Podcasts about little stevie wonder

Stevie Wonder may very well be our modern-day Mozart. A child prodigy, he joined Motown as a preadolescent, marketed as “Little Stevie Wonder.” He amazed audiences with his virtuosic command of the piano, harmonica, drums, and, of course, his vocals. At just 13, he achieved his first number one hit with “Fingertips Part II,” an unusual chart-topper that featured a live recording of mostly improvised music, with Wonder switching between instruments as the audience cheered him on. However, his talent far surpassed this early novelty. In the 1970s, Wonder broke free from the constraints of his initial recording contract, gaining both artistic and financial independence. Between 1971 and 1976, during what is now known as his "classic period," he released five of the most iconic albums in popular music, beginning with Music of My Mind and culminating in Songs in the Key of Life. These albums showcased his musical genius and included timeless songs that have become part of the modern pop canon, touching on themes of love, heartbreak, justice, and spirituality. Few child prodigies fulfill their potential as profoundly as Stevie Wonder. In this episode of Switched on Pop, with the help of Wesley Morris, NYT critic and host of the audio series The Wonder of Stevie, the show reflects on some of Wonder's most powerful compositions, exploring what makes him our contemporary musical maestro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the October 16 edition of the Music History Today podcast, Creedence breaks up, the Grand Ole Opry gets more diverse, & Little Richard records. Plus, it's John Mayer's birthday. For more music history, subscribe to my Spotify Channel or subscribe to the audio version of my music history podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts from ALL MUSIC HISTORY TODAY PODCAST NETWORK LINKS - https://allmylinks.com/musichistorytoday On this date: * In 1951, Little Richard recorded for the first time. * In 1956, Elvis' film Love Me Tender premiered. * In 1962, Motown started their package concert tour with Mary Wells, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Little Stevie Wonder, & the Contours. * In 1965, singer and actress Leslie Uggams married her longtime friend Grahame Pratt. * In 1972, Creedence Clearwater Revival broke up. * In 1975, Bruce Springsteen performed at the Roxy in Los Angeles, which led to him getting noticed by the mainstream media. * In 1976, the disco novelty song by Los Angeles radio DJ Rick Dees, Disco Duck hit #1 on Billboard's hot 100 singles chart. * In 1976, Stevie Wonder hit #1 with the album Songs in the Key of Life. * In 1986, Chuck Berry held his 60th birthday concert, which was filmed for his film documentary Hail Hail Rock N Roll. * In 1986, Marie Osmond married her husband Brian Blosil. * In 1988, the Smile Jamaica charity concert to help Hurricane Gilbert victims was held in London. * In 1992, Sinead O'Connor was booed when she performed at the Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The audience was reacting to the incident on Saturday Night Live a couple of weeks earlier when she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II. * In 2003, Apple released the Windows version of the ITunes store. * In 2010, Nicki Minaj set a record for most songs to debut on the Billboard singles chart in the same week with 7, with Bottoms Up with Trey Songz debuting at #11. The record has since been shattered a number of times. * In 2011, singer-songwriter Paul McDonald married actress & screenwriter Nikki Reed. * In 2013, actress & singer Kristen Bell married actor Dax Shepard. * In 2017, Ed Sheeran broke his wrist & elbow in a biking accident, which made him cancel part of his Asian tour. In the world of classical music: * In 1942, Aaron Copland's ballet Rodeo premiered in NYC. In award ceremonies that were held on October 16: * In 2012, the Grand Ole Opry inducted only its third African American member, after DeFord Bailey & Charley Pride. It was Darius Rucker, lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish and successful solo country music singer. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/musichistorytodaypodcast/support

It's time for another action-packed 1960s radio dance party. We've got stacks of rare soul, R&B, and garage rock records to set the dance floor on fire! James has picked up a few longtime wants from a Canadian record dealer, including a Jackie Shane record, and one by a Montreal garage rock band. Uwe spins a favorite Brazilian-French Mod orchestral shaker, plus a rare cover of an Otis Redding tune, and a not so rare cover of a song first done by Little Stevie Wonder. -Originally broadcast June 30, 2024- Willie Mitchell / That Driving BeatThe Soul City / Everybody Dance NowLee Andrews & The Hearts / Never The LessBrenda Holloway / When I'm GoneThe Ikettes / Peaches "N" CreamRuby Johnson / Keep On Keeping OnThe Astors / CandyJackie Shane / In My TenementThe Orlons / Rules of LoveJames & Bobby Purify / Do Unto MeSilvio Silvera and his Brazilian Orchestra / Brigitte BardotThe King-Pins / A Lucky GuyThe Drifters / Still Burning In My HeartPhillip Mitchell / Turning Over The GroundBarbara Lynn / Take Your Love and RunThe Haunted / 1-2-5The Sheep / Hide & SeekThe Razor's Edge / Gotta Find HerLes Internes / Oh! Non!The Original Emotions / You're A Better Man Then IDebra Swisher / You're So Good To MeLula Reed / PuddentaneJimmy Washington / You Oughta See My BabyThe Radiants / Father Knows BestThe Fabulous Shades / Mr. PitifulC.P. Love / Never Been In Love BeforeBobby Fuller Four / The Magic TouchLaura Lee / To Win Your HeartJimmy Conwell / Too MuchJackie Shane / Comin' DownGarnett Mimms / Prove It To MeVerdelle Smith / Walk TallThe Blendells / La La La La LaMary Wells / Keep Me In SuspenseBarbara Acklin / A Raggedy RideThe Isley Brothers / Nobody But MeDetroit Emeralds / Shades Down Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fosforo 1612: I brani della striscia numero 4 della settimana: Mark Trecka - Wrestled to Regard; David Torn - But not remote; Charlie Hunter Trio - Scrabbling for Purchase; Little Stevie Wonder and Clarence Paul - Little Water Boy [Commercial Version]; Mikael Ma´ni A´smundsson - Maturing Backwards; Stereolab - Speck Voice; Shabaka - Managing My Breath, What Fear Had Become; Brass Mask - Francis P; Fosforo va in onda ogni giorno alle 01:20 e alle 18:00. Puoi ascoltare le sequenze musicali di Rufus T. Firefly sulla frequenza di Radio Tandem, 98.400FM, o in streaming e anche in podcast.Per info: https://www.radiotandem.it/fosforo

Today's show features music performed by Louis Armstrong and Little Stevie Wonder

Aujourd'hui on se penche sur "Hitch-Hike" de Marvin Gaye et sur les débuts de l'un des artistes phares de la Motown. PLAYLIST Marvin Gaye The Marquees, "Wyatt Earp" Billy Stewart, "Billy's Heartache" Bo Diddley, "Diddley Daddy" Chuck Berry, "Back in the USA" Harvey and the Moonglows, "Mama Loochie" Harvey and the Moonglows, "Twelve Months of the Year" Etta James, "All I Could Do Was Cry" Marvin Gaye, "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide" The Marvelettes, "Please Mr. Postman" Little Stevie Wonder, "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call it the Blues". The Spinners, "That's What Girls are Made For" The Marvelettes, "Beechwood 4-5789" Marvin Gaye, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" Marvin Gaye, "What Kind of Fool Am I ?" Marvin Gaye, "Hitch-Hike" Martha and the Vandellas, "Hitch-Hike"  

The guys are joined by executive producer Lafe for a deep dive into “the Stevie Wonder file.” The trio discusses “Superstition,” conspiracy theories, and the genius that is “Little Stevie.” Support the show on Patreon. Support the show by shopping for new speakers and audio equipment with audioengine! SHOW NOTES: VH1’s 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Organe County Dance Scene Don Rickles and Little Stevie Wonder in Bikini Beach Fingertips Live Stevie Wonder Rock N Roll HOF Speech Stevie Wonder Catches Microphone 2010 Gershwin Prize SNL Kannon Commercial Crazy TikTok Stevie Wonder Can See https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/stevie-wonder-jeff-beck-tribute-1234661455/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_(song) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-05-me-40646-story.html https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/stevie-wonder-sued-for-palimony-78180/ Eyewitness Inside WTC Building 7 BEFORE COLLAPSE (youtube.com) Prosecutors Say Rescuer Stole Cars Recovered At Ground Zero – The New York Times (archive.is) JUDGE RIPS 9/11 CASE (nypost.com)

L'épisode d'aujourd'hui parle de "Heat Wave" de Martha and the Vandellas, et des débuts du trio de songwriters producteurs Holland-Dozier-Holland. PLAYLIST   Martha and the Vandellas, "Heatwave" The Fascinations, "Girls Are Out To Get You" The Del-Phis, "I'll Let You Know" Mike Hanks, "When True Love Comes to Be" Della Reese, "Don't You Know ?" Saundra Mallett and the Vandellas, "Camel Walk" Marvin Gaye, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" The Vells, "You'll Never Cherish A Love So True ('Til You Lose It)" Martha and the Vandellas, "I'll Have to Let Him Go" Eddie Holland, "You" Briant Holland, "(Where's the Joy) in Nature Boy ?" Les Marvelettes, "Please Mr. Postman" Eddie Holland, "Jamie" Aretha Franklin, "There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood" The Romeos, "Gone Gone Get Away" The Voice Masters, "Hope and Pray" Lamont Anthony, "Popeye the Sailor Man" Lamont Anthony, "Benny the Skinny Man" The Marvelettes, "Forever" Little Stevie Wonder, "Contract on Love" The Marvelettes, "Locking Up My Heart" Martha and the Vandellas, "Come and Get These Memories" Martha and the Vandellas, "Heat Wave" Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, "Dancing in the Street" Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"

The story of Little Stevie Wonder and the amazing person he became despite not being able to see the world around him.

