.

So talk about going from strength to strength. Yeah.

Same horn section for My Wish.

Great. Pre chorus coming now

Again. Punctuation.

Start to move.

Swing group. The swing group, I was gonna say is this,

is this Stevie's tribute to Swing,

I just said here. Is

this the Jazziest number one?

It's gotta be Of all

Time. It's a song

about Duke Ellington.

It's very j well, well, it's a but it's a

specific type of jazz, right?

Yeah. It's, it's specifically an homage

to Duke Ellington, hence the title.

Yeah. And, you know,

and the King of all, sir Duke, you know.

Yeah. He's, he's rattling off all those kind

of early jazz pioneers.

He literally calls them pioneers in the lyrics. Yeah.

There are some of music's pioneers.

It's like in the verse lyric.

He's like, I'm about to give you a list of things now.

And then he rattles it

Off. It's a list. It's a list song.

It's a listicle, it's a list song. Yeah.

Right. Pe people think of stuff like, I don't know,

Billy Joel, we didn't start the Fire as a List song,

but there's a, there's a part

of Sir Duke that's a list song.

It's also a listening recommendation.

It's in a number one hit. It's, it's like, go check

Out if you are enjoying this record.

Someone's wants to pick up for a deeper dive.

If you enjoy Stevie Wonder's, uh, Songs in the Key of Life,

you might enjoy Bassy Ella, you know, like

Satchmo. Yeah, yeah. And

The king of all, sir Duke. Sir

Duke. Yeah. But Even that, you know,

that the famous horn interlude here.

Lemme see if I can find it real quick.

Penton After this

Yeah.

Bass is playing as well.

You know, that's, I never thought about it like this,

but that line, I mean, this is like

evocative of the big band.

You know, like the way that, like a trumpet section

with the trombones, like a 2D kind of line. It's

Not quite, But it's not quite Yeah.

Because it's entirely a pentatonic scale. Yeah,

I know. Yeah. It's,

it's a ste it's Stevie's vision

of a big band horn line.

Yeah. Which there's not quite as much

of the chromaticism that you might hear.

Yeah. Or some of the functional harmony

that Duke would put into these things. Right.

Hence it being a number one hit.

'cause he put, if he'd put that stuff in, it

Might not Confirm it.

Right. He get, he get, he gets away with stuff Yeah.

In a number one hit that nobody else does. Yeah.

But this is, I love you guys breaking this down for me,

because I've always wondered, I mean, I,

in my rudimentary knowledge of jazz hear this

and I think, okay, this is Duke Ellington style jazz,

but it really isn't.

Right. It's a hybrid. Yeah.

I mean, it's because it's coming out in the era

of weather Report and return to forever.

Right. It's, it's, it's a different era

of jazz when he is putting this out. Yeah.

It it sounds very much like a line

that Stevie Wonder would sing.

Yes. He loves singing Panatonics. He loves

SS and Panatonics a lot of Melo there.

Um, and, or, or maybe it happened

on the harmonica, I'm not sure.

But it definitely has the, it evokes Duke,

it evokes Count Basey,

you know, like Yeah.

Rhythmically. Like it's actually within the swing group,

Surpris, this all that is there.

But it's, it's a little bit not, not the same.

It's more like if that, if if it were happening

in the seventies, what would it

Sound like? Yeah. Well, and

to your point, Chris, about weather report

and then with this Adam, like that was, you know, Joe,

Joe Zal, Wayne shorter, that whole weather report Jocko.

Right. Like, they were really getting into

Pentatonics type of stuff.

And a lot of that was coming outta the actually

John Coltrane influence.

So not so much the part of jazz Duke,

Arlington Count Bassy Satchmo

and King of also like the list that he was saying.

But like, chick Korea, who Stevie Wonder was a huge fan

of Herbie Hancock, you know?

Sure. Um, they would have McCoy Tyner.

That was a big thing with that pentatonic sound.

So he's kind of filtering through a couple

of different kinds of jazz on, I mean, which is crazy

'cause it's like the more jazz you filter in,

the farther away you're gonna get from a

number one hit normally.

But Stevie pulls it off, you know?

And yet, I mean, I think in my memory, you know, you

and I are roughly the same age, Peter.

Um, I was whatever, five when this album came out,

this is the first Stevie Wonder song.

I think I was cognizant of. Me too.

Not counting either that or Superstition

because of Sesame Street, but it, it, this, this,

that they can feel it.

Oh yeah.

That hook is like, it's like fused to my childhood brain.

Yes. Um, because it's so exuberant.

It's so joyous. Yeah. That's,

Know exactly what, what I was gonna say about this track,

Chris, is that like, I think the best part about it is,

is it is like this, Hey,

you should check out this music from the past.

These are the pioneers, the history lesson.

It's, it's a recommendation.

It's a music lesson,

but it's done in the most joyful way possible.

Yeah. Like, the whole thing feels like a party.

And it's honestly, sometimes the thing

that jazz musicians forget about the music that we make is

that it can be in fact, controversial. Very fun.

It Can be

Very, this is A hot take.

Hot take. We're gonna pull this one out. This is gonna,

We can have Fun. Jazz

Can be fun. It doesn't

have to be an intellectual exercise.

It can be, in fact a very joyful party as proven here. I'm

Doing a great job of like, I'm like,

let's turn it into an intellectual party pan a onic scale.

A pentatonic scale.

No, but I want you to break that down for me,

because this has always fascinated me.

Like, is, is this a jazz record? Is this a pop record?

Is this jazz filtered

through a pop sensibility or a funk sensibility?

This is jazz filtered through. I think

That's through Stevie Wonders sensibility.

Yeah. Is what I, is like,

what Peter was saying is like Stevie will sing in

Pentatonics and you can just imagine him saying like,

you know, I wanna write this sort of,

I got these horns in the studio.

I'm gonna write this big band lined line.

But it still is filtered through his sensibility,

which makes it very special.

Like, it makes it a very, it's not just him

nerding out doing research

and trying to like, put a bunch

of sharp elevens in there and 13.

Right. 'cause that's what Duke would've done. Yeah.

He's just doing his thing on it.

Yeah. And I don't think it's, it's like, it's sort of,

I think jazz is probably,

when you really break down Stevie's music,

especially the harmony of his stuff, it's like the easiest,

um, sort of attractions that he'd had, that he had

and the influences that he has to analyze.

But I don't think jazz is any bigger than say, blues

or gospel or,

or even rock to a certain degree later on,

maybe with Stevie for sure.

Um, but I think in terms

of like really the fundamental things

that you hear in like his keyboard playing

and the way that he sings, there's specific things in jazz.

There's specific things in blues

and for sure specific things.

Like, like for instance, on on the one

before, like that's actually a,

a different version of a pentatonic.

That's all pentatonic.

Oh, interesting. Minor pentatonic.

But then he breaks up the pentatonic on the four court,

which is very much a gospel thing.

You've got like, so he's sort

of combining those, and I'm sure he wasn't like,

let me combine the, you know,

No, he's Just hearing stuff. He's hearing

stuff. But I think like he, um,

was such a student of like a wide range of music.

You can tell, you know, this was not just like, oh,

all this kind of stuff sort of came.

I mean, you could hear I've, I've heard him live a, a bunch

of times, and of course that was later on than this.

But like, he, I saw him one time

and this was probably early nineties or something.

He started out the set and played Chiia Spain.

Like everybody was so hyped. Wow. So hyped up.

It's like Stevie comes out just instrumental, which is like,

first of all, oh, that's another pentatonic.

They, so he likes pentatonic.

Well, there's a lot of pentatonic in there,

but like, he just played it as, it's like a fusion band,

you know, like, like wow.

Just played, it played like a solo,

like the trumpet player played a,

like, that was their warmup tune.

I've heard him do Giant Steps as the warmup tune.

Now it's Stevie Wonder. He knows no one's gonna leave.

'cause he's not playing. I wish as the first tune, like,

people are there, they're settling in, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He can, he can kind

of play whatever he wants on the first tune.

But I mean, it's just to say that like, he understood

a lot of different kind of music.

We talk about funk. He was going to actually,

before this, he was going to New Orleans in 73

and 74 for sure.

Real quietly listening to

and sitting in with the meters down there.

Art Neville, George Porter

and stuff used to tell stories about that.

So like, he had that kind of an influence

with the New Orleans Swamp funk kind of stuff.

Um, so it's, to me, it's so interesting when it comes out

on, on a number one hit, I'm like, damn,

how did he basically pulled off two?

So I wish and Sudu are have heavy jazz sensibilities to him

because this is almost like a walking baseline. Well,

And Like a jazz walking baseline. Yes.

I was gonna say it sounds like a walking baseline.

Yeah. And one of the other singles from this album is

as, which features Herbie Hancock on the

on the Fender Roads.

Yeah. You know, so there's, yeah.

It's, uh, it's all over the place.

I, I wanna get though, before we get too deep,

I wanna get to an honorable mention.

This wasn't a hit, this wasn't a single,

but it produced one later.

And it comes, it's eighth track

of the album. I love this song. You almost

Can't hear it. You almost can't

hear this song anymore without thinking of

what it became 20 years later.

I love Pastime Paradise so much. I love production. Yeah.

I love those synth strings.

Those Aren't syn

strings. Those are real strings. Sorry.

No, synths. Are they synths? Yeah,

They're Yamaha. Yep.

