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Stevland Hardaway Morris (né Judkins) professionally known as Stevie Wonder was virtually born blind on May 13, 1950. This a fact worth mentioning, as this may have contributed to Stevie’s inclination towards music and multi-instrumentation from a young age. In 1954 Stevie’s family moved to Detroit where he began singing in the choir at Whitestone Baptist Church. By 1962 Stevie had released his first two albums (including ‘Tribute to Uncle Ray) under Motown’s Tamla label and in 1963 he achieved a number-one hit with ‘Fingertips – Pt. 2’. Already Stevie was beginning to shape popular music at 13 years old using two of his main influences; gospel music and Ray Charles. Due to Stevie’s age, he would naturally undergo the physical and vocal changes of puberty. Even as a child prodigy I doubt that Stevie was immune to the inevitable vocal cracks that come with this development. So during this time Stevie took hiatus from recording and studied classical piano at the Michigan School for the Blind. In 1964 he returned to the stage and dropped the “Little” from his name to signify his admission into adulthood with the release of “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” which he had co-written. We also gain glimpses of his activism in 1966 with the cover of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and a “Place in the Sun” both works considered activist songs which pose questions on peace, war, and freedom. These were released during the Vietnam War. A time when many social movements had developed in retaliation to conscription. In 1971 Wonder’s contract with Motown ended and he released the self-produced album “Where I’m Coming From” clearly a signifier of his desire for creative freedom and emancipation from the label. His social commentary would then carry through to the widely influential ‘Innervisions’ and ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ in the 70s. A time hailed as Wonder’s largely influential “classic period”.
I found it difficult to choose a single song to analyze Stevie Wonder that sums up his far-reaching and rich contributions to popular music. In the end, I decided to select Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” which not only highlights Stevie’s early adoption of synthesizers (which would go on to revolutionize popular music) but also contains his powerful social commentary on inequality, still relevant to this day. My analysis begins with the title and opening of the song. In the first second of the song, we hear an organ striking the chord D major in tandem with a wind chime effect that feels positive and dreamy. However, we are immediately unsettled by the grungy synthesized bass line and change to E minor - setting the tone of this song. Wonder crafts these chord changes alongside the lyrics in a very clever way. Typically, the major chords are accompanied by lyrics that highlight the strength of poor African American families; “His father works”, “His patience’s long”, and “To find a job”. There is an immediate juxtaposition with the minor chord change and lyrics that outline the difficulties these families experience (in order); “Some days for fourteen hours”, “but soon he won’t have any”, “is like a haystack needle”. “for the city” is then repeated throughout the song as a motif. This line represents the aspirations many African Americans had during the Great Migration (1916-1970) where families from the South relocated to the cities across America to seek greater economic opportunity and escape the racial prejudices of the South. However, many migrants continued to experience poverty and segregation in urban ghettos. There is also a spoken interlude in the song of a mock scenario of a young man finally making it to the city to find a job before being implicated in a crime and being sent to prison for 10 years. The interlude includes samples of city sounds, an eery synth playing over the vocals, and the use of the n-word with a hard ‘r’ to emphasize that racism is still very much alive 148 years after the abolishment of slavery. I argue that this song went on to inspire many popular African American rappers who used their experience of gritty city life as a core theme within their songs. One direct example would be Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” where he directly samples Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise” and raps about the tragedies of gang life: “Look at the situation they got me facing/ I can’t live a normal life, I was raised by the street”. Aside from Stevie’s vocal tenacity and the influence this had on the likes of Michael Jackson and Elton John. I believe Wonder’s use of the synthesizer had the most profound impact on popular music as it was far-reaching across multiple genres, including funk, R&B, rap, and disco to name a few. The deep and punchy bass that a synthesizer could achieve really brought the instrument to the forefront of music and was born from TONTO’s collaboration with Wonder, 'At first he wanted me to play upright bass. I tried, and it didn't sound right…”it's taking it to a jazz place. This music is not jazz. This sounds more like R&B to me than jazz. It's a different sort of bass sound.’… so we got up a bass sound on the synthesizer, and he really loved it.' Malcolm said. This revelation, alongside synthesizers, becoming more readily available in the future, generated an incredible amount of creativity in music with its influence still recognizable today. Stevie Wonder is one of the pioneers of this technology. Paired with his incredible gift for music it is no wonder he is held in such high regard by so many successful musicians of our time.
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