Season 1 of “McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” concludes with a band in flux. The Beatles had evolved significantly by 1968 from when they first released “Love Me Do.” Back then, they were only competing with the likes of Andy Williams, Little Stevie Wonder, and Peter Paul and Mary. But by the recording of the “White Album" The Beatles were up against acts on the charts with a more hard driving sound like Cream, The Who, and Sly and the Family Stone. Paul McCartney sensed an opportunity to jump into the fray himself and wrote a song that many consider to be the genesis of the hard rock and metal genres. “McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries. The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O'Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman and Scott Rodger. Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell. Special thanks to Leah Rose, Alexandra Garreton, Martin Birket-Smith, Brittani Brown, Owen Miller, Daniella Lakhan, Jordyn McMillin, Kyra Posey, Eric Sandler, Heather Fain, Gretta Cohn, Christina Sullivan, Jon Schnaars and Jacob Weisberg of Pushkin Industries. And also Winslow Bright and Nora Nalepka from Premier Music.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who knew that the sweet sounds of Stevie Wonder were a driving force behind making MLK Day a national holiday? Well, we didn't. But now we do. And this week we've got the full story behind the song, as we explore the life and genius of Little Stevie Wonder— plus, an unlikely conspiracy theory: Can the man actually see?  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lyricsforlunch/support

SONG LIST* M1 How Can You Believe (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, Motown Records LP 1968 (3:10) M2 Which Way the Wind (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, Motown Records LP 1968 (2:40) M3 Contusion (Stevie Wonder) Songs in the Key of Life, Motown Records 2LP, 1976 (3:45) M4 Easy Goin Evenin' / My Mama's Call (Stevie Wonder) A Something's Extra for Songs in the Key of Life, Motown Records 2LP, 1976 (3:58) M5 The First Garden (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (2:32) M6 Voyage to India (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (6:23) M7 Tree (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (5:55) Today's Vinyl Vibrations episode features Stevie Wonder in his early years, and more specifically his Instrumental compositions. Stevie Wonder is an international pop icon, a singer-songwriter, a record producer, AND a multi-instrumental musician (for example…harmonica, keyboards, drums, bass guitar, guitar, and an incredibly talented singer. Wonder is an innovator - he pioneered the use of the early analog synthesizer during the 1970s. His albums are individual works of art, carefully crafted and thematic. Stevie Wonder's influence extends across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. He has often been referred to as a “ONE MAN BAND” because of his broad range of talents in music composition, music production and most of all - - music performance. Born Stevland Hardaway Morris, Stevie Wonder was born on May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan. That's near Saginaw Bay off Lake Huron, about 100 miles northwest of Detroit. In the 1950s, Saginaw County had several General Motors plants and many companies building parts that went down to the big DETROIT assembly plants. It was a booming economic period for the entire US auto industry. It was a difficult birth. Wonder was born six weeks premature and placed in an oxygen-rich incubator, which  resulted in retinopathy of prematurity - causing his blindness. When he was 4, his Mother divorced with his father, and along with her 3 kids, moved 100 miles down the road to bustling Detroit…. home of MOTOWN RECORDS.  At age 8, Steveland attended the Whitestone Baptist Church on Detroit's west side. There, he developed his musical talents -- playing piano, drums and harmonica -- and he also sang in the choir and there became a soloist. Stevie was quickly recognized as a prodigy.. He further developed his singing talent with a friend …and they performed as Stevie and John on street corners. When he was just 11, this musical prodigy was discovered by Ronnie White of the MIRACLES, and that in-turn resulted in a meeting with Motown Records founder Barry Gordy, who signed him with the TAMLA label of Motown Records. At that time, he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. That was 1961 and Wonder had a 5-year rolling contract with royalties that were to be held in trust until he was 21. The weekly pay for this young artist was meager – a stipend of just $2.50 a week plus a tutor for Stevie when he was on tour. That $2.50 weekly stipend would be worth about $25 a week today. At age 12 he enrolled in Michigan School for the Blind in Lansing, Michigan. BIT BUCKET Saginaw is also where I was born, just 2 years after Stevie. My family also moved from Saginaw to Detroit, around same year as Stevie - 1954. ­­ M1 How Can You Believe (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, Motown Records LP 1968 (3:10)   PLAY BACKGROUND - HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE   To start today's podcast, I feature the album titled Eivets Rednow. There is some humor in the album title. Eivets Rednow is Stevie Wonder spelled backwards, and on the first release of the album, Stevie's name did not appear on the cover. The album is also UNIQUE for Stevie as it is an INSTRUMENTAL album. No lyrics. No poetry.

Arrancamos una serie de programas mensuales en donde iremos recordando algunas de las canciones más exitosas de las listas del Billboard Hot 100 estadounidense de hace 60 años. Comenzamos en septiembre de 1963, cuando en las listas de éxitos confluían canciones de girl groups, soul, doo wop, surf, novelty o rocknrollPlaylist;(sintonía) LITTLE STEVIE WONDER “Fingertips pt 2”THE ANGELS “My boyfriend’s back”THE JAYNETTS “Sally goes round the roses”MARTHA and THE VANDELLAS “(Love is like a) Heatwave”THE CRYSTALS “Then he kissed me”TRINI LOPEZ “If I had a hammer”INEZ FOXX with CHARLIE FOXX “Mockingbird”MAJOR LANCE “The monkey time”THE SURFARIS “Wipe out”THE BEACH BOYS “Surfer girl”RANDY and THE RAINBOWS “Denise”DION “Donna the prima donna”THE MIRACLES “Mickey’s monkey”SAM COOKE “Frankie and Johnny”WILSON PICKETT “It’s too late”RAY CHARLES “Busted”ALLAN SHERMAN “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! (A letter from camp)”KAI WINDING “More” Escuchar audio

El garito subterráneo del verano vuelve a abrir sus puertas para un divertida sesión cocinada con los sabores del rocknroll de los primeros años 60.(Foto del podcast; The Marcels)Playlist;(sintonía) THE VENTURES “The savage”DARLENE LOVE “A fine fine boy”JIMMY SOUL “Twistin’ Matilda”THE COASTERS “Run red run”THE ROUTERS “Let’s go (pony)”ELVIS PRESLEY “Viva las Vegas”RAY CHARLES “Don’t set me free”FREDDY CANNON “Buzz buzz diddle it”HANK BALLARD and THE MIDNIGHTERS “Nothing but good”GARY US BONDS “Dear twist señora”THE MAR KEYS “Last night”BARRETT STRONG “Money (that’s what I want)”THE SUPREMES “Buttered popcorn”THE AVANTIS “Keep on dancing”THE ROCKIN’ REBELS “Wild weekend”HOLLYWOOD ARGYLES “Alley Oop”THE MARCELS “Heartaches”ETTA JAMES “Something’s got a hold on me”JAMES BROWN “This old heart”DEE DEE SHARP “Ride”MARY WELLS “You lost the sweetest boy”LITTLE STEVIE WONDER “Workout Stevie workout”THE CONTOURS “Shake Sherry”BUSTER BROWN “Fannie Mae” Escuchar audio

Vor 50 Jahren erschien das mehrfach Grammy ausgezeichnete Album "Innervisions" von Stevie Wonder, das auch seine persönliche Entwicklung widerspiegelt. Ein Meisterwerk seines kreativen Schaffens — er hat jedes Instrument selbst eingespielt Wonder war bis dahin vor allem bekannt für romantische Balladen, entwickelte sich nun zu einem reiferen, bewussten und anerkannten Künstler. Ein Meilenstein der Musikgeschichte, von dem man sagt, dass es großen Einfluss ausgeübt hat auf die Entwicklung des Soul und der Black Music, voller politischer und auch sehr sensibler spiritueller Strahlkraft. Das künstlerische Schaffen des "Wunderkindes" Stevie Wonder, mit bürgerlichem Namen Stevland Hardaway Judkins Morris, ist zum Zeitpunkt des Erscheinens von "Innervisions" wahnsinnig jung — Anfang 20 — und er hat bis zu diesem Album schon 15 Studio-Alben rausgebracht – das ist kaum zu glauben! Sein erstes Album bringt er schon mit zwölf Jahren heraus. Er wird als Wunderkind bezeichnet, "Little Stevie Wonder" genannt. Mit 18 Jahren hatte er bereits die erste Best-of-Platte. Damals ist er bei "Motown" unter Vertrag, unter dem Sublabel "Tamla", was ihm ungewöhnlich viele künstlerische Freiheiten einräumte — ganz im Gegensatz zu anderen Künstlern. Daher war es ihm möglich alle Instrumente auf "Innervisions" selbst einzuspielen. "Man hört ihm das ganze Herzblut an, dass er jedes Instrument einzeln einspielt. Die Arbeit, die dahinter gesteckt hat, die wir uns überhaupt nicht vorstellen können. (…) Es macht einfach Spaß zuzuhören." - Adrian Beric Er war mit seinen 23 Jahren bereits ein weltweiter Superstar, hatte Erfolg mit seinen Alben und gewann vielmals den Grammy für das Album des Jahres. Er wurde immer erwachsener, seine Themen wurden poltischer. Wonder sprudelte nur so vor Kreativität, als er in den New Yorker Record Plant Studios an seinem 16. Studioalbum "Innervisions" arbeitete. "Wie kann ein Mensch, der nie gesehen hat, in seinen "Innervisions" doch so grandiose oder so gute Bilder sehen?" - Bernd Rosinus TONTO — The Original New Timbral Orchestra TONTO ist 1973 der erste und schon rein von den Ausmaßen her der größte Synthesizer der Welt. Er wurde von Malcolm Cecil und Bob Margouleff 1968 in New York gebaut. Es ist das wohl innovativste Instrument auf "Innervisions", Wonder benutzt diesen TONTO oft, aber dezent auf mehreren Alben. Vor allem für die Eröffnung einer seiner berühmtesten Songs des Albums "Talking Book" "Superstition" ist er bekannt. Die beiden sind unter anderem auch als Produzenten an dem Album beteiligt, sie unterstützen ihn mit dem TONTO. Es gibt Archivaufnahmen, auf denen die beiden hinter Stevie Wonder sitzen und aus dem Staunen nicht mehr rauskommen. Es ist die Art und Weise wie er ihr Gerät bedient — und das auch noch blind — beeindruckend. Einige Jahre später haben sie nach einem Streit die gemeinsame Arbeit beendet. "Wir waren wie Meteoriten, die sich einmal getroffen haben, dann groß gestrahlt haben und dann wieder auseinander mussten." - Malcolm Cecil "Higher Ground" Wie Stevie Wonder selbst angibt, hat er den Song "Higher Ground" innerhalb eines einzigen Tages komplett komponiert, getextet und produziert. YouTube-Video von Stevie Wonder - Topic: "Higher Ground" Drei Tage nach der Veröffentlichung von "Innervisions", am 6. August 1973, erleidet Stevie Wonder einen schweren Autounfall. Während er tagelang im Koma lag soll ihm der Legende nach sein damaliger Roadmanager "Higher Ground" ins Ohr gesungen haben… Was das für Stevie Wonders zukünftiges Leben bedeutete? Darüber sprechen wir unter anderem im Podcast. __________ Über diese Songs vom Album "Innervisions" wird im Podcast gesprochen 11:26 Mins — "Too High" 02:10 Mins — "Higher Ground" 02:35 Mins — "Living for the City" 21:51 Mins — "Living for the City" 36:12 Mins — "Higher Ground" 46:46 Mins — "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" 50:56 Mins — "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" 55:10 Mins — "Mister Known It All" __________ Über diese Songs wird außerdem im Podcast gesprochen 32:38 Mins – "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" von Public Enemy 42:04 Mins – "Higher Ground" von den Red Hot Chilli Peppers 52:14 Mins – "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" von Incognito __________ Shownotes: Der TONTO Synthesizer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2G1C0eOS5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flaystdObkQ Stevie Wonder bei Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevieWonder Lady Gaga mit ihrem Stevie Wonder Tribute beim Grammy 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuBnwiBCLCo Stevie Wonder live zu Gast im Musikladen 1974 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_RgaYueeh4 Stevie Wonders YouTube Kanal https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGD7CfG3JgZF52QpIRivV1Q Innervisions bei Allmusic https://www.allmusic.com/album/innervisions-mw0000192406 __________ Ihr wollt mehr Podcasts wie diesen? Abonniert die SWR1 Meilensteine! Fragen, Kritik, Anregungen? Schreibt uns an: meilensteine@swr.de