Yeah. No, in fact, that was

what was innovative about this record in 76. Oh,

The GX one. Okay. Yeah.

Nce.

So fast forward 20 years

and you get this from Coolio, 1990 Fives,

gangsters Paradise and Key,

The number one hit of 1995. Yeah.

The number one hit of 1995,

The biggest record of that year.

You know, Michelle Pfeiffer turning around the chair,

sitting down in the video.

And by the way, notice a little something

about that coolio record.

As badass as it is.

What aren't you hearing on that record

that you would normally hear on a nineties rap record?

Oh, let's hear it again. Profanity.

Profanity, right? Yes. Ding. That's right. Is

That true? So the, the,

the story goes that when Coolio

and Julio's label went to Stevie Wonder

to seek approval for the sample.

Yeah. Stevie said no at first.

Then they went back to him and the second time he said, yes.

But he said, but you gotta take the profanity out.

And Stevie did coolio a favor

because that made that record that much bigger.

It could be played all day on the radio.

It didn't have to be censored

or swooped or anything like that.

It was a number one hit on the hot 100.

Yeah. Right. At a time when gangster rap is ascendant.

Yeah. You know, and, and you know, I mean, I love Dr.

Dres the chronic, but like, you know, they had

to record whole different lyrics for nothing

but a g thing to get that on top 40 radio.

Yeah. Right. You didn't have to edit anything on

Julio's Gangster's Paradise.

And as a result, it's the number one hit in the top hit

of the year, by the

Way. That's amazing. It charted

again

after Julio's death in 2022 at number

55, which is interesting.

It went back on the hot 100 after Coolio passed away.

So does that, so that was, I was gonna say, was that same

'cause I knew it was the exact same tempo, same key.

And I couldn't tell if that was interpolation or I

Think it's an interpolation, I think

An interpolation. I don't how it's, I think's interation Okay. If

you listen

to just how the, the strings sound.

Yeah. Plus you're talking about a 19 year

difference in technology.

Right. Improvement, I don't know, call it improvement.

But the synthesizer in 76 that he's using is I guess,

primitive compared to the one that you Well, it is

The JX one.

Yeah. The Yama Jakes one was very,

I was always amazed when I found, like, I could kind

of tell, I was like, I don't think that's real string.

Stevie used a lot of real strings at different times.

And in fact, I heard him do this at the Superdome in New

Orleans in like, at the Ebony Festival.

It must have been mid nineties with a string orchestra.

And it was stunning. You know, it was like,

to hear him do this, I'll bet it

was one o'clock in the morning.

And I mean, the whole thing was, was incredible.

But, um, the, of course he did his version,

not Julio's version, I should just point out.

Sure. But, uh, but I

Mean, that's such a Stevie move in 76 on Pastime Paradise

to kind of like try

to create an orchestra with a synthesizer.

Yeah. That's, that's such a move that he would pull.

Yeah. It sounds great. I think he does something

similar on Village Ghetto Land also on this album.

I think that too has Yeah. Synth strings Exactly. On

It. Yeah. And he had such

a unique take on it.

Right. That's clearly a synthesizer. Yeah.

Great. Another great song and

Almost has a choir, like, like a,

like a Strings with a choir on.

It's just a very unique, like Stevie was

for all his genius stuff

and still, it's still on this record

and I see Greg Filling Gain's name

who pops up on every like, great hit hit that we see somehow

Fall. It's like filling's appreciation

months

around here at You'll hear it podcast.

Yeah, yeah, of course. Seriously. Amazing. Yeah.

I remember when I first heard Village Ghetto Land actually,

and being, this would've been, I would've been 16

or so, so around 1995.

And, um, being a little like you, the strings, you know,

the synth strings sound horrible.

'cause you know, I, I'm rocking my, it sounds

Thin by Modern Amp.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm rocking my ins Sonic Synthesizer. Sampler.

Yeah. Sampler. But, uh,

but I still don't think I'd I I I've ever heard

a song quite like that.

Yeah. From anybody.

Like, it was just such an amazing, amazing concept.

The whole song that,

I mean, I think Stevie and Pastime Paradise

and Black Man, I think are standouts in that regard.

Yeah. But I mean, even like, I, I agree. Yeah.

Even getting to 1976 and synthesizer

and even sampling was, was starting to be happening,

had progressed a lot from like music in my mind, um,

fulfilling this even.

But like Stevie All Along was such kind

of an underrated thing that he did.

He was such a pioneer

and innovator as a taste maker with synthesizers.

Like to be able to get different sounds. Sure.

No, but he had this ability to not just, well,

because you couldn't at that time really strictly

imitate a string sound.

So like he did one better

instead of just trying to get his close.

He tried, he was able

to make it into a new sound, you know what I mean?

Right. He was able to like tailor the sound

and like really dial it

to make it like a personal kind of thing.

And I think that when you hear this stuff,

it actually doesn't sound dated.

Like it should, you know,

It sounds like the 1970s.

Yeah. If it sounds like when you hear an

Asia kick drum, right.

Like you don't kick drum like that anymore.

And it still doesn't make it not beautiful. It's gorgeous.

But you could say some, but it's of

Its time. It's of its time.

Yeah. You could say some of the early, you know,

once we get into the early eighties with Stevie, some

of the synthesizer sound, some

of the program drums possibly sound a little

bit date Uhoh. He's getting mad

At this is your Gen X.

Okay. Sorry. This is your conditioning,

your Gen X conditioning.

You were coming of age

and thought you were too cool

for the DX seven sounds. Just a minute,

Chris, let's talk about 1976.

Something he doesn't know about the kids.

Love when Sir Duke was playing on the radio. Radio

When I was five, but Go on. Exactly.

I was five, I was six.

And but that, but another thing, 70 76,

you're talking about like, you know

how optimistic Sir Duke sounded on the radio and it did.

It was also Absolutely. It was just, that was kind of some

of my earliest memories.

It was like the bicentennial. Yeah. It was like a big deal.

Big deal. Everybody was into it.

It wasn't like today where not everybody be into it.

Like everybody was into it.

Stevie's on the charts, there's a lot of like,

there was just more unifying cultural sort of events,

especially in music, you know?

Um, yeah. That happened in a way

that now, you know, it's different.

Like, you know, whatever. Taylor Swift has all,

what does she have nine things on the charts right now.

And I couldn't sing you any of 'em.

'cause my, it doesn't hit my algorithm.

Nothing against Taylor Swift.

I just, but at this, I mean, in 1976,

could you have avoided Sir Duke, you know, as an American?

Well, I mean, I'll invoke, I'll invoke that word

that gets used in these conversations all the time,

which is monoculture, right?

Yeah. You, when in a world

where you only had three TV networks

and everybody got their music from the radio,

and you had to go buy your music in a record store if you

wanted to play it back in your own home.

Right. You know, there you had somebody like Stevie

who could kind of own everybody Right.

And, and command the charts

and, you know, a number one hit was really,

if not fully universal.

Very universal. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Very universally consumed. Yeah.

Whereas now, you know, you're kind of,

Taylor is legitimately huge.

Um, but, you know, many weeks when it's not Taylor Swift,

you know, it's like the biggest among, you know, a smaller

level of, you know, consumption.

Right. Uh, it wasn't like

that in 76 when Stevie Wonder drop

songs in the K one. Right?

Yeah. We were just talking about this.

We just did Thriller, um, which would probably be out

by now the time, by the time people are listening to this.

But we were talking about that same thing as big

as Taylor is even, you know,

my mom doesn't really know any Taylor Swift songs,

but I remember in 1983

or four when I was, you know,

when Thriller was still on the charts,

my grandma knew Billie Jean, like everybody knew Right.

And heard it and had seen it, knew what, knew

who Michael Jackson was.

Um, knew that music actually. Yeah.

So I, I wanna plan a little flag where,

where this show is going right now,

just for our listeners here.

So if you notice, we're kind of, we're paying attention to

the singles and the things that might have charted

because we've got, uh, Chris Molan on.

And, and so we will eventually do a show on some

of the BSides on this.

We've, we've, we've talked about, uh, songs in the Q Flash

before, but we're gonna have to do Peter, we're gonna have

to do like a three hour show at some point

because it's so hard to skip over things like Summer

Soft and Ordinary Pain. Oh

My God. Somes soft. I

I mean B Size you mean

stuff that the musicians love? That's what we're talking

About. Well, that are like some of the

greatest

songs ever recorded.

One that I don't want to skip that wasn't a single

and I don't know if it ever charted anywhere,

but I just know that as a young musician saving up to move

to New York, I played a lot of weddings

and I never played a wedding that we didn't play this

father daughter dance. Yeah.

Right. That's when you know an album's great when it has

a song that is universally known

and it wasn't even a hit. Wasn't

A hit. That's, I

was shocked when I

saw that this wasn't one of those. We were like, there's

Four. It was not one of

the four singles. That's

Crazy. That's crazy. I Would've,

I would've, which is crazy.

Which means it didn't appear on the Hot 100 back then

for a song to appear on the Hot 100 for it to be eligible,

it had to be released as a retail single.

Isn't She Lovely. Was never released as a single. Amazing.

The two songs from this period, I would compare it

to, there's a weird analogy.

I would compare it to Landslide

by Fleetwood Mac from the self-titled record.

Mm-hmm. Not a single Crazy Now universally known Crazy

and, uh, Vienna by Billy Joel from The

Stranger. No idea. You're kidding.