GGACP ushers in the official start of the summer season with this mini-episode celebration of AIP's "Beach Party" movies of the 1960s -- and the legendary and soon-to-be-legendary performers (Boris Karloff, Buster Keaton, Paul Lynde, Don Rickles) who appeared in them (not to mention series star and "Amazing Colossal Podcast" guest Frankie Avalon). Also in this episode: Little Stevie Wonder! Remembering Harvey Lembeck! The expertise of Eddie Deezen! “The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini”! And Annette Funicello exposes her navel! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of the Adventures of Pipeman, Pipeman is joined by Gringo Star, a band from Atlanta, Georgia. The band, which has been playing for a long time, is at Shaky Knee, and they discuss the rainy weather, which they hoped would turn into a Woodstock vibe. The band recounts how they kept their gear dry during the rain, and one of them shares that some of the best shows he has ever seen were downpours. They all agreed that it is better than extreme heat, which can be unbearable. Pipeman shares an experience from a festival he attended last year in France called Hell Fest, where it was 104 degrees, and he did interviews outside because it was cooler. The press tent was like a sauna, and he would take the rain over that any day. The band shares that the best gigs are when it is raining, and there is a little mud fest, and everyone is just having a blast. When asked to describe their music, Gringo Starr shares that they play a variety of rock and roll, and they have been playing together since 2007. The band is made up of two brothers, who started playing together when one was in high school and the other was in middle school. They started playing at middle school dances, and now they are playing at Shaky Knee. The band has played at music midtown, and they recount their experience with their old band name. You can find everything you need on how to follow them on social media, how to get the new music, how to buy some of the merch all over on their website gringostarr.net so be sure to check it out if you like what you hear.On June 2, Atlanta's Gringo Star will release their new album On And On And Gone out June 2 on My Anxious Mouth. Gringo Star is also announcing U.S. tour dates. The upcoming U.S. tour will include shows in New York City, Atlanta and more. All upcoming shows are listed below.Gringo Star have made a name for themselves as one of Atlanta's most valuable rock & roll exports, carrying the torch for hazy, psychedelic garage rock in a city primarily valued for its contributions to hip-hop. Brothers Nick and Peter Furgiuele are the constant creative force of Gringo Star, and have outlasted wave after wave of buzz bands and indie blog darlings, carving their own career path through constant reinvention and an unparalleled work ethic, amassing a loyal and enthusiastic international fanbase along the way. Their mind-bending take on doo-wop inspired R&B and British Invasion rock & roll has garnered praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound, Paste Magazine, KEXP & more, and landed them on bills alongside everyone from Cat Power and Feist to The Black Angels and Weezer, not to mention tours with Wavves, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, and their Atlanta-based contemporaries Black Lips.Though the band's 2008 album, All Y'all serves as the start of Gringo Star's storied career, the band's core songwriting duo, the Furgiuele brothers, have been playing together since they were kids, born into a family with strong ties to Georgia music history. “Our grandad started out in radio in the '40s and '50s in Columbus, GA.,” Nick explains. “He was a huge promoter of R&B back when it was still super segregated, and he was playing black music and putting on shows with Little Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers, a lot of Gospel shows. So we grew up hearing all these stories, listening to all this music. Our grandfather was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame posthumously. And my grandma—all her photo albums are like Jackie Wilson shirtless backstage, hanging out.”With their family's R&B connections and their young obsession with early rock & roll, it wasn't long before the two brothers started making music themselves. When Nick was 15 and Peter just 11, they picked up bass and drums, respectively, formed a rhythm section and joined their first garage band. “We played together in the house and messed around on a little two-track,” Nick says. “We've been writing songs together since before Peter was a teenager. We even played his 8th-grade dance.”Eventually, the brothers formed Gringo Star and began the career that has come to define their last decade. All Y'all and Count Yer Lucky Stars forced the world to pay attention. 2013's Floating Out To See found the band experimenting with producing their own records and layering more keys and strings into their compositions. 2016's The Sides and In Between contained some of the finest songwriting of the Furgiuele's career, and 2018's Back to the City reinvigorated their sound with a new intensity, equally dark and shimmering. The band's legendary live energy was captured in 2019's album Controlled Burn (Live In Atlanta). Despite multiple personnel changes, Nick and Peter have remained steadfast in their partnership, continuing to stand by one another through thick and thin in their artistic endeavours. There's no telling what comes next for Gringo Star, but there's no doubt that the Furgiuele brothers will continue to write and record on their own terms. “We've had a lot of opportunities over the past ten years. If we had an idea about something we wanted to, we did it,” says Nick. “I can't think of a single thing I'd change."Gringo Star Tour Dates U.S. Tour Dates 04.27 - New York, NY @ TV EYE04.29 - Asheville, NC @Fleetwoods05.05 - Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Festival05.18 - Cincinnati, OH @ Northside Tavern05.19 - Green Bay, WI @ Badger State Brewery05.20 - Windsor, ON @ Meteor06.02 - Chattanooga, TN @ JJ's BohemiaTake some zany and serious journeys with The Pipeman aka Dean K. Piper, CST on The Adventures of Pipeman also known as Pipeman Radio syndicated globally “Where Who Knows And Anything Goes”. Listen to & Watch a show dedicated to motivation, business, empowerment, inspiration, music, comedy, celebrities, shock jock radio, various topics, and entertainment. The Adventures of Pipeman is hosted by Dean K. Piper, CST aka “The Pipeman” who has been said to be hybrid of Tony Robbins, Batman, and Howard Stern. The Adventures of Pipeman has received many awards, media features, and has been ranked for multiple categories as one of the Top 6 Live Radio Shows & Podcasts in the world. Pipeman Radio also consists of multiple podcasts showing the many sides of Pipeman. These include The Adventures of Pipeman, Pipeman in the Pit, and Positively Pipeman and more. You can find all of the Pipeman Podcasts anywhere you listen to podcasts. With thousands of episodes that focus on Intertainment which combines information and entertainment there is something for everyone including over 5000 interviews with celebrities, music artists/bands, authors, speakers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and all kinds of professionals.Then there is The Pipeman Radio Tour where Pipeman travels the country and world doing press coverage for Major Business Events, Conferences, Conventions, Music Festivals, Concerts, Award Shows, and Red Carpets. One of the top publicists in music has named Pipeman the “King of All Festivals.” So join the Pipeman as he brings “The Pipeman Radio Tour” to life right before your ears and eyes.The Adventures of Pipeman Podcasts are heard on The Adventures of Pipeman Site, Pipeman Radio, Talk 4 Media, Talk 4 Podcasting, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts and over 100 other podcast outlets where you listen to Podcasts. The following are the different podcasts to check out and subscribe to:• The Adventures of Pipeman• Pipeman Radio• Pipeman in the Pit• Positively PipemanFollow @pipemanradio on all social media outletsVisit Pipeman Radio on the Web at linktr.ee/pipemanradio , theadventuresofpipeman.com, pipemanradio.com, talk4media.com, w4cy.com, talk4tv.com, talk4podcasting.comDownload The Pipeman Radio APPPhone/Text Contact – 561-506-4031Email Contact – dean@talk4media.com The Adventures of Pipeman is broadcast live daily at 8AM ET.The Adventures of Pipeman TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).The Adventures of Pipeman Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) and K4HD Radio (www.k4hd.com – Hollywood Talk Radio part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). The Adventures of Pipeman Podcast is also available on www.theadventuresofpipeman.com and www.pipemanradio.com Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.

On this episode of the Adventures of Pipeman, Pipeman is joined by Gringo Star, a band from Atlanta, Georgia. The band, which has been playing for a long time, is at Shaky Knee, and they discuss the rainy weather, which they hoped would turn into a Woodstock vibe. The band recounts how they kept their gear dry during the rain, and one of them shares that some of the best shows he has ever seen were downpours. They all agreed that it is better than extreme heat, which can be unbearable. Pipeman shares an experience from a festival he attended last year in France called Hell Fest, where it was 104 degrees, and he did interviews outside because it was cooler. The press tent was like a sauna, and he would take the rain over that any day. The band shares that the best gigs are when it is raining, and there is a little mud fest, and everyone is just having a blast. When asked to describe their music, Gringo Starr shares that they play a variety of rock and roll, and they have been playing together since 2007. The band is made up of two brothers, who started playing together when one was in high school and the other was in middle school. They started playing at middle school dances, and now they are playing at Shaky Knee. The band has played at music midtown, and they recount their experience with their old band name. You can find everything you need on how to follow them on social media, how to get the new music, how to buy some of the merch all over on their website gringostarr.net so be sure to check it out if you like what you hear.On June 2, Atlanta's Gringo Star will release their new album On And On And Gone out June 2 on My Anxious Mouth. Gringo Star is also announcing U.S. tour dates. The upcoming U.S. tour will include shows in New York City, Atlanta and more. All upcoming shows are listed below.Gringo Star have made a name for themselves as one of Atlanta's most valuable rock & roll exports, carrying the torch for hazy, psychedelic garage rock in a city primarily valued for its contributions to hip-hop. Brothers Nick and Peter Furgiuele are the constant creative force of Gringo Star, and have outlasted wave after wave of buzz bands and indie blog darlings, carving their own career path through constant reinvention and an unparalleled work ethic, amassing a loyal and enthusiastic international fanbase along the way. Their mind-bending take on doo-wop inspired R&B and British Invasion rock & roll has garnered praise from the likes of Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound, Paste Magazine, KEXP & more, and landed them on bills alongside everyone from Cat Power and Feist to The Black Angels and Weezer, not to mention tours with Wavves, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, and their Atlanta-based contemporaries Black Lips.Though the band's 2008 album, All Y'all serves as the start of Gringo Star's storied career, the band's core songwriting duo, the Furgiuele brothers, have been playing together since they were kids, born into a family with strong ties to Georgia music history. “Our grandad started out in radio in the '40s and '50s in Columbus, GA.,” Nick explains. “He was a huge promoter of R&B back when it was still super segregated, and he was playing black music and putting on shows with Little Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers, a lot of Gospel shows. So we grew up hearing all these stories, listening to all this music. Our grandfather was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame posthumously. And my grandma—all her photo albums are like Jackie Wilson shirtless backstage, hanging out.”With their family's R&B connections and their young obsession with early rock & roll, it wasn't long before the two brothers started making music themselves. When Nick was 15 and Peter just 11, they picked up bass and drums, respectively, formed a rhythm section and joined their first garage band. “We played together in the house and messed around on a little two-track,” Nick says. “We've been writing songs together since before Peter was a teenager. We even played his 8th-grade dance.”Eventually, the brothers formed Gringo Star and began the career that has come to define their last decade. All Y'all and Count Yer Lucky Stars forced the world to pay attention. 2013's Floating Out To See found the band experimenting with producing their own records and layering more keys and strings into their compositions. 2016's The Sides and In Between contained some of the finest songwriting of the Furgiuele's career, and 2018's Back to the City reinvigorated their sound with a new intensity, equally dark and shimmering. The band's legendary live energy was captured in 2019's album Controlled Burn (Live In Atlanta). Despite multiple personnel changes, Nick and Peter have remained steadfast in their partnership, continuing to stand by one another through thick and thin in their artistic endeavours. There's no telling what comes next for Gringo Star, but there's no doubt that the Furgiuele brothers will continue to write and record on their own terms. “We've had a lot of opportunities over the past ten years. If we had an idea about something we wanted to, we did it,” says Nick. “I can't think of a single thing I'd change."Gringo Star Tour Dates U.S. Tour Dates 04.27 - New York, NY @ TV EYE04.29 - Asheville, NC @Fleetwoods05.05 - Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Festival05.18 - Cincinnati, OH @ Northside Tavern05.19 - Green Bay, WI @ Badger State Brewery05.20 - Windsor, ON @ Meteor06.02 - Chattanooga, TN @ JJ's BohemiaPipeman in the Pit is a music and interview segment of The Adventures of Pipeman Radio Show (#pipemanradio) and from The King of All Festivals while on The Pipeman Radio Tour. Pipeman in the Pit features all kinds of music and interviews with bands & music artists especially in the genres of Heavy Metal, Rock, Hard Rock, Classic Rock, Punk Rock, Goth, Industrial, Alternative, Thrash Metal & Indie Music. Pipeman in the Pit also features press coverage of events, concerts, & music festivals. Pipeman Productions is an artist management company that sponsors the show introducing new local & national talent showcasing new artists & indie artists.Then there is The Pipeman Radio Tour where Pipeman travels the country and world doing press coverage for Major Business Events, Conferences, Conventions, Music Festivals, Concerts, Award Shows, and Red Carpets. One of the top publicists in music has named Pipeman the “King of All Festivals.” So join the Pipeman as he brings “The Pipeman Radio Tour” to life right before your ears and eyes.Pipeman in the Pit Podcasts are heard on Pipeman Radio, Talk 4 Media, Talk 4 Podcasting, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts and over 100 other podcast outlets where you listen to Podcasts. The following are the different podcasts to check out and subscribe to:•The Adventures of Pipeman•Pipeman Radio•Pipeman in the Pit•Positively PipemanFollow @pipemanradio on all social media outletsVisit Pipeman Radio on the Web at linktr.ee/pipemanradio, theadventuresofpipeman.com, pipemanradio.com, talk4media.com, w4cy.com, talk4tv.com, talk4podcasting.comDownload The Pipeman Radio APPPhone/Text Contact – 561-506-4031Email Contact – dean@talk4media.com The Adventures of Pipeman is broadcast live daily at 8AM ET.The Adventures of Pipeman TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).The Adventures of Pipeman Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) and K4HD Radio (www.k4hd.com) – Hollywood Talk Radio part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Pipeman in the Pit Podcasts are also available on Pipeman Radio (www.pipemanradio.com), Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.

Es ist das erfolgreichste Album, das Stevie Wonder je gemacht hat: „Songs In The Key of Life“. Millionenfach hat sich das Album von 1976 verkauft. Mehr als 130 Musiker haben an Stevie Wonders Album „Songs In The Key of Life“ mitgewirkt. Unter anderem auch Michael Sembello, der später vor allem durch den Song „Maniac“ bekannt wurde. Aber auch schon damalige Stars wie Herbie Hancock haben an der Platte mitgearbeitet. Für das Label Tamla (Motown), bei dem Stevie Wonder unter Vertrag war, wurde es das bis dahin teuerste Album. 13 Millionen US-Dollar soll alleine Stevie Wonder für das Album bekommen haben. Dieses Geld hat er nicht nur genommen, um seine Familie finanziell abzusichern, sondern eben auch, um eine sein Album sehr aufwendig zu produzieren. Rund zwei Jahre hat die Produktion gedauert, für die Stevie Wonder in vier verschiedenen Tonstudios unterwegs war.  Der Erfolg von “Songs In The Key of Life” lässt sich aber nicht nur an den millionenfachen Verkaufszahlen festmachen, sondern auch daran, dass es das erste Album wurde, dass es noch in der Verkaufswoche auf Platz 1 der amerikanischen Billboard-Charts geschafft hat. Darüber hinaus wurde das Album 1977 mit drei Grammys ausgezeichnet und Stevie Wonder selbst zusätzlich noch als bester Produzent in dem Jahr. Stevie Wonders musikalisches Talent wurde schon früh in seiner Kindheit entdeckt. Bereits mit 10 Jahren bekam Stevie Wonder einen Plattenvertrag als “Little Stevie Wonder”. Als Stevie Wonder dann mit 26 Jahren sein Album “Songs In The Key of Life” veröffentlichte, war das schon sein 18. Album. Er hatte also bei der Veröffentlichung der Platte schon jede Menge Übung, könnte man sagen. Stevie Wonder hat mit seiner Musik auch viele andere Künstler inspiriert. Seine Songs wurden häufig gecovert und auch neuinterpretiert. Eine der bekanntesten Adaptionen von seinem Album “Songs In The Key of Life” ist einer der bekanntesten Hip Hop Songs der 90er Jahre. Rapper Coolio nahm sich damals den Song “Pastime Paradise” und verpackte ihn im Song “Gangstas Paradise” in die düstere amerikanische Ghettowelt. __________ Über diese Songs vom Album “Songs In The Key of Life” wird im Podcast gesprochen 06:56 Mins – „I Wish“ 10:25 Mins – „Isn't She Lovely“ 13:09 Mins – „Black Man“ 15:41 Mins – „Sir Duke“ 18:54 Mins – „Pastime Paradise“ 21:27 Mins – „If It's Magic“ 23:12 Mins – „As“ 24:30 Mins – „Village Ghetto Land“  25:38 Mins – „Contutsion“ 27:28 Mins – „Ebony Eyes“ __________ Über diese Songs wird außerdem im Podcast gesprochen 19:16 Mins – „Gangstas Paradise“ von Coolio   __________ Shownotes: Youtube-Kanal von Stevie Wonder: https://www.youtube.com/@steviewonder/videos Rolling-Stone-Artikel zum Album: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/inside-stevie-wonders-epic-magnum-opus-songs-in-the-key-of-life-124478/ UDiscover Artikel zum Album: https://www.udiscover-music.de/platten/die-tonlagen-des-lebens-stevie-wonders-songs-in-the-key-of-life __________ Ihr wollt mehr Podcasts wie diesen? Abonniert die SWR1 Meilensteine! Fragen, Kritik, Anregungen? Schreibt uns an: meilensteine@swr.de