What? Not A single what? Not a single.

And now it's like particularly among Gen Z. Yeah.

If you ask a Gen Z person name me a Billy Joel

song, they'll name Vienna before

You. Yeah. It might be the most

well known, uh, uh,

Billy Joel song right now.

Yeah. Culturally. Yeah. Certainly from The Stranger. Right?

Wow. So Chris, what, why would this have not, would

that have been a Stevie?

I mean, he had so much control that he just didn't want,

because I mean, the record company Motown would've been like

all over this as a, as a,

as an easy crossover, hit crossover.

I mean, this is some of the most pop stuff on here, right?

I mean, it has to do okay.

In my mind, it has to do with the, the typical

practices in the music business at the time, which is

that you never went more than three

or four singles deep on an album.

Yeah. The what was, you know,

what was normal quote unquote was that you would, you know,

put out maybe a third single

and then you'd say, okay, where's the next album?

Right. But again, Stevie Wonder is

now changing that cadence.

He's changing the pattern such that it's no longer weird

for an album to take two years.

The very next year an album you guys just talked about

Rumors by Fleetwood Mac becomes the first album

to score four top 10 hits.

'cause they released four hits off that album

that had never happened before.

Mm. Pretty soon Michael Jackson becomes the

first soloist to pull that off.

There were four top 10 hits from Off the Wall,

which came out in 79.

Yeah. So like the, the whole cadence of number

of singles you'd release from an album.

I will say it is odd to me that as great

as the other two singles are,

which I think we're gonna talk about in a minute,

um, that you wouldn't pick.

Isn't she lovely, given what a mass appeal record it is.

Yeah. But maybe they just figured, you know, they wanted

to serve all the markets

and maybe they wanted something a little more jazzy

or a little more r and b. I don't know. Well,

Our producer Liz is gonna help us out here.

'cause she has in her researched, it wasn't released

as a single because it's six

and a half minutes long. And Stevie

Refused there is that He refused to shorten it,

to put it on, uh, to put it on a single disc. So, and

Even if he hadn't shortened it, now mind you, there's,

there's precedent for long singles.

Hey, Jude, in 1968 was a seven minute single Wow.

That went to number one and was never cut.

Um, American Pie

by Don McLean in 1972 is a nine minute single.

It, it had to get divided on 45, such

that you heard the first half on the A side

and the second half on the B side.

Wow. But on the radio,

everybody played all nine minutes of American Pie.

Yeah. So it's not as if there were no records

that were six minutes long

that were getting played on the radio,

but I think Stevie probably knew

that there'd be a radio edit within minutes if

they put this out as a single.

Right. And for him, the point of that record is hearing

his daughter taking a bath.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Late in the, the,

the sound effects are part of the atmosphere of that record.

Right. Yeah. And it's frontload

you probably didn't wanna Yeah.

And it's front loaded with that

and then it comes back later.

And then it comes back. Exactly.

There's a reprise of the, the,

the daughter sounds exactly Aisha and I

Was just thinking before you get to that Adam, uh, years,

well not that many years later on, I guess music aquarium,

that was like 82

or 81, which was, you know, like some hits on there.

I'd probably dis satisfy something with Motown,

but it had, do I do on there?

Yeah. We're talking about jazz influence

and I don't know how big of a hit that was,

but I remember that being on the radio a

sizable hit. Yeah. Um,

Top 40 pop hit num top five r and b hit.

So do I do was pretty big.

Yeah. And so, but that, talk about radio edits.

There's a Dizzy Gil Gillespie solo on there

that got radio edited off.

If you didn't have the single you

or the album, you didn't know anything about that.

'cause that never got played on my record. Yeah.

That never, I mean, I remember firsthand,

'cause I remember arguing with my sister, I was like,

this Gillespie's on his, she's like, no, he is not chicken.

I would come on the radio and then it would

just like fa she's like, I told you.

I was like, no, no. He's about to play a great soul.

Typical. And once we got found

Svia on that record even starts,

he even starts rapping toward the end.

Like he, he makes up a rap on the spot. That's right.

He's just riffing as that record goes on and on.

Oh, that's great. But then again, Stevie Wonder has a

history of kind of seeing how far he can push it.

Uh, trivia. Do you know

what Stevie Wonder's first Hot 100 number one hit was?

My, my Shere. Is It, is it Fingertips part two?

That is correct. Oh.

And I'm glad you included the part two because it's like,

'cause the reason why it's all, all Fingertips.

Part two, which is a great record, by the way. Yeah.

It's Stevie Wonder. Pardon my French.

F*****g around and refusing to get off. Yeah. It's, it's

Like all It is Harmonic. That's what that record

Is. And then him

playing with the crowd, they're

Trying to yank him off, and the band,

you can actually hear the band in the background.

Like, duh.

They're trying to like, okay, that's our final note. Wow.

Time for you to get off the stage.

And he starts playing his armonica again.

He refuses to get off the stage.

Stevie Wonder, he's been pushing it his whole career.

That's kind what he does. That's so great.

Chris, while we got here, I want

to go down a little side path here.

You mentioned, Hey, Jude by The Beatles.

So hey, Jude, not part of an album, right.

Released as a single only. Right.

Released as a single. Just before

The White album. Yeah, just

Before the White album. But

I, I remember growing up thinking it was either part

of Sergeant Pepper's of the

White album, but it's not part of either. It's

Not part of either It's something, and

Now you get it on a compilation. You

get it either on Pass Masters

or you get it on one, their collection

of number one hits or something like that.

But again, pass. And Oh,

and they built, they built an album.

Alan Klein built a whole album around,

Hey Jude called Hey Jude, that came out in like early 1970

that collected a bunch of their leftover singles,

but never on a formal album.

You might know, but how, how, how common was that

to have just like this?

Because that sounds very common.

That's a huge hit for The Beatles.

I think one of the first five songs you might think

of when you think of The Beatles for most people,

I mean, many of the Beatles hits,

um, were not on an album.

We Can Work It Out, was not on an album.

It wasn't America and America. They kind of reorganized.

I think it's the American version of Rubber Soul

to include, we can work it out.

But, you know, day Tripper was not, you know,

that was the B side of We Can Work It Out.

Um, she Loves You, not On Please, please Me.

Ah, that, that was quite common. Crazy.

The British record industry had a,

a very different ethic than the American, where

they actively did not want singles to be on the album.

They thought they were fleecing the record buying public.

If they put a single on an album,

they thought the singles were supposed to stand alone

and the albums were supposed to be separate.

Whereas the American system was more, oh,

we'll sell more albums if there's a hit on the album.

Yeah. So it was almost like a different philosophy

between the British and the

American Recordation. So all

these, all these like British invasion bands probably

have huge hits that were never

on an album over there for this.

Never on an album. Yeah.

That was quite common. Yeah. Yeah.

So speaking of that, like how, how would this, uh, songs

of the Key of Life, if at all, been treated differently

for the UK market?

Because I know a lot of times we talk about the US

and then we'll talk about the, the UK

and then maybe like France, Germany, Spain or something.

But then it's kind of like rest of the world, maybe Japan.

And I know Stevie's always been huge in the Japanese market,

but specifically for, for UK or anywhere else in the world.

Like, how would this have been treated differently

with these signals, uh, uh, singles

and with just radio airplay at that time?

Like how it was different?

I mean, what's different about the UK charts compared

to the US charts is that the UK charts for most

of their history have been exclusively sales,

no radio airplay.

Mm-hmm. Especially in England, where they have the BBC.

And so the, the BBC is kind of a public trust.

It would be weird for the BBC

to be factored into their charts.

So the charts were always, you know, just, uh, sales.

And now they are mostly streaming Yeah. These days.

Um, but no, I mean, by the seventies, both the US

and the UK were, you know,

generally pulling singles from albums.

It's just that in the uk sometimes you'd pick a different

single from the album.

Um, I, I haven't checked, actually, if you gimme a minute,

I can, I can check my British Chart book

and see if they picked different singles.

I don't know if they did. Yeah.

Honestly, uh, it looks like there were only three

singles from Songs in the Key of Life.

I wish went to number five, sir Duke went to number two.

UK and another star went to number 29 uk.

And then we jumped to Send One Your Love,

which is from Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.

Yeah. So, so unless they went back

and re-released as later, what's interesting

to me about them not releasing as, um, in Britain,

uh, back in 76, 77 is that,

that was later a big hit in a cover by George Michael

and Mary j Blige in the late nineties.

Yeah. And that version was probably one

of the first versions to be a British hit. Um,

So interesting.

As had a Renaissance in the late nineties there,

I think it was a part of a, of a movie soundtrack.

I'm gonna forget which one. Mm-hmm. Um, the Best Man Maybe.

Do you remember that movie? Yeah.

Could have been something like that. Um,

before we get to the next couple singles though, guys, I,

I do want to just give a little bit of a shout out to one

of the songs on this album that, again,

wasn't released as a single.

I don't, of course it wasn't a hit then.

Um, but is sort

of become the jazz musician's standard off this

album, and it's this song

If it's Then why can't

it be everlasting?

Like the Sun that always shines,

like the poet,

like the Galaxies

Stevie and Dorothy Ashby.

Yeah. Um, you know, it's funny. I was

Gonna say, that's gotta be a real harp there.

Yes. That's, that's Dorothy Ashby who has an incredible

Legend.