[This blog will always be free to read, but it's also how I pay my bills. So, if you like what you read, please consider a paid subscription.]It was August 17th, 2015—a typical, late summer, hot Monday morning—when I heard booming music outside the bedroom window of my apartment. It sounded like it was coming from RFK Stadium, which was just up the street on the east side of Washington, D.C.I was entering the final year of undergrad and needed a break from getting my class schedule in order and filing G.I. Bill benefits and looking at grad schools, so I decided to take a walk and locate the source of the revelry. As I got closer to RFK, I saw what appeared to be a stage and a small contingent of security officers keeping watch and no more than a hundred or so people dancing away the hot, late morning. Because the stage was facing away from me, I couldn't tell who was singing, but they sounded a lot like Stevie Wonder. Pitch perfect impersonation of him. Impressive, I thought, I don't mind listening to a great cover band for a while.I entered the area, a grassy plot of land in front of RFK, rounded the stage, and looked up to see a full band playing alongside—oh my god, that's Stevie Wonder.Stevie Wonder. In the flesh. Right in front of me.Songs in the Key of Life. Innervisions. I Just Called to Say I Love You. You Are the Sunshine of My Life. Fingertips. Superstition. Uptight (Everything's Alright). My Cherie Amour. For Once In My Life. Tell Me Something Good. The definitive musical prodigy. Three consecutive Grammys for Album of the Year, all of them earned in a span of four years, a record that will never be tied, much less broken, during a run of musical production that is without equal. An artist of such depth and genius and delightful creativity that even his most successful contemporaries, like Sir Elton John, readily concede there is no one like him and never will be again. Dr. Stevland Hardaway Morris. Little Stevie Wonder. And he was singing in my little neighborhood to a small audience. My jaw had become nearly detached from my face, and I dragged it forward to get closer to the stage, ignoring the heat and humidity and any and all responsibilities and worries that were on my mind. He was doing a surprise pop-up concert, announced just two hours prior through local media, which I had completely missed. When I went back to read the press mentions, several said the first 1,000 people to show up would get free donuts. And while I do remember the donuts and partook, but there weren't even close to a thousand folks there. It was a regular ole Monday morning in the District of Columbia. Folks were working, and anyone who wasn't working was getting in a final summer vacation before the new school year. And what few people weren't working or on summer vacation probably saw the news and didn't believe it would be so easy to attend the show. Maybe they missed that it's free. Maybe they thought it'd be too packed. Maybe they weren't sure it was worth the drive or metro ride to southeast D.C. Maybe they didn't know about the donuts. Maybe they didn't believe it.But he was in my neighborhood—a good, loud shout from my apartment—and I now stood with a hundred other folks, in the sweltering heat, listening to this man play his heart out for us. As word quickly spread, it would grow to several hundred by the end of his set, folks taking an early lunch and rushing over. I've never seen anything like it.Near the end, he suddenly got quite serious. He said he wanted to honor someone he deeply admired. He went on and on about this unnamed person. He talked about their humanity and grace and empathy. He talked about their leadership, and how they embodied the love that he felt the world needs right now.As he continued talking up this apparent saint, I heard murmuring of guesses all around me. We were all waiting for the reveal. Who is this?And then he said: “…so, I would like to honor my friend, former president Jimmy Carter.”It was a sweet moment, but it was also mildly concerning. Did President Carter pass away that morning? Does Mr. Wonder know something we don't? I wasn't the only one thinking this, as I saw a few dozen folks quickly take out their phone to do the same thing I was doing: googling for any news on the 39th POTUS.No, he was doing just fine. He wasn't in the news. This wasn't a response to a tragic or sorrowful development. Stevie Wonder just felt like that moment was an appropriate time to honor a man he deeply admired.Yesterday, the Carter Center announced that the former president—by this point, at 98, the longest-living in American history—would be entering hospice care and foregoing further medical intervention in order to spend his remaining time with family. I've thought about a lot of things, from the trivial to the extraordinary, since I saw the announcement. I thought about how he gave up his family's peanut farm to run for president. I thought about how he once led the effort in saving a nuclear reactor as a young Naval officer and had radioactive urine for months afterward. I thought about his support for LGBTQ rights and the ordination of women clergy. I thought about his long association with Habitat for Humanity. I thought about when I was a little kid interested in presidential history and my grandfather, a world away from politics, beaming as he told the story of when he shook Carter's hand many years ago. I thought about how much I regret not getting the chance to shake his hand, too.But the first memory conjured when I heard the news was that pop-up show by Stevie Wonder and the kind words he had for President Carter, for no other reason than the sake of acknowledging his love for him and encouraging others to spread their own love, too — as he said: what the world needs right now.Thank you, Mr. President. Rest easy.Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Hi, I'm Charlotte Clymer, and this is Charlotte's Web Thoughts, my Substack. It's completely free to access and read, but it's also how my bills! So, please do kindly consider upgrading to a paid subscription: just $7/month or save money with the $70/annual sub. You can also go way above and beyond by becoming a Lifetime Member at $210. Get full access to Charlotte's Web Thoughts at charlotteclymer.substack.com/subscribe

February is Black History Month.  All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories gives you Three More Black Trailblazers. Dr. James Alexander Batts was an early champion of improving prenatal care for Philadelphia's African American population. Barbara Blackshear rose from working as a “computer” and helping produce the legendary Xerox 8010 “Star” to become vice-president of strategic planning for the company. Douglas “Jocko” Henderson was one of the top deejays on the East Coast, introduced Little Stevie Wonder to the Apollo Theater audience, and is considered by many to be the first “Rap MC” from Philadelphia. All three of these Black pioneers are interred at Laurel Hill West. 

ABC #047 - Part 3 Douglas “Jocko” Henderson was one of the top deejays on the East Coast, introduced Little Stevie Wonder to the Apollo Theater audience, and is considered by many to be the first “Rap MC” from Philadelphia.

One of the most iconic voices in recorded music. Marvin Gaye started his career as a  sideman for artists like Chuck Berry, The Marvelettes, and even Little Stevie Wonder. After impressing Motown's Berry Gordy singing at a Holiday Party, Marvin quickly became one of the label's biggest assets. With  his '60's hits like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" with Tammi Terrell and "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" he solidified enough credibility to wrestle creative control of his music from the label which led to some of the most poignant  and political R&B music of all time with his "What's Going On?" album. As his career progressed, he continued to find success with the sound that would go on to define hip-hop and electronic music on tracks like his top 10 hit "Sexual Healing." Although his life tragically ended early, his influence is prominently felt through artists he inspired like Stevie Wonder, Sade, and even modern hitmakers like John Legend and Bruno Mars. In this episode of Influenced, he look at the career of this iconic and groundbreaking hitmaker. Follow Us Here: https://www.instagram.com/influenced.podcast/

Episode one hundred and fifty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “I Was Made to Love Her", the early career of Stevie Wonder, and the Detroit riots of 1967. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "Groovin'" by the Young Rascals. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, I've put together a Mixcloud playlist of all the recordings excerpted in this episode. The best value way to get all of Stevie Wonder's early singles is this MP3 collection, which has the original mono single mixes of fifty-five tracks for a very reasonable price. For those who prefer physical media, this is a decent single-CD collection of his early work at a very low price indeed. As well as the general Motown information listed below, I've also referred to Signed, Sealed, and Delivered: The Soulful Journey of Stevie Wonder by Mark Ribowsky, which rather astonishingly is the only full-length biography of Wonder, to Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul by Craig Werner, and to Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul by Stuart Cosgrove. For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I've used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown. To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy's own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown's thirty-year history. How Sweet It Is by Lamont Dozier and Scott B. Bomar is Dozier's autobiography, while Come and Get These Memories by Brian and Eddie Holland and Dave Thompson is the Holland brothers'. Standing in the Shadows of Motown: The Life and Music of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson by "Dr Licks" is a mixture of a short biography of the great bass player, and tablature of his most impressive bass parts. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 694 tracks released on Motown singles. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A quick note before I begin -- this episode deals with disability and racism, and also deals from the very beginning with sex work and domestic violence. It also has some discussion of police violence and sexual assault. As always I will try to deal with those subjects as non-judgementally and sensitively as possible, but if you worry that anything about those subjects might disturb you, please check the transcript. Calvin Judkins was not a good man. Lula Mae Hardaway thought at first he might be, when he took her in, with her infant son whose father had left before the boy was born. He was someone who seemed, when he played the piano, to be deeply sensitive and emotional, and he even did the decent thing and married her when he got her pregnant. She thought she could save him, even though he was a street hustler and not even very good at it, and thirty years older than her -- she was only nineteen, he was nearly fifty. But she soon discovered that he wasn't interested in being saved, and instead he was interested in hurting her. He became physically and financially abusive, and started pimping her out. Lula would eventually realise that Calvin Judkins was no good, but not until she got pregnant again, shortly after the birth of her second son. Her third son was born premature -- different sources give different numbers for how premature, with some saying four months and others six weeks -- and while he apparently went by Stevland Judkins throughout his early childhood, the name on his birth certificate was apparently Stevland Morris, Lula having decided not to give another child the surname of her abuser, though nobody has ever properly explained where she got the surname "Morris" from. Little Stevland was put in an incubator with an oxygen mask, which saved the tiny child's life but destroyed his sight, giving him a condition called retinopathy of prematurity -- a condition which nowadays can be prevented and cured, but in 1951 was just an unavoidable consequence for some portion of premature babies. Shortly after the family moved from Saginaw to Detroit, Lula kicked Calvin out, and he would remain only a peripheral figure in his children's lives, but one thing he did do was notice young Stevland's interest in music, and on his increasingly infrequent visits to his wife and kids -- visits that usually ended with violence -- he would bring along toy instruments for the young child to play, like a harmonica and a set of bongos. Stevie was a real prodigy, and by the time he was nine he had a collection of real musical instruments, because everyone could see that the kid was something special. A neighbour who owned a piano gave it to Stevie when she moved out and couldn't take it with her. A local Lions Club gave him a drum kit at a party they organised for local blind children, and a barber gave him a chromatic harmonica after seeing him play his toy one. Stevie gave his first professional performance when he was eight. His mother had taken him to a picnic in the park, and there was a band playing, and the little boy got as close to the stage as he could and started dancing wildly. The MC of the show asked the child who he was, and he said "My name is Stevie, and I can sing and play drums", so of course they got the cute kid up on stage behind the drum kit while the band played Johnny Ace's "Pledging My Love": [Excerpt: Johnny Ace, "Pledging My Love"] He did well enough that they paid him seventy-five cents -- an enormous amount for a small child at that time -- though he was disappointed afterwards that they hadn't played something faster that would really allow him to show off his drumming skills. After that he would perform semi-regularly at small events, and always ask to be paid in quarters rather than paper money, because he liked the sound of the coins -- one of his party tricks was to be able to tell one coin from another by the sound of them hitting a table. Soon he formed a duo with a neighbourhood friend, John Glover, who was a couple of years older and could play guitar while Stevie sang and played harmonica and bongos. The two were friends, and both accomplished musicians for their age, but that wasn't the only reason Stevie latched on to Glover. Even as young as he was, he knew that Motown was soon going to be the place to be in Detroit if you were a musician, and Glover had an in -- his cousin was Ronnie White of the Miracles. Stevie and John performed as a duo everywhere they could and honed their act, performing particularly at the talent shows which were such an incubator of Black musical talent at the time, and they also at this point seem to have got the attention of Clarence Paul, but it was White who brought the duo to Motown. Stevie and John first played for White and Bobby Rodgers, another of the Miracles, then when they were impressed they took them through the several layers of Motown people who would have to sign off on signing a new act. First they were taken to see Brian Holland, who was a rising star within Motown as "Please Mr. Postman" was just entering the charts. They impressed him with a performance of the Miracles song "Bad Girl": [Excerpt: The Miracles, "Bad Girl"] After that, Stevie and John went to see Mickey Stevenson, who was at first sceptical, thinking that a kid so young -- Stevie was only eleven at the time -- must be some kind of novelty act rather than a serious musician. He said later "It was like, what's next, the singing mouse?" But Stevenson was won over by the child's talent. Normally, Stevenson had the power to sign whoever he liked to the label, but given the extra legal complications involved in signing someone under-age, he had to get Berry Gordy's permission. Gordy didn't even like signing teenagers because of all the extra paperwork that would be involved, and he certainly wasn't interested in signing pre-teens. But he came down to the studio to see what Stevie could do, and was amazed, not by his singing -- Gordy didn't think much of that -- but by his instrumental ability. First Stevie played harmonica and bongos as proficiently as an adult professional, and then he made his way around the studio playing on every other instrument in the place -- often only a few notes, but competent on them all. Gordy decided to sign the duo -- and the initial contract was for an act named "Steve and John" -- but it was soon decided to separate them. Glover would be allowed to hang around Motown while he was finishing school, and there would be a place for him when he finished -- he later became a staff songwriter, working on tracks for the Four Tops and the Miracles among others, and he would even later write a number one hit, "You Don't Have to be a Star (to be in My Show)" for Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr -- but they were going to make Stevie a star right now. The man put in charge of that was Clarence Paul. Paul, under his birth name of Clarence Pauling, had started his career in the "5" Royales, a vocal group he formed with his brother Lowman Pauling that had been signed to Apollo Records by Ralph Bass, and later to King Records. Paul seems to have been on at least some of the earliest recordings by the group, so is likely on their first single, "Give Me One More Chance": [Excerpt: The "5" Royales, "Give Me One More Chance"] But Paul was drafted to go and fight in the Korean War, and so wasn't part of the group's string of hit singles, mostly written by his brother Lowman, like "Think", which later became better known in James Brown's cover version, or "Dedicated to the One I Love", later covered by the Shirelles, but in its original version dominated by Lowman's stinging guitar playing: [Excerpt: The "5" Royales, "Dedicated to the One I Love"] After being discharged, Clarence had shortened his name to Clarence Paul, and had started recording for all the usual R&B labels like Roulette and Federal, with little success: [Excerpt: Clarence Paul, "I'm Gonna Love You, Love You Til I Die"] He'd also co-written "I Need Your Lovin'", which had been an R&B hit for Roy Hamilton: [Excerpt: Roy Hamilton, "I Need Your Lovin'"] Paul had recently come to work for Motown – one of the things Berry Gordy did to try to make his label more attractive was to hire the relatives of R&B stars on other labels, in the hopes of getting them to switch to Motown – and he was the new man on the team, not given any of the important work to do. He was working with acts like Henry Lumpkin and the Valladiers, and had also been the producer of "Mind Over Matter", the single the Temptations had released as The Pirates in a desperate attempt to get a hit: [Excerpt: The Pirates, "Mind Over Matter"] Paul was the person you turned to when no-one else was interested, and who would come up with bizarre ideas. A year or so after the time period we're talking about, it was him who produced an album of country music for the Supremes, before they'd had a hit, and came up with "The Man With the Rock and Roll Banjo Band" for them: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "The Man With The Rock and Roll Banjo Band"] So, Paul was the perfect person to give a child -- by this time twelve years old -- who had the triple novelties of being a multi-instrumentalist, a child, and blind. Stevie started spending all his time around the Motown studios, partly because he was eager to learn everything about making records and partly because his home life wasn't particularly great and he wanted to be somewhere else. He earned the affection and irritation, in equal measure, of people at Motown both for his habit of wandering into the middle of sessions because he couldn't see the light that showed that the studio was in use, and for his practical joking. He was a great mimic, and would do things like phoning one of the engineers and imitating Berry Gordy's voice, telling the engineer that Stevie would be coming down, and to give him studio equipment to take home. He'd also astonish women by complimenting them, in detail, on their dresses, having been told in advance what they looked like by an accomplice. But other "jokes" were less welcome -- he would regularly sexually assault women working at Motown, grabbing their breasts or buttocks and then claiming it was an accident because he couldn't see what he was doing. Most of the women he molested still speak of him fondly, and say everybody loved him, and this may even be the case -- and certainly I don't think any of us should be judged too harshly for what we did when we were twelve -- but this kind of thing led to a certain amount of pressure to make Stevie's career worth the extra effort he was causing everyone at Motown. Because Berry Gordy was not impressed with Stevie's vocals, the decision was made to promote him as a jazz instrumentalist, and so Clarence Paul insisted that his first release be an album, rather than doing what everyone would normally do and only put out an album after a hit single. Paul reasoned that there was no way on Earth they were going to be able to get a hit single with a jazz instrumental by a twelve-year-old kid, and eventually persuaded Gordy of the wisdom of this idea. So they started work on The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie, released under his new stagename of Little Stevie Wonder, supposedly a name given to him after Berry Gordy said "That kid's a wonder!", though Mickey Stevenson always said that the name came from a brainstorming session between him and Clarence Paul. The album featured Stevie on harmonica, piano, and organ on different tracks, but on the opening track, "Fingertips", he's playing the bongos that give the track its name: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "Fingertips (studio version)"] The composition of that track is credited to Paul and the arranger Hank Cosby, but Beans Bowles, who played flute on the track, always claimed that he came up with the melody, and it seems quite likely to me that most of the tracks on the album were created more or less as jam sessions -- though Wonder's contributions were all overdubbed later. The album sat in the can for several months -- Berry Gordy was not at all sure of its commercial potential. Instead, he told Paul to go in another direction -- focusing on Wonder's blindness, he decided that what they needed to do was create an association in listeners' minds with Ray Charles, who at this point was at the peak of his commercial power. So back into the studio went Wonder and Paul, to record an album made up almost entirely of Ray Charles covers, titled Tribute to Uncle Ray. (Some sources have the Ray Charles tribute album recorded first -- and given Motown's lax record-keeping at this time it may be impossible to know for sure -- but this is the way round that Mark Ribowsky's biography of Wonder has it). But at Motown's regular quality control meeting it was decided that there wasn't a single on the album, and you didn't release an album like that without having a hit single first. By this point, Clarence Paul was convinced that Berry Gordy was just looking for excuses not to do anything with Wonder -- and there may have been a grain of truth to that. There's some evidence that Gordy was worried that the kid wouldn't be able to sing once his voice broke, and was scared of having another Frankie Lymon on his hands. But the decision was made that rather than put out either of those albums, they would put out a single. The A-side was a song called "I Call it Pretty Music But the Old People Call it the Blues, Part 1", which very much played on Wonder's image as a loveable naive kid: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "I Call it Pretty Music But the Old People Call it the Blues, Part 1"] The B-side, meanwhile, was part two -- a slowed-down, near instrumental, version of the song, reframed as an actual blues, and as a showcase for Wonder's harmonica playing rather than his vocals. The single wasn't a hit, but it made number 101 on the Billboard