This is called, uh,

soul Variations from her Afro Harp album of 1970, I think.

69. Amazing.

She has an amazing string of soul harp albums.

I knew none of this. This is,

you're educating me on this. This is cool.

Is that a, uh, Is there a billboard

Section for the Afro Harp? I don't chart.

No. Pretty sure there has never been such a chart.

Well, no. So He would be at the top

The last time we talked About

every Should be at the top.

Yeah. The last time we, I just wanna shout out our,

our dear listeners here.

You'll hear podcast because the last time we talked about if

it's Magic, I said, I don't

know, I'm not sure who's on the harp.

And we got a ton of comments like,

Dorothy Ashby, go look her up.

And they were not wrong.

Everybody should go spend an evening

or two with got the Ashby's catalog.

'cause it is so funky and so soulful

and she's an incredible player.

Yeah. Um, but if it's magic is an interesting one.

You were playing a little bit of it.

Well, I've just realized I never thought about this

pentatonic again, that whole melody,

the whole melody is a major

pentatonic this time instead of minor. But the

Form of it, the chord changes

and everything feel very much like a

modern jazz composition.

Like it feel, I think this is why jazz musicians have

interpreted it in a bunch of different ways.

Yeah. Not just as like a ballad.

Like you might think of just a pianist

or a guitarist playing it, which we've heard who's

Played with it. I, I wasn't aware

of that. That's really cool. And, and

It's basically, it's, it's kind of jazz.

Like not what we were talking about

before in terms of like the rhythm or the walking baseline.

This is almost like American, great American songbook type

of melody and chord changes

where jazz players take it and then stretch it up.

Got that two dominant singer songwriter

To the five, you know, it's very, very rich for us.

Yeah. It's, it's just,

it's everything we love about Stevie's Harmonic geniuses in,

if it's magic and

All the things that kept it from being a single, that's,

You're probably right. So I, I mean,

That would've, even for

Stevie, that would've been a tough song.

It Would've been a Tough song Radio in

1977. I guess

He technically with his great, like, you know, the,

the greatest artist driven contract ever

signed with for control.

He probably could have done it, but yeah, he

Probably could have. But yeah, even

he's not gonna try that.

So, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong,

but I believe the next single

that was released in the US was another star. Oh, sorry.

Before we move on, after, sorry. Look at him.

He's he's catching a wave again. He's catching a away.

No, I just, before we leave, if it's magic,

I wanna fill this in there because I got a chance to see,

so Stevie did a tour about eight

or nine years ago that went on

for like a year Worldwide tour, kind of on

and off again called songs in The Key

of Life in which he performed this entire

album without intermission.

I saw that tour. Yeah. Oh, you saw it?

When did you see it? Yeah, I saw it in the mid

tens, like 2014. I wanna say something

Like that. I think so. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Um, I saw it here.

I saw that tour. I saw it at Madison Square Garden.

I saw it here at the Enterprise Center.

And it was incredible. But I remember when it got to,

if it's magic, that was,

although obviously one of the lesser known things except

for the Seven Jazz musicians in the audience, that was one

of the, like, that's when I realized, so there was,

there was more than seven people at that show

that loved this entire album.

And when it got to that track, that was one

of the most stunning moments, at least of this show.

I mean, Stevie just killed it.

I mean, it was, well, like two thirds of the way in.

'cause he was doing it in the order of the, the record.

But emotionally, it was one of the most moving parts.

And people were like on, I mean,

people were on their feet, the whole show.

But I remember that was kind of an apex moment of the show.

So just to show that, like,

this was not people coming out. I forget,

Did he, did he bring out a harpist for that?

He didn't. Here, I've seen him do it with Harp

before when he had the whole orchestra here, he did it Wiki.

Okay. He actually accompanied himself at it on it.

Very Cool. Wow. That's amazing.

Um, so the next single released

after I wish would be another star. Is that correct?

Or, or after Sudu, because I wish

After Sudu Sudu

and then, yeah, then Summer of 77, it's another star,

which doesn't chart as high,

but, um, cracks the top 40,

makes the top 20 on the RB chart.

I think it got as high as number 18 on the RB chart.

Um, just such a funky groove. It's

An interesting track. Right.

It's almost a Latin track as far as I'm concerned.

You know, like it's, it's Stevie doing something akin to

what he's doing on Innervisions

with Don't You Worry about a thing?

Yes. Uh, but in a but in a different

Vibe. Yeah. The mood, the mood is

different. Yep.

I mean, yeah, listen to that piano Tuo

That

Okay. I think I'm

finally understanding why,

because I was like, why would this have been one out

of all the songs on here, one of the singles, I'm,

I'm thinking 1977, you know, variety shows on a, B,

c like this.

Totally. Like this is such, this is probably the closest

to the sound of 1977.

It's, couldn't you see it on a TV show? Yeah, yeah.

The opening credits of a TV

Show, the Osmond's Introduction,

the share show share. Exactly.

Yeah. Um, just a shout out here

to George Benson playing guitar and bvs on this track.

Yep. Which I did not realize. Yeah. Incredible.

I didn't, I didn't realize that was George Benson.

That's but it, but appropriate, right? Yeah.

I mean, it makes sense. Makes sense. Totally adds up.

Um, when I think of another star, uh,

I don't know if you guys saw in,

I guess it was 2014 when Daft Punk won the album

of the year Grammy with random access memories.

And they, uh, did a medley of, uh, get Lucky.

They included Stevie's, another star.

Stevie was on stage with Daft Punk and Pharrell

and Nile Rogers.

And they, they actually threw another star in there

and it sounded amazing.

Wow. Uh, yeah. So that, that's something to go back

To. You know what, I

wouldn't put it together,

but there are some similarities.

Yeah. Right. The sort of feel of the chord progression.

Obviously the tempo,

The, the chord progression on Get Lucky is one

of my favorite chord progressions in the last 20 years.

Just, it's so irresistible.

When are we gonna do the ra Random

Access Memories Pod Pete?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Let's go. It's coming man.

Alright. The final single that was released in the US is,

um, the best

One as, Sorry. It's,

it's an incredible, it's an incredible word for

I agree. I

actually agree. God, there are days when,

as is my favorite Stevie Wonder song of all

Time, 100% Chris, which is saying saying a lot.

Saying a lot. Yeah. But it's true.

It is, it is an incredible song.

Uh, features, uh, friend of the show,

Herbie Hancock, is he a friend of the show?

Well, we're trying, if I'm talk about, if I'm not trying

to manifest it, Pete, he's

Yeah. Um,

what the show is a friend of Herbie. Right.

Should be. I mean, if there's any two people

that this show is the, oh,

I'm actually, I'm gonna say three.

Uh, well now Chris, we gotta add Chris to the list,

but Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Greg Filling Gates.

Yeah. And those, that's becoming like the Trinity

because they're like the one

of those is connected to almost everyth

DeAngelo DeAngelo for

Sure. Yeah. But as

is is, again,

I don't even know how to describe it.

Let's just listen to it. Yeah.

Like, what I love about this song is the way

that it starts is not how it ends.

Right. Right. It's like the, the the hook

and the verse are so different.

This is some,

Do you know what reminds me of a little bit?

When we get to the Big Build in a few seconds, another song

that was a number one hit in 1977, um,

don't Leave Me This Way by Thelma Houston in a similar way,

the way it's basically using gospel,

but in an r and b context.

Yeah, yeah. Different, different records.

Because I mean, as is not a disco record,

whereas Don't Leave Me This way, is

but similar idea, like how, what can we do with gospel?

How can we raise the roof right at this inspiring moment?

Mm.

Should we go right to the bridge? Wait outta nowhere,

Man. First of all,

one of the greatest.

The second, the second verse. Tritone substitutions ever

laid down in music, Pete, holy

S**t. If we're gonna, if we're

gonna nerd out

And you're gonna please nerd out on that,

because that moment at the start

of the second verse is almost

my favorite moment on the whole record. Oh, it's

So great. If you're gonna, if you're

gonna call out the tritone

sub Pete, you gotta explain.

I think it's Tri It is.

And oh, another thing, Chris,

you've probably come across this before.

Stevie Wonder famously writes everything in

the very hardest keys.

This is in B major. Um, Jesus.

Um, I wish isn't bad. Um,

I wish this an E flat minor. This

is a lot of E flat minor

B, major lot B Major.

I mean, these are some of the hardest,

uh, keys for any instrument.

You are the sunshine as B major as well. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So explain the tritone sub.

So it's basically, he goes down to the four,

which is like somewhat common to start the second verse.

Is that the second verse Is that transition?

It's like a bridge's the second verse.

It's the start of the second verse.

Start of the second verse. And so like the one chord

you could, it could become the five, which kind of leads to,

to where we're going here.

But he goes, but he's got, well play it again.

Let figure out the exact voicing.

This is stuff we normally do when we prepared,

but we're unprepared, but

Okay. Wait, pause

right there. So this is another thing.

This kind of bridges some things together

that he's no pun intended, um, that he's doing on I wish.

So we've got, we're going from the major

to the relative minor.

And it's like going up to the for kind of like

Yeah. It's very similar to

the Irish

Very church. Right.

Interesting. From a stand.

I never noticed that before. Yeah.

The groove on this, this is like probably the most R

and bish kind of, of, of, of, of anything on this record.

But, but like gospel and then like very much blues

and church

keep playing it.

Oh, this is the third verse.