charts, just missing the Hot One Hundred, which for the debut single of a new artist wasn't too bad, especially for Motown at this point in time, when most of its releases were flopping. That was good enough that Gordy authorised the release of the two albums that they had in the can. The next single, "Little Water Boy", was a rather baffling duet with Clarence Paul, which did nothing at all on the charts. [Excerpt: Clarence Paul and Little Stevie Wonder, "Little Water Boy"] After this came another flop single, written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Janie Bradford, before the record that finally broke Little Stevie Wonder out into the mainstream in a big way. While Wonder hadn't had a hit yet, he was sent out on the first Motortown Revue tour, along with almost every other act on the label. Because he hadn't had a hit, he was supposed to only play one song per show, but nobody had told him how long that song should be. He had quickly become a great live performer, and the audiences were excited to watch him, so when he went into extended harmonica solos rather than quickly finishing the song, the audience would be with him. Clarence Paul, who came along on the tour, would have to motion to the onstage bandleader to stop the music, but the bandleader would know that the audiences were with Stevie, and so would just keep the song going as long as Stevie was playing. Often Paul would have to go on to the stage and shout in Wonder's ear to stop playing -- and often Wonder would ignore him, and have to be physically dragged off stage by Paul, still playing, causing the audience to boo Paul for stopping him from playing. Wonder would complain off-stage that the audience had been enjoying it, and didn't seem to get it into his head that he wasn't the star of the show, that the audiences *were* enjoying him, but were *there* to see the Miracles and Mary Wells and the Marvelettes and Marvin Gaye. This made all the acts who had to go on after him, and who were running late as a result, furious at him -- especially since one aspect of Wonder's blindness was that his circadian rhythms weren't regulated by sunlight in the same way that the sighted members of the tour's were. He would often wake up the entire tour bus by playing his harmonica at two or three in the morning, while they were all trying to sleep. Soon Berry Gordy insisted that Clarence Paul be on stage with Wonder throughout his performance, ready to drag him off stage, so that he wouldn't have to come out onto the stage to do it. But one of the first times he had done this had been on one of the very first Motortown Revue shows, before any of his records had come out. There he'd done a performance of "Fingertips", playing the flute part on harmonica rather than only playing bongos throughout as he had on the studio version -- leaving the percussion to Marvin Gaye, who was playing drums for Wonder's set: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "Fingertips (Parts 1 & 2)"] But he'd extended the song with a little bit of call-and-response vocalising: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "Fingertips (Parts 1 & 2)"] After the long performance ended, Clarence Paul dragged Wonder off-stage and the MC asked the audience to give him a round of applause -- but then Stevie came running back on and carried on playing: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "Fingertips (Parts 1 & 2)"] By this point, though, the musicians had started to change over -- Mary Wells, who was on after Wonder, was using different musicians from his, and some of her players were already on stage. You can hear Joe Swift, who was playing bass for Wells, asking what key he was meant to be playing in: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "Fingertips (Parts 1 & 2)"] Eventually, after six and a half minutes, they got Wonder off stage, but that performance became the two sides of Wonder's next single, with "Fingertips Part 2", the part with the ad lib singing and the false ending, rather than the instrumental part one, being labelled as the side the DJs should play. When it was released, the song started a slow climb up the charts, and by August 1963, three months after it came out, it was at number one -- only the second ever Motown number one, and the first ever live single to get there. Not only that, but Motown released a live album -- Recorded Live, the Twelve-Year-Old Genius (though as many people point out he was thirteen when it was released -- he was twelve when it was recorded though) and that made number one on the albums chart, becoming the first Motown album ever to do so. They followed up "Fingertips" with a similar sounding track, "Workout, Stevie, Workout", which made number thirty-three. After that, his albums -- though not yet his singles -- started to be released as by "Stevie Wonder" with no "Little" -- he'd had a bit of a growth spurt and his voice was breaking, and so marketing him as a child prodigy was not going to work much longer and they needed to transition him into a star with adult potential. In the Motown of 1963 that meant cutting an album of standards, because the belief at the time in Motown was that the future for their entertainers was doing show tunes at the Copacabana. But for some reason the audience who had wanted an R&B harmonica instrumental with call-and-response improvised gospel-influenced yelling was not in the mood for a thirteen year old singing "Put on a Happy Face" and "When You Wish Upon a Star", and especially not when the instrumental tracks were recorded in a key that suited him at age twelve but not thirteen, so he was clearly straining. "Fingertips" being a massive hit also meant Stevie was now near the top of the bill on the Motortown Revue when it went on its second tour. But this actually put him in a precarious position. When he had been down at the bottom of the bill and unknown, nobody expected anything from him, and he was following other minor acts, so when he was surprisingly good the audiences went wild. Now, near the top of the bill, he had to go on after Marvin Gaye, and he was not nearly so impressive in that context. The audiences were polite enough, but not in the raptures he was used to. Although Stevie could still beat Gaye in some circumstances. At Motown staff parties, Berry Gordy would always have a contest where he'd pit two artists against each other to see who could win the crowd over, something he thought instilled a fun and useful competitive spirit in his artists. They'd alternate songs, two songs each, and Gordy would decide on the winner based on audience response. For the 1963 Motown Christmas party, it was Stevie versus Marvin. Wonder went first, with "Workout, Stevie, Workout", and was apparently impressive, but then Gaye topped him with a version of "Hitch-Hike". So Stevie had to top that, and apparently did, with a hugely extended version of "I Call it Pretty Music", reworked in the Ray Charles style he'd used for "Fingertips". So Marvin Gaye had to top that with the final song of the contest, and he did, performing "Stubborn Kind of Fellow": [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow"] And he was great. So great, it turned the crowd against him. They started booing, and someone in the audience shouted "Marvin, you should be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of a little blind kid!" The crowd got so hostile Berry Gordy had to stop the performance and end the party early. He never had another contest like that again. There were other problems, as well. Wonder had been assigned a tutor, a young man named Ted Hull, who began to take serious control over his life. Hull was legally blind, so could teach Wonder using Braille, but unlike Wonder had some sight -- enough that he was even able to get a drivers' license and a co-pilot license for planes. Hull was put in loco parentis on most of Stevie's tours, and soon became basically inseparable from him, but this caused a lot of problems, not least because Hull was a conservative white man, while almost everyone else at Motown was Black, and Stevie was socially liberal and on the side of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements. Hull started to collaborate on songwriting with Wonder, which most people at Motown were OK with but which now seems like a serious conflict of interest, and he also started calling himself Stevie's "manager" -- which did *not* impress the people at Motown, who had their own conflict of interest because with Stevie, like with all their artists, they were his management company and agents as well as his record label and publishers. Motown grudgingly tolerated Hull, though, mostly because he was someone they could pass Lula Mae Hardaway to to deal with her complaints. Stevie's mother was not very impressed with the way that Motown were handling her son, and would make her opinion known to anyone who would listen. Hull and Hardaway did not get on at all, but he could be relied on to save the Gordy family members from having to deal with her. Wonder was sent over to Europe for Christmas 1963, to perform shows at the Paris Olympia and do some British media appearances. But both his mother and Hull had come along, and their clear dislike for each other was making him stressed. He started to get pains in his throat whenever he sang -- pains which everyone assumed were a stress reaction to the unhealthy atmosphere that happened whenever Hull and his mother were in the same room together, but which later turned out to be throat nodules that required surgery. Because of this, his singing was generally not up to standard, which meant he was moved to a less prominent place on the bill, which in turn led to his mother accusing the Gordy family of being against him and trying to stop him becoming a star. Wonder started to take her side and believe that Motown were conspiring against him, and at one point he even "accidentally" dropped a bottle of wine on Ted Hull's foot, breaking one of his toes, because he saw Hull as part of the enemy that was Motown. Before leaving for those shows, he had recorded the album he later considered the worst of his career. While he was now just plain Stevie on albums, he wasn't for his single releases, or in his first film appearance, where he was still Little Stevie Wonder. Berry Gordy was already trying to get a foot in the door in Hollywood -- by the end of the decade Motown would be moving from Detroit to LA -- and his first real connections there were with American International Pictures, the low-budget film-makers who have come up a lot in connection with the LA scene. AIP were the producers of the successful low-budget series of beach party films, which combined appearances by teen heartthrobs Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in swimsuits with cameo appearances by old film stars fallen on hard times, and with musical performances by bands like the Bobby Fuller Four. There would be a couple of Motown connections to these films -- most notably, the Supremes would do the theme tune for Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine -- but Muscle Beach Party was to be the first. Most of the music for Muscle Beach Party was written by Brian Wilson, Roger Christian, and Gary Usher, as one might expect for a film about surfing, and was performed by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, the film's major musical guests, with Annette, Frankie, and Donna Loren [pron Lorren] adding vocals, on songs like "Muscle Bustle": [Excerpt: Donna Loren with Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, "Muscle Bustle"] The film followed the formula in every way -- it also had a cameo appearance by Peter Lorre, his last film appearance before his death, and it featured Little Stevie Wonder playing one of the few songs not written by the surf and car writers, a piece of nothing called "Happy Street". Stevie also featured in the follow-up, Bikini Beach, which came out a little under four months later, again doing a single number, "Happy Feelin'". To cash in on his appearances in these films, and having tried releasing albums of Little Stevie as jazz multi-instrumentalist, Ray Charles tribute act, live soulman and Andy Williams-style crooner, they now decided to see if they could sell him as a surf singer. Or at least, as Motown's idea of a surf singer, which meant a lot of songs about the beach and the sea -- mostly old standards like "Red Sails in the Sunset" and "Ebb Tide" -- backed by rather schlocky Wrecking Crew arrangements. And this is as good a place as any to take on one of the bits of disinformation that goes around about Motown. I've addressed this before, but it's worth repeating here in slightly more detail. Carol Kaye, one of the go-to Wrecking Crew bass players, is a known credit thief, and claims to have played on hundreds of records she didn't -- claims which too many people take seriously because she is a genuine pioneer and was for a long time undercredited on many records she *did* play on. In particular, she claims to have played on almost all the classic Motown hits that James Jamerson of the Funk Brothers played on, like the title track for this episode, and she claims this despite evidence including notarised statements from everyone involved in the records, the release of session recordings that show producers talking to the Funk Brothers, and most importantly the evidence of the recordings themselves, which have all the characteristics of the Detroit studio and sound like the Funk Brothers playing, and have absolutely nothing in common, sonically, with the records the Wrecking Crew played on at Gold Star, Western, and other LA studios. The Wrecking Crew *did* play on a lot of Motown records, but with a handful of exceptions, mostly by Brenda Holloway, the records they played on were quickie knock-off album tracks and potboiler albums made to tie in with film or TV work -- soundtracks to TV specials the acts did, and that kind of thing. And in this case, the Wrecking Crew played on the entire Stevie at the Beach album, including the last single to be released as by "Little Stevie Wonder", "Castles in the Sand", which was arranged by Jack Nitzsche: [Excerpt: Little Stevie Wonder, "Castles in the Sand"] Apparently the idea of surfin' Stevie didn't catch on any more than that of swingin' Stevie had earlier. Indeed, throughout 1964 and 65 Motown seem to have had less than no idea what they were doing with Stevie Wonder, and he himself refers to all his recordings from this period as an embarrassment, saving particular scorn for the second single from Stevie at the Beach, "Hey Harmonica Man", possibly because that, unlike most of his other singles around this point, was a minor hit, reaching number twenty-nine on the charts. Motown were still pushing Wonder hard -- he even got an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in May 1964, only the second Motown act to appear on it after the Marvelettes -- but Wonder was getting more and more unhappy with the decisions they were making. He loathed the Stevie at the Beach album -- the records he'd made earlier, while patchy and not things he'd chosen, were at least in some way related to his musical interests. He *did* love jazz, and he *did* love Ray Charles, and he *did* love old standards, and the records were made by his friend Clarence Paul and with the studio musicians he'd grown to know in Detroit. But Stevie at the Beach was something that was imposed on Clarence Paul from above, it was cut with unfamiliar musicians, Stevie thought the films he was appearing in were embarrassing, and he wasn't even having much commercial success, which was the whole point of these compromises. He started to get more rebellious against Paul in the studio, though many of these decisions weren't made by Paul, and he would complain to anyone who would