Yeah, I think that's later. That's the third verse.

My bad. I,

So yeah, he's going.

So it's like an F seven sharp nine going go E major

going to the E major.

It's a very like

To the for court, Right?

Oh. But it's just like, yeah.

'cause the typical thing would've been just,

Just before we even get into the tritone substitution.

Yeah. Which is the nerdiest bit of this,

the typical thing would've been to go back

to the actual verse chord progression.

Right. Which is be major. Oh,

That's true. Yeah. He goes to the for,

So this is almost like form wise,

this is almost a little bridge that happens

where he goes to the for chord

To bring him back to The melody's different.

And so hitting that,

The melody's different and the cadence is different.

Right. Because what's the first line of the first verses as

around the sun, the earth knows she's revolving.

Right. And then all of a sudden when he comes back, he goes,

you know, did you know the true love asks for nothing?

Yeah. He's not doing the same

cadence he did on the first verse.

Yeah. That's what blows my mind. It's

A, it's an, it's a middle eight.

It's a bridge that happens after the first chorus

and then after this happens.

You're

Right, it's a bridge four.

It's a bridge that is functioning as wi. That's

It. The two.

Now Back to the verse.

Now at the one. Oh,

we got Peter Hancock here.

Nice. Herbie's playing his

ass off through all this, by the way. Oh, I know.

And he's busy. Is af I'm, I love that.

Like Stevie or some producer or something.

Well, Stevie was produ. It's like, is insane.

Like, I don't know. Wait till later you'll get your soul.

Like, like Herbie starts out this track soloing,

like he establishes himself with that boot booo thing.

Like that's the way the thing starts.

And like, you know, just studying.

Yeah. Yeah.

So that's Herbie with those first few notes. Yeah.

Yeah. Herbie's all over that electric piano sound there.

Look, he's already, he's already doodling. Noodling.

I mean, the noodling is

part of what makes the record great.

Yeah, exactly. And Rose robots know the blooming me.

It's this hate knows, love the cure.

And that's very her kind of stuff to play.

Can you guys hear the difference between Herbie's style

of play versus what Stevie's doing on the rest of the album?

For sure. It's isn't, it's more noodling.

Yeah. And it's more like,

like it's kind of like, it's

More jazzy. It's

More jazzy. It's more obvious

About like

that's a real Herbie doing those octas.

Yeah. The thing nowadays, you hear like every pianist,

Robert Glassberg, Adam Manis, everybody imitates that now.

This little thing, there's a bunch of Herbies

Herbies. Yeah.

True. That's Herbie. That's

A Herbie. It's

Just his language all over this.

Yeah.

See, this is why I'm glad I'm here.

You guys are explaining this to me.

I didn't, I never noticed this. And then if

We went to your point earlier about like starting

to raise the roof this first time, this is it. Yeah.

This lift, I call this the liftoff. Yes.

Ah, this is why I'm comparing it

to Don't leave me this way by Thelma Houston.

Yeah. You know, like, Aw baby, my love is Phil.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Deza you,

it's a similar then till the day suddenly it's like

the, the roof is raised. That's right.

And the way he does It, it achieves

escape velocity. Yeah.

And going into that to the,

this is almost like foreshadowing to the big roof raising,

which is the whole ending part when they're vamping

and they really go.

Yes. So like with the for,

and then he pulls it back to this sort

of bridge thing and the Yeah.

Here. Oh, snap up. Yeah.

We're bring everybody back in there

Onic.

That's pentatonic there.

Ah. Just the most joyous track on.

And if we go long enough, I believe you get growly

Stevie voice before you do. That's right. He comes back in

For like another little mini verse, right?

Yeah. Yeah. He gives you like the same voice he gives you

on, uh, living from the city.

City. Yeah.

Yeah.

By the way, this is a seven minute record.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was released as a single,

but I guess Stevie was less bothered by the idea of

that record being thus cut down.

Stevie violated himself, cared

More about his daughter's bathtub sound in

Herbie's solo. That's fine.

Hey, that's his Right.

When you have artistic freedom, you do what you want.

Herbie gets into something gray here.

I mean, all of it's good. That good

Never To be played on a radio, but Right.

You're, you're not gonna hear maybe a OR Right. Yeah.

That's another thing we haven't talked

about in the seventies.

This is the peak of album oriented rock radio. Right.

And although a OR is primarily bluntly a white rock format.

Yeah. They would play the likes of Stevie Wonder on a r.

Like it was not unheard of interest.

Seven double if

God knew exactly where he wanted you to be playing.

So make sure when

Not You

Not having to make it to the place.

You know what else came out in 1976? Peter? What Secrets?

Secrets. Right. Secrets.

My favorite Herbie Hancock album from his head Hunters era,

which actually almost mirrors this two

Albums after Headhunters.

'cause Head Hunters is what, 73? 74.

Yeah. Yeah. It, it almost mirrors Stevie's

Great era, actually.

So it starts with headhunters. Right.

And then you've got Manchild, uh, right. Uh, uh, thrust.

Thrust and, uh, secrets. Secrets, yeah.

Um, and Secrets came out in 76. Yeah. Yeah.

Man, that's stuff that, uh,

that Herbie's playing on there.

And I think that, um, I mean,

and this would, this would totally make sense.

I believe that that was one take of Herbie, uh, everything

that he played on there

and that, like, almost everything was

put together on this already.

So, but that would totally make sense.

Like, having heard him live a lot in like different rec,

like he could totally come in

and like, that sounds like he's just

playing where like, he listens

To That's why you hire a pro. Exactly.

Well, he's like, they play in the beginning

and he is like, okay, I think I got it.

Let's go, you know, and like, and do a do do a run through.

And then Stevie was probably like, yes.

And her, you know, they were like, all right, cool.

So why not Other things that don't happen anymore,

Guys, let's, let's go into,

'cause I think that's, that's all the sort of big hits

that happened For sure.

And I mean there's, we

Didn't even talk about the greatest tune on the

album. That's okay. We're talking about

Hits. No, we're gonna, we're gonna,

we're gonna do,

eventually we're gonna do a song Three Hours Spectacular.

Where we go on a deep dive on every single track,

because it never feels fair to skip over anything. Well, I

Want to, I want to figure this out too.

And since we have the expert on this here, Chris,

you mentioned before that like having, this was like,

we're joking around that there's many more singles

available, but you said having four singles off one album,

this was like kind

of groundbreaking in a way at this time, right?

It was, yeah. Like you normally

didn't go that many singles deep.

And this is just before Rumors, right?

So Rumors comes literally, I dunno,

six months after this album.

And Rumors actually generates four top 10 hits.

But this has four singles on it, which in

and of itself is kind of pushing it by

76, 77 standards. So Yeah.

So would those, they Weren't as big a hits as,

as the rumors hits, but they were, the fact

that they all made the top 40 is significant.

So would that, are those connected at all,

or was that just kind of random?

In other words, did like, did the success of this

and putting out four singles, would

that have effect? Fleetwood? It

Probably, it, I I have

to guess that it's off in the ground.

Like the labels all watch each other's Yeah.

You know, patterns. And if they see, oh wow.

They, you know, because l Let Let's Talk Turkey,

especially in the age of Payola.

Yeah. Like, getting a song on the radio was

an expensive proposition.

Part of the reason why the labels would cut it off after two

or three singles was that they're like, look, we've,

we've sold what we're gonna sell on this,

and we're not gonna commit another, whatever, $200,000

to get another single up the charts,

which is gonna require us paying promoters

to get it on radio stations.

Yeah. So the, you know, eventually you gotta cut your losses

or, you know, not throw good money after bad.

But when you have Songs in the Key of Life,

which is a blockbuster success out of the box.

By the way, we should talk about

how it debuted on the charts.

'cause that's significant. Yeah, please.

Um, well, so songs, the Key

of Life is only the third album in chart history

to debut at number one.

Uh, two albums by Elton John did this previously in 1975.

Um, captain Fantastic.

And the Brown Jerk Cowboy and Rock

of the Westie Captain Fantastic.

Is still remembered as a great Elton John album.

Frankly, rock of the Westie is not, but

because Elton John was at the very zenith

of his Imperial period, he could get away with that.

Stevie Wonder is the first American to pull this off,

the first American artist

to debut at number one on the billboard charts.

And then I looked this up, the album,

this is a shocker album charts.

The the album chart. Yes.

The, what is now called the Billboard 200.

Back then it was called Top

LPs. So, so in the first week,

it de it debuts,

it enters the charts at number one. Right.

And let, yeah, I'm sorry, a little context for this. Yeah.

Before the charts were computerized in the 1990s,

this was mostly impossible.

It, it, it was very difficult to get the old system

where you were relying on contacting retailers by phone

or later facts Yeah.

To tell them, okay, give us your top records for them

to all line up and say, yeah,

my top record is this one record.

There are literally only six albums prior to 1991.

That debut at number one, the, the three I just mentioned,

the two Elton John albums, Songs in the Key of Life.

And then in the eighties, there's Bruce Springsteen

Live the Box set.

There's Whitney, Houston's Whitney,

and there's Michael Jackson's Bad.

That's it. Wow. Those six records are the only ones

that debut at number one.

So not Thriller and The Not Thriller. Not Off the Wall.

Off the wall. Not that, not rumors. None of them.

That makes sense. Just with the, what you were saying,

like from the technology standpoint,

there's just gonna be a lag between when it's released,

there's a lag and they can collect the data

because it's all analog collecting the data. Right.

It's hard. And, and some people will point to corruption

and say, oh, it was the bad

old days when everything was corrupt.

No, it wa it was, yeah.

There was Paola and there was corruption.

It was also just technology. Yeah.

You just, you literally did not have the data

to make it possible for things to debut at number one.

What we then discovered

after they switched to the sound scan system, where,

you know, they're scanning barcodes at record stores in 1991

is, oh, actually more albums than not

are gonna debut at number one.

Now, in a typical year, you know, anywhere from 25

to 40 albums will debut at number one.

It's very, it's totally commonplace

and it's not special anymore.

Yeah. But prior to 1991, only six albums did it.

And I mean, I, I ticked off Elton John, Stevie Wonder,

Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and Whitney Houston.

All mega Stars, right? Yeah.

That, that you had to be a megastar to pull this off. Right.

And the other record that the,

that Songs in the Key of Life still holds.

It not only debuted at number one, it stayed there

for 13 weeks.

And that is a record that even today, it still holds.

There are plenty of albums that debut at number one.

We just had a Taylor Swift album debuted number one last

week, obviously, but they routinely fall out

of number one in a couple weeks.

Maybe if you're Taylor,

you might stay number one for eight or nine weeks.

But Stevie Wonder stayed number one

for 13 weeks, 14 in total.

It went back for one additional week in early 77.

No album has stayed number one number, uh, for as many

as 13 weeks after debuting it.

That's crazy. So that's how exceptional

this album was. That's

So interesting. And

I'm wondering, and this is entire, so for the albums at

that time, that would be entirely on, is

that entirely computed on record sales?

Nothing with Airplay?

Yeah. I mean, in the seventies, it's, you know,

retailers reporting their weekly sales right.

Back to Billboard and saying,

these are our top 30 records this week.

Yeah. And then Billboard, you know, compiles that data.

You know, they, um, now it's, it's actual piece counts.

Now they're actually, you know, scanning barcodes

or now nowadays Streams. Streams. Right.

Yeah. But so I know that, that this record was kind of a,

a zeitgeist moment.

Absolutely. Songs of the Key Life for specifically kind

of like black middle class, well, just

black record buyers in general obviously crossed over

way into the White Web.

But I'm wondering if those first weeks,

like this was such a big deal

and it was a double album, so it was more expensive.

What was it like 50% more?

I think, as I recall, like a double album, by

The way, we haven't even talked about this.

It's technically a two and a half album. Oh, that's right.

'cause it comes with a, it comes with with

45 5. Yes.

I've that four additional songs. Uh, Ebony Eyes, um,

Sa No, wait, Do I have this

All day Saturn? Sorry. I

do.

Yeah. Uh, uh, the Something Extra. Yes.

Saturn, Ebony Eyes All Day, sucker

and Easygoing Evening Yep.

Uh, are all on the bonus album.

So it's like, it's like a double album plus, yes. Crazy.

But in a way, promotionally my understanding, again,

I was five when this album came out,

so I've, I've read up on this.

I don't remember this firsthand,

but the two year delay kind of worked in its favor

because, you know what we just saw

with this Taylor Swift album where like,

the whole country was momentarily obsessed with Oh,

when's Taylor's new album coming out?

Yeah. It was like that for 1976.

Everybody was like, hyped up. Yeah.

Like Stevie Wonder had gone the longest he had ever gone

without an album, and he was coming off

of Visions and Fulfillingness.

Yeah. Both of which won the Grammy. Yeah.

So everybody was waiting Yes.

The black community overwhelmingly,

but like white fans too,

everybody wanted to hear this record.

Right? Right. This, this was an event. Yeah.

And it was promoted as an event.

Yeah, absolutely. Actually, I've seen some too.

There was, they, they put in a lot of like, um,

they had a whole campaign, a print campaign

with like entire, I mean, definitely like in Billboard,

but I believe even in like some newspapers

and stuff placed with a whole, like

with the lyrics to some of the songs.

I'm trying to remember which one it was on Song of the Well,

And if you look at the vinyl package,

it came with a booklet.

Yes. Which was quite unusual.

Where you a stapled booklet with all the lyrics. Yes.

That, so the, the pa and I mean, just the gatefold.

It's a beautiful package. So, great.

Well, you, you were buying an JE

to Art when you were buying the set. Yes.

That, that sounds like in Accoutrement.

Which makes me think of our categories.

And I think let's get to our categories now.

'cause Chris, you were so generous to

13 weeks. Take

some time. I know, it's crazy. Yeah.

You were so generous to take some time

and fill out our silly categories.

Let's start with Desert Island

tracks. Peter, what do you think?

Um, I mean, I'm gonna say Summer Soft,

partly because we didn't listen.

I mean, I probably would've said if it's magic,

but Summer Soft is the one.

Thank you.

Great. Track. The definition of a good album

Cut Off.

It's got the Harmony, Right?

Like, this is never gonna be a radio hit on the album.

It just enriches the album.

But it's like, fast forward 10 years,

or maybe no less than 10 years, this could have been like,

um, what, what was it?

Uh, uh, quiet Storm. Like this could have been Yes. True.

In the Quiet Storm format.

It would've, it it might've

been played at two o'clock in the morning.

It's romantic. It's got the Stevie

like that, his whole mm-hmm.

I mean, his range of voices. We talked about the Grow.

I mean, it's almost like he's an actor

with all these different roles he can play as a vocalist.

Uh, and I just, I love that track. Sue me.

Chris, what do you got for your desert island?

I mean, I've already said it's as like, I mean,

that's just, it's such a perfect record.

I mean, but I guess a close second might be. I wish.

'cause I just love, I wish so much. Mm-hmm.

And there are days when like, I need to hear. I wish.

'cause it's stuck in my head. Yeah. But as is, I don't know.

It's just so moving. Mm-hmm.

It's like the lyric and the performance

and everything gels on that record.

It's, it's like a perfect Stevie Wonder record.

Chris, was there any chance

that your Desert Alley Track was gonna be any of not one

of the four singles given your pedigree and expertise?

Yes. Actually, I would say my,

probably my third place pick is, uh, knocks me off my feet.

That's great. I love knocks me off my feet.

It's so good. Yeah. Um, that, that's very close

to a desert island pick for

Me. Yeah. That would be my

wife. Kelly's for sure.

I already know. That would be her Desert Island pick.

Well, I mean, you mentioned like Perfect album cuts.

This is another perfect album. Cut. Oh. Isn't

Another kind of quiet storm. But

Again, this is almost radio worthy.

I feel like you could play this on the radio.

Yeah. I, I would say there's probably another three, four,

maybe five that could have been a, a single.

Yeah. This is one of them from another,

from another album. What

Was the thing? Actually, I'm

remembering back on this.

Do I remember on the, I barely remember.

I know for sure like Off the Wall, like radio airplay

of songs that weren't singles.

That was definitely a thing on like, in St.

Louis, on the RB stations, that used to happen a lot.

I mean, there's a, there's a track on Off the Wall,

is that I can't help it.

Yeah. That's, uh, the one written by Stevie Wonder. Yes.

That I think is a black radio staple.

Absolutely. I mean, it's, that was played on the

Yeah. That's

a quiet storm record for all intents and

Purposes. Exactly. Yeah.

I I I've always said it's like,

it's half, not half.

It's like a combination of a disco record and quiet storm.

People are like, think I'm putting it down.

I'm like, that's one of my favorite record.

It's actually my favorite Michael. That's Michael Jack.

Exactly. It's absolutely a compliment

I had as Gen X rising. You hear?

Okay. I hear you. I hear you. I had as, as well.

But I'm also gonna put in my second spot here if it's magic.

Just because it's so beautiful.

It's such a beautiful written, beautiful song. And

It's, wait, it's so Desert Island tracks.

We get to pick two. Is that what you think?

Well, I'm sorry, Chris.

Chris already got as I Cheated, I cheat.

But then he also, Chris Is the guest. He's allowed,

So he's allowed to, that's he's the guest.

Okay. Apex moments. What do you got, Peter?

Come back to me. Let's go to

Chris. Chris. Chris, what do you got?

I mean, I already, I just mentioned knocks me off my feet.

The, the segue from I wish into knocks me off my feet when

you're coming out of I Wish

and going into it's, it's almost seamless.

Um, I, I would need to go back to a vinyl pressing

to hear just how close they come.

But on this, this my cd it,

it's like one flows into the other

and it's, it's just such a beautiful moment.

Let's try to catch that a little bit.

We'll listen to the last few seconds of I Wish.

And This is on Oh, right. Coming out of the, this

Is on Spotify, so it might not work out great.

Oh, That might be Stevie on drums.

Actually, that sounded like

I, Oh, it's fading out.

I think that might be, ah, that

Just, there's something about that combination that

So good. Like,

knocks me out every time. No pun intended. Knocks

You off your feet.

Knocks me out my feet. Uh, that's a great,

great apex moment.

Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with, can

We just talk real quick about Stevie being the ma?

No, come on. You catching away, bro. No.

Can we talk about Stevie being the master

of the segue between song?

Like I think this is something that he was album

Flow. Oh my God.

Album flow. Like he had

to So much Intention Talking

Book has a lot of, that Talking Book has moments

where the songs just kind of Oh, are perfectly sequenced.

I I know. It's something he thought about in, I mean,

'cause you don't get lucky that many times with

that great sequencing. Go ahead. Sorry, Adam,

For My Impacts moment, I'm gonna go with, go ahead.

Just making sure. I'm gonna go with, uh, Herbie on

as I'm gonna go with that entire last section when,

when Stevie gets the growl

going. And it's, while you really,

You packed that, that that fastball outta the park way

to go 86 mile an hour fastball you and you hit it.

I'm a simple man. You started

on third, you ran home with a

Simple brain way to go. You

gimme Stevie Growling.

You gimme Herbie Hancock shredding on a

beautiful sounding fender. Rhodes, I'm

Gonna, there's a moment in Layton as

where like he does this tinkly thing.

This that I just love.

Yeah. I mean the Herbie there, the Herbies.

Uh, okay. Peter, do you have one? So,

So I got, can I talk now?

My gosh. You know, I had originally put down contusion.

I this shouldn't this, I I

Was surprised we didn't talk about contusion as jazz guys.

I would think you guys would be interested. We always hear

From jazz musicians that we don't talk about

contusion enough.

Yeah.

Talk about a fusion track. A

Straight up. Yeah. It sounds like Chick

Korea. Yeah.

It's the only instrumental on the record.

It could be on Secrets Un,

unless I'm forgetting something. It could

Be on secrets. It could be on heavy

weather. Yeah. Heavy

Weather. Yeah.

Um, but that's actually not my Apex moment. Um,

Sorry. Confusion

fans. I I I just,

I'm glad you brought it up. Yeah,

I'm glad you mentioned it in passing.

Weird because that's interesting track. It's a weird,

Um, that was probably played on

jazz, uh, radio in the set.

I'm almost for sure that was played.

Um, no, I think the Transpositions, uh, on Summer Soft,

there's like three of 'em.

They're like beyond just your typical lift ones.

They're so genius. This whole tune is super hard.

It's in a hard key. The harmony.

It's constantly changing. It's now, it's an E major kind of

A, It's actually in B

It's weird.

And it's like, wait, what? Oh, it's back to G Flat.

So these aren't transpositions

necessarily, but they're like,

Ah,

Just the harmonic movement On this. That's beautiful.

Yeah, we'll allow that. We'll allow that.

And then actually, I was even talking about later when it

Actually goes, when it starts changes case.

We don't have to get into it. To me, this whole thing,

It's so good.

So good. Guys. We could just listen to the whole album.

Yeah. If we don't have to just do the hits.

No, it's so incredible. Okay. And

I'm a little surprised some Summers Soft now

that I'm li thinking about it again.

Now, isn't she love, I was gonna say,

what was the most likely to be the next single?

If there was a fifth single, it

would've been, isn't she? It's got, if

It had to have been, but, uh, soft is good.

Bespoke Spotify playlist.

If this album were on a playlist,

which I'm sure it's on many,

what would be a good bespoke playlist name for this?

Chris, do you have a good one?

I, I was gonna call it more is more albums. Yeah.

Um, because like, okay, I, one thing I went back when you,

when I knew I was doing with this, you guys, I went to, um,

my friend Alan Light wrote the review

of this album for Pitchfork.

Mm. And um, he gave it a 10. I or Pitchfork gave it a 10.

And he said something really smart.

He said, uh, almost everyone understood the magnitude

of Wonder's Achievement, but there were some objections

mostly having to do with the length

and sprawl of the record.

Mm. And then he quotes several people

who were quibbling about how long the record was.

But to complain about the Excess was to miss the point.

Any great double album, like the White album

or exile on Main Street could easily be edited into

something tighter and more consistent.

But the all-encompassing aspiration is the whole idea,

the desire to contain multitudes

and to cover as much ground as possible

during a revved up creative groove.

Sometimes more is more. Well, and

What, go ahead.

That was the truest thing I think I've ever read about.

Yeah. Because frankly,

among my favorite Stevie Wonder albums, we'll get to this.

I'm more of an Innervisions guy.

I play that record more often. Mm-hmm.

But like the whole point

of this album is the, the muchness of it. Yes. It's

Too much. It's it's depth. It's

so long and there's so much to it.

But by the way, as we've been discussing here, very,

very little filler.

There's very few tracks that you are skippable, if any.

No, all of them. There's nothing to throw.

Well, of course there's nothing throw

All of them are worthy of a listen.

And many of them, as we've been talking about,

are masterpieces that, you know, uh, behind Masterpieces.

I like that. I have for my bespoke Spotify playlist, two

and a half albums, I didn't have anything.

But when you mentioned that there were two

and a half discs in the original, I thought that was great.

And I, as I recall, the 45, I don't think

that they really advertised that.

That was like a little bit of, I mean,

obviously Word got out,

but it was a little bit of like, kind

of an extra Easter egg.

It was a bonus. Yeah, it was a bonus in book.

They called it a Somethings Extra.

Oh. Oh, that was Stevie's name something.

Apostrophe s Extra

Man. This was an event album.

You know, Peter, what do

You got? He really was,

Um, that's what I should have done.

Bespoke Spotify plays.

But that doesn't make sense on Spotify.

'cause Spotify somehow kills everything

and makes them not events

with their damn fade ins and fade outs.

Sorry, but I digress.

Um, here, here, uh, I'm calling this,

this is really clinical,

but four plus singles jams.

So, but I'm adding a Z to jam

to make it doesn't sound too nerdy. Fun.

Make a fun. Well,

In all seriousness, you could compile a Spotify playlist

of albums that generated four or more singles.

And the singles are all great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Once you get to the eighties, then it's commonplace.

It's right. You know, thriller, it's born in the USA. Yeah.

It's Faith by George Michael.

It's, you know, hysteria by Def Leppard.

It's, it's, you know, Madonna's True Blue, like lots

of people did multiple hits off an album.

Right. But this is one of the earliest that's pulling

that many singles off an

Album. All right. You heard it, folks

create the playlist.

You got it. Uh, okay, up next,

what other albums pair with this?

What, what are you playing right after this?

Peter, you wanna go first on this one? Well, I'm playing

Rumors because like, oh, interesting.

I think, you know, sometimes I go into like, I mean,

I could be like any Stevie I would listen to,

but I think, uh, you know, to Chris's point of more is more,

uh, like you listen to this whole thing.

And that's why I always take this.

Like, if I would've listened to this whole album, first

of all, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette

after I, I listen to this whole album.

I'm gonna drink a bottle of wine.

I probably drink a bottle of wine

while I'm listening to you.

Don't it to Smoke Bud. Whatcha about? I don't smoke.

It'd be a good time to start. But I think, uh, uh, you know,

the reward you get from listening to a album at this length,

but where the sequencing is so good, it's such a,

it's like an epic movie or something.

What would you actually listen to next?

Uh, actually Rumors would be bad

because that's another kind of epic album,

but it's different enough, you

Know, it's different enough. It would be fun,

But it's from the same, same

period. So I'm gonna go with Rumors.

Chris, what do you got? I'm gonna go

with a Donna Summer album,

and I think the Obvious Pick is Bad Girls,

because I think it has a similar ambition.

It's a double album.

It's kind of her and Giorgio Moroder

and Pete Otti kind of doing this kind

of ambition across two platters.

Um, it's in an r and b context, but also a pop context.

I don't know. Logically I feel like you have

to have Songs in the Key of Life first for bad girls

to make sense and be the blockbuster that it was.

This is a great, this is a great pick, man. Yeah.

Out next, this would flow, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's two years later

and it sounds like two years later, three years later.

Yeah. But it makes sense.

I love this track too, man.

It's such a reminder we talked about earlier from like the

early seventies to the mid seventies,

which would take us right to songs of Key

to Life technologically with music

and instruments being such a rapid expansion

and recording technology.

But from 75 to 78

and 79, then you get into Off the Wall, huge jump.

I mean, the seventies was huge jump, big, big jumps in there

For mine. I'm gonna go,

I'm gonna do a first here on this podcast.

Yes. I've never actually done an up Next

and recommended a podcast,

but I'm gonna recommend The Wonder

of Stevie Brilliant podcast that was released last year

covering this period that was great of Stevie's career.

If you haven't checked out the

Wonder of Stevie, go listen to it.

I will also throw in there posted

By my friend Wesley Morris. Wesley Morris

Grace. Amazing.

And, uh, if you want some music that you might pair

with this for me, we mentioned Secrets released in the same

year from Herbie Hancock, who is

of course playing Rhodes on As,

but I think Secrets would pair nicely with this.

Okay, so two. You got two again.

Okay. Sorry. I'm good to know.

I'm, I'm, I'm spoiled here. Uh, who's

The guest? Who's the guest?

Quibble Bits. Quibble bits.

Chris, why don't you start it off?

What are your quibble bits?

My quibble bit is joy inside my Tears,

which I love the groove on that track,

but it goes on for six and a half minutes,

and I sort of feel like it doesn't modulate enough.

That's, I wouldn't say I ever skipped that track.

I don't, yeah. But it could have been four minutes

and it would've been fine with me.

That's my cripple bit.

I love the bass on this track.

I, I do too. I've

Always come to,

This is another Stevie Voice. Totally different voice.

Yes. Yeah.

Uh, my quibble bit is actually, we mentioned

how long this is, but not long enough.

I'm say that Stevie Lazy,

This Is like when you do a job interview

and you say, oh, my greatest flaw is not, I'm too much of a

Yeah, yeah. My greatest flaw

is I care too much.

I care too much. I help others too

Much. No, you know what it is. It's

so brilliant.

I could honestly live in this album for it three hours.

Yeah, I really could. Um,

So I'm trying to remember when we did Innervisions

or, um, any of the others.

They, I, I, I don't remember ever being able to really,

I always want to come up with a quibble bit

and I don't wanna be such a fan.

The only thing I can say is maybe,

I'm sorry, did you finish with your

I'm done. Ridiculousness. I'm done. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Because

You usually have two. Um,

no, it would be, I mean, this is such a minor thing.

I think the mix on this record is incredible.

I think the mastering of it, careful, I think the sound,

the drums are so, like hearing it in headphones again,

which I haven't done in a while.

The, the drums are, are panned so heavy right

and left certain parts of them that it, I, it's, it's,

it's just a particular way of doing it, you know,

but I think that it almost is a little distracting.

But I mean, we are talking the quibb list

of the bits right here,

because I think it's genius level mix.

You mean compared to the drum sound

on like Innervisions or Music

Mind or something like that? Sure, for sure on

there. But even compared to,

and then this was a little bit of a stylistic thing in the

mid seventies is to do that.

It's like, and I mentioned earlier about in terms

of placement within the mix, so important,

so many different things happening.

Um, Stevie's range in terms of vocals,

possibly taking over everything,

but then having, you know, nothing is flat on this record.

Everything is, but like the drums are

so much wider than everything.

They pushed them so far to the right, right. And left minor

Quibble bit. So Stevie is Stevie

producer of this album.

So I hope, I hope he's listening

right now and took your note.

Peter, thanks to the note. Uh, okay. Remix. Remix, please.

Stevie, uh, is this project locked? Stevie,

Uh, okay.

S speedometer. Chris, what do you have?

This is on a scale of one to 10, right?

Correct. First of all, let warn you

Chris, I'm, I'm, I'm new to this concept.

Explain what it's, no

One understands it. Nobody understand.

No one understands it.

So the idea is that I'm, go ahead.

One is a very accessible, a very courage.

An example, a very commercial,

he viable album thriller would be a number one.

Okay. A 10 would be like a Cecil Taylor album.

That is a very snobby album that is not for the masses,

that is for music snobs. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I understood it

and when I thought about this, I gave it a four mm.

Because I feel like there's a lot here for music snobs

and the muchness of the album is a lot to digest,

and yet it's very accessible, right?

Mm-hmm. So it's making a lot of concepts

that would be inaccessible accessible to a pop audience.

Yes. What do you have? I think that

No, I, that's honestly the best

snb oter rating we've ever had. Oh

No. I say stuff like that all

the time

and you're like, you don't, why

don't we throw away this stuff up?

Peter, you've been a five on the thermometer

every episode this season.

Well, that's not true. Not

what do you got right now? Lemme guess. Lemme guess,

Guess what you have? I'm gonna go,

Chris, we got Chris has a four. I like it.

I respect it. I'm not gonna

go exactly there, but you, you go

First. I have a three. Of

Course you do.

Explain that. What is

That? So a three

is just a little bit more on the commercial side

of things than I think what, where Chris is on it.

I think it's very accessible.

I think it's got a ton of tracks that you play at weddings

that are number one hits.

I think if you're on now, especially with the context

of this show, Peter, where we talk about people like

Felonious Monk and Art Tatum,

like this is incredibly accessible. What do you got?

I got five. I knew it.

No, the reason being similar to Chris,

but I would say it's almost down like to me, like

how can you call, you know, you know, the, the first,

the only records is to debut

debuts on the billboard top pop charts.

Yes. Top top albums number one and stays there for 13 weeks.

So how is that any snobby at all

that would make it a one on the thermometer?

That's like, that's like universal appeal out the gate

and yet, and yet,

and yet then we, all these things

that we picked out here would make it a 10 in terms

of like the panatonics

and he's going to the tritone sub and all this, the

Complexity. Yeah,

The complexity of it, like the nuances of it, the range

of it is kind of crazy in terms of stylistic range.

So that would make it 10. Okay.

So if you average 10 and one you come to five.

Okay. I'm not gonna shame your Sonometer score. Uh,

I also think there's something about the length,

and this may have something to do with the difference

between Peter's three, or excuse me, Adam's three

and my four, which is

that you think the album could be even

longer than it's I do.

Yeah. I have my, I have always been closer to the camp

that thinks it's over long,

particularly when you include the bonus 45.

Yeah. And there's probably a tighter version of this album,

but what would you throw out?

Like, I, I can't think of what you would throw out. Yeah.

So, um, something about the length also has something to do

with the snob Oter, I think.

Absolutely. Is it better than kind of blue?

Is it better than Miles Davis's?

1959 Masterpiece kind of blue. Peter, what do you have?

I got maybe on this also

What you've had the last every episode this

Season. No, I haven't. That's not

true. La a couple times you,

A couple times you have even, yeah,

Actually I'm gonna say probably not, but closer.

Clo closer than one would think.

Chris, what do you have? Uh,

it is not better than kind of blue.

I'm only judging this on how much I play those two albums.

I am the quintessential pop guy who plays kind of blue.

Sure. A lot. I'm not a jazz guy,

but kind of blue is perfect.

Yeah. I can put it on anytime.

When you're in the mood, kind of blue is the thing

that scratches a itch that only kind

of blue s you know, satisfies.

Um, I don't play this in full

as much as I play kind of blue.

I, I dip in and out of this album a lot, so Yeah.

I love that. We should probably adopt,

think about adopting this.

I love that Chris is like, we always, I think we started

to overthink the better than ki kind of, I mean, like

what I'm hearing from you, Chris, is you took this

as literally, the proof is in the pudding in terms of

how you react, not what you think you should be doing, not

what you think people should think of you.

I hear what you're saying. I'm, I'm trying

to be a little objective as well

because like, what, what is kind of blue?

It's the most perfect album in its genre, right? Yeah.

So I'm not sure that you can say that songs The Key

of Life is the most perfect album in its genre, right?

And it's, and it's quite long. So, well we've

Talked, it might not even be the most

perfect Stevie album.

We've talked about this 'cause often

To be like, it's not as Innervisions

as his most perfect album, in my opinion, but that's me.

But the question is, is it better?

Which implies it's a personal taste, right?

It's your personal taste and the proof is in the pudding.

It's like, which one do you put on more?

For me, I put on songs in the Key

of Life more than I put on kind of blue.

Oh, snap. I've listened

to it more in my life respect

than I've probably listened to kind of blue.

So I'm gonna say yes, it is better than kind of blue. Okay.

I like that. I like the flag that you've planted. I

Like the firmness of that. Thank

You very much. Oh, it's

not a firm flag. I can kick that thing over.

Very don't, don't worry.

Uh, Kuman, uh, Peter, why

Don't you go first, Chris? I mean, this

is 10. 10 outta 10. 10 outta 10. Perfect.

Like the art, the, it like, it speaks

to the time the booklet.

Thanks for the reminder on that, Chris.

I still remember what that feels like. I still have it.

The 45 Genius.

That wasn't the first time that was done,

but I think this is kind of the most, the way that

that was done, probably one

of the most famous times, the double album.

I mean, even like the, the, what is it?

Tamala, Motown, you know, on the lp the,

the, the label on that is

Beautiful. Oh, Tamala

had a, had a beautiful Yeah. Label.

Yeah. I also have a 10 Outta 10.

I, I just can't imagine it getting much better than this.

Chris, what do you got?

I was gonna give it an eight. I I may go up to a nine.

Uh, I wish the sleeves

that held the LPs were a little prettier.

Wow. They were a little plain.

That's a quibble that I like that. That's a

And also Deep cut.

And also Stevie Wonder album Art as beautiful

as the cover of this album is.

And it is beautiful. I don't know, I I kind

of love Innervisions

and maybe even fulfilling this a little bit more.

Mm-hmm. Um, but the, these are minor quibbles.

It's, it's at least a nine if not a 10.

I wouldn't argue with y'all's 10.

Well, and then maybe you're bringing in

and we probably are in a certain, like the two year weight,

it's like now everybody's demanding perfection for every,

like, like you say, you gotta go to the sleeves

of the actual lp and I think you delivered on the music

and hey, you gotta come on Stevie.

Are you listening? You gotta get the drum mix together

and get your sleeves together.

Then you'll have the perfect album.

It's like we have some nerve even bringing this.

I know, right? I know.

That's the fun of it. That's fun.

It is the fun of it. And, uh, yeah.

Chris Mefi of, uh, the Hit Parade podcast.

Thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank

You. This was so much fun. It

Was really a blast.

Everybody go check out Hip Parade.

We're gonna link to the show so

that you can check Chris's podcast out.

It's fantastic. All of the, the chart talk

that you guys do over there is just fantastic

and appreciate your time with us.

And if any of our listeners want an antidote to us, like,

you know, bluing through

and messing up the charts as we talk about it, go over

to Hip Parade where they get the s**t right.

You know what I'm saying?

Because I, because I know one thing.

I've listened to Hip. They're talking about tritone

substitutions and screwing those up.

They are not. We, we gotta get our,

our chart game together. We, we are not

Really, you should be listening to both.

They compliment that. There

You go. That's

what they just listened to.

Till next time You'll Hear It.

Yeah.