listen that if he was just allowed to do the music he wanted to sing, the way he wanted to sing it, he would have more hits. But for nine months he did basically no singing other than that Ed Sullivan Show appearance -- he had to recover from the operation to remove the throat nodules. When he did return to the studio, the first single he cut remained unreleased, and while some stuff from the archives was released between the start of 1964 and March 1965, the first single he recorded and released after the throat nodules, "Kiss Me Baby", which came out in March, was a complete flop. That single was released to coincide with the first Motown tour of Europe, which we looked at in the episode on "Stop! In the Name of Love", and which was mostly set up to promote the Supremes, but which also featured Martha and the Vandellas, the Miracles, and the Temptations. Even though Stevie had not had a major hit in eighteen months by this point, he was still brought along on the tour, the only solo artist to be included -- at this point Gordy thought that solo artists looked outdated compared to vocal groups, in a world dominated by bands, and so other solo artists like Marvin Gaye weren't invited. This was a sign that Gordy was happier with Stevie than his recent lack of chart success might suggest. One of the main reasons that Gordy had been in two minds about him was that he'd had no idea if Wonder would still be able to sing well after his voice broke. But now, as he was about to turn fifteen, his adult voice had more or less stabilised, and Gordy knew that he was capable of having a long career, if they just gave him the proper material. But for now his job on the tour was to do his couple of hits, smile, and be on the lower rungs of the ladder. But even that was still a prominent place to be given the scaled-down nature of this bill compared to the Motortown Revues. While the tour was in England, for example, Dusty Springfield presented a TV special focusing on all the acts on the tour, and while the Supremes were the main stars, Stevie got to do two songs, and also took part in the finale, a version of "Mickey's Monkey" led by Smokey Robinson but with all the performers joining in, with Wonder getting a harmonica solo: [Excerpt: Smokey Robinson and the Motown acts, "Mickey's Monkey"] Sadly, there was one aspect of the trip to the UK that was extremely upsetting for Wonder. Almost all the media attention he got -- which was relatively little, as he wasn't a Supreme -- was about his blindness, and one reporter in particular convinced him that there was an operation he could have to restore his sight, but that Motown were preventing him from finding out about it in order to keep his gimmick going. He was devastated about this, and then further devastated when Ted Hull finally convinced him that it wasn't true, and that he'd been lied to. Meanwhile other newspapers were reporting that he *could* see, and that he was just feigning blindness to boost his record sales. After the tour, a live recording of Wonder singing the blues standard "High Heeled Sneakers" was released as a single, and barely made the R&B top thirty, and didn't hit the top forty on the pop charts. Stevie's initial contract with Motown was going to expire in the middle of 1966, so there was a year to get him back to a point where he was having the kind of hits that other Motown acts were regularly getting at this point. Otherwise, it looked like his career might end by the time he was sixteen. The B-side to "High Heeled Sneakers" was another duet with Clarence Paul, who dominates the vocal sound for much of it -- a version of Willie Nelson's country classic "Funny How Time Slips Away": [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder and Clarence Paul, "Funny How Time Slips Away"] There are a few of these duet records scattered through Wonder's early career -- we'll hear another one a little later -- and they're mostly dismissed as Paul trying to muscle his way into a revival of his own recording career as an artist, and there may be some truth in that. But they're also a natural extension of the way the two of them worked in the studio. Motown didn't have the facilities to give Wonder Braille lyric sheets, and Paul didn't trust him to be able to remember the lyrics, so often when they made a record, Paul would be just off-mic, reciting the lyrics to Wonder fractionally ahead of him singing them. So it was more or less natural that this dynamic would leak out onto records, but not everyone saw it that way. But at the same time, there has been some suggestion that Paul was among those manoeuvring to get rid of Wonder from Motown as soon as his contract was finished -- despite the fact that Wonder was the only act Paul had worked on any big hits for. Either way, Paul and Wonder were starting to chafe at working with each other in the studio, and while Paul remained his on-stage musical director, the opportunity to work on Wonder's singles for what would surely be his last few months at Motown was given to Hank Cosby and Sylvia Moy. Cosby was a saxophone player and staff songwriter who had been working with Wonder and Paul for years -- he'd co-written "Fingertips" and several other tracks -- while Moy was a staff songwriter who was working as an apprentice to Cosby. Basically, at this point, nobody else wanted the job of writing for Wonder, and as Moy was having no luck getting songs cut by any other artists and her career was looking about as dead as Wonder's, they started working together. Wonder was, at this point, full of musical ideas but with absolutely no discipline. He's said in interviews that at this point he was writing a hundred and fifty songs a month, but these were often not full songs -- they were fragments, hooks, or a single verse, or a few lines, which he would pass on to Moy, who would turn his ideas into structured songs that fit the Motown hit template, usually with the assistance of Cosby. Then Cosby would come up with an arrangement, and would co-produce with Mickey Stevenson. The first song they came up with in this manner was a sign of how Wonder was looking outside the world of Motown to the rock music that was starting to dominate the US charts -- but which was itself inspired by Motown music. We heard in the last episode on the Rolling Stones how "Nowhere to Run" by the Vandellas: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"] had inspired the Stones' "Satisfaction": [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] And Wonder in turn was inspired by "Satisfaction" to come up with his own song -- though again, much of the work making it into an actual finished song was done by Sylvia Moy. They took the four-on-the-floor beat and basic melody of "Satisfaction" and brought it back to Motown, where those things had originated -- though they hadn't originated with Stevie, and this was his first record to sound like a Motown record in the way we think of those things. As a sign of how, despite the way these stories are usually told, the histories of rock and soul were completely and complexly intertwined, that four-on-the-floor beat itself was a conscious attempt by Holland, Dozier, and Holland to appeal to white listeners -- on the grounds that while Black people generally clapped on the backbeat, white people didn't, and so having a four-on-the-floor beat wouldn't throw them off. So Cosby, Moy, and Wonder, in trying to come up with a "Satisfaction" soundalike were Black Motown writers trying to copy a white rock band trying to copy Black Motown writers trying to appeal to a white rock audience. Wonder came up with the basic chorus hook, which was based around a lot of current slang terms he was fond of: [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "Uptight"] Then Moy, with some assistance from Cosby, filled it out into a full song. Lyrically, it was as close to social comment as Motown had come at this point -- Wonder was, like many of his peers in soul music, interested in the power of popular music to make political statements, and he would become a much more political artist in the next few years, but at this point it's still couched in the acceptable boy-meets-girl romantic love song that Motown specialised in. But in 1965 a story about a boy from the wrong side of the tracks dating a rich girl inevitably raised the idea that the boy and girl might be of different races -- a subject that was very, very, controversial in the mid-sixties. [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "Uptight"] "Uptight" made number three on the pop charts and number one on the R&B charts, and saved Stevie Wonder's career. And this is where, for all that I've criticised Motown in this episode, their strategy paid off. Mickey Stevenson talked a lot about how in the early sixties Motown didn't give up on artists -- if someone had potential but was not yet having hits or finding the right approach, they would keep putting out singles in a holding pattern, trying different things and seeing what would work, rather than toss them aside. It had already worked for the Temptations and the Supremes, and now it had worked for Stevie Wonder. He would be the last beneficiary of this policy -- soon things would change, and Motown would become increasingly focused on trying to get the maximum returns out of a small number of stars, rather than building careers for a range of artists -- but it paid off brilliantly for Wonder. "Uptight" was such a reinvention of Wonder's career, sound, and image that many of his fans consider it the real start of his career -- everything before it only counting as prologue. The follow-up, "Nothing's Too Good For My Baby", was an "Uptight" soundalike, and as with Motown soundalike follow-ups in general, it didn't do quite as well, but it still made the top twenty on the pop chart and got to number four on the R&B chart. Stevie Wonder was now safe at Motown, and so he was going to do something no other Motown act had ever done before -- he was going to record a protest song and release it as a single. For about a year he'd been ending his shows with a version of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", sung as a duet with Clarence Paul, who was still his on stage bandleader even though the two weren't working together in the studio as much. Wonder brought that into the studio, and recorded it with Paul back as the producer, and as his duet partner. Berry Gordy wasn't happy with the choice of single, but Wonder pushed, and Gordy knew that Wonder was on a winning streak and gave in, and so "Blowin' in the Wind" became Stevie Wonder's next single: [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder and Clarence Paul, "Blowin' in the Wind"] "Blowin' in the Wind" made the top ten, and number one on the R&B charts, and convinced Gordy that there was some commercial potential in going after the socially aware market, and over the next few years Motown would start putting out more and more political records. Because Motown convention was to have the producer of a hit record produce the next hit for that artist, and keep doing so until they had a flop, Paul was given the opportunity to produce the next single. "A Place in the Sun" was another ambiguously socially-aware song, co-written by the only white writer on Motown staff, Ron Miller, who happened to live in the same building as Stevie's tutor-cum-manager Ted Hull. "A Place in the Sun" was a pleasant enough song, inspired by "A Change is Gonna Come", but with a more watered-down, generic, message of hope, but the record was lifted by Stevie's voice, and again made the top ten. This meant that Paul and Miller, and Miller's writing partner Bryan Mills, got to work on his next  two singles -- his 1966 Christmas song "Someday at Christmas", which made number twenty-four, and the ballad "Travellin' Man" which made thirty-two. The downward trajectory with Paul meant that Wonder was soon working with other producers again. Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol cut another Miller and Mills song with him, "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday": [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday"] But that was left in the can, as not good enough to release, and Stevie was soon back working with Cosby. The two of them had come up with an instrumental together in late 1966, but had not been able to come up with any words for it, so they played it for Smokey Robinson, who said their instrumental sounded like circus music, and wrote lyrics about a clown: [Excerpt: The Miracles, "The Tears of a Clown"] The Miracles cut that as album filler, but it was released three years later as a single and became the Miracles' only number one hit with Smokey Robinson as lead singer. So Wonder and Cosby definitely still had their commercial touch, even if their renewed collaboration with Moy, who they started working with again, took a while to find a hit. To start with, Wonder returned to the idea of taking inspiration from a hit by a white British group, as he had with "Uptight". This time it was the Beatles, and the track "Michelle", from the Rubber Soul album: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Michelle"] Wonder took the idea of a song with some French lyrics, and a melody with some similarities to the Beatles song, and came up with "My Cherie Amour", which Cosby and Moy finished off. [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "My Cherie Amour"] Gordy wouldn't allow that to be released, saying it was too close to "Michelle" and people would think it was a rip-off, and it stayed in the vaults for several years. Cosby also produced a version of a song Ron Miller had written with Orlando Murden, "For Once in My Life", which pretty much every other Motown act was recording versions of -- the Four Tops, the Temptations, Billy Eckstine, Martha and the Vandellas and Barbra McNair all cut versions of it in 1967, and Gordy wouldn't let Wonder's version be put out either. So they had to return to the drawing board. But in truth, Stevie Wonder was not the biggest thing worrying Berry Gordy at this point. He was dealing with problems in the Supremes, which we'll look at in a future episode -- they were about to get rid of Florence Ballard, and thus possibly destroy one of the biggest acts in the world, but Gordy thought that if they *didn't* get rid of her they would be destroying themselves even more certainly. Not only that, but Gordy was in the midst of a secret affair with Diana Ross, Holland, Dozier, and Holland were getting restless about their contracts, and his producers kept bringing him unlistenable garbage that would never be a hit. Like Norman Whitfield, insisting that this track he'd cut with Marvin Gaye, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine", should be a single. Gordy had put his foot down about that one too, just like he had about "My Cherie Amour", and wouldn't allow it to be released. Meanwhile, many of the smaller acts on the label were starting to feel like they were being ignored by Gordy, and had formed what amounted to a union, having regular meetings at Clarence Paul's house to discuss how they could pressure the label to put the same effort into their careers as into those of the big stars. And the Funk Brothers, the musicians who played on all of Motown's hits, were also getting restless -- they contributed to the arrangements, and they did more for the sound of the records than half the credited producers; why weren't they getting production credits and royalties? Harvey Fuqua had divorced Gordy's sister Gwen, and so became persona non grata at the label and was in the process of leaving Motown, and so was Mickey Stevenson, Gordy's second in command, because Gordy wouldn't give him any stock in the company. And Detroit itself was on edge. The crime rate in the city had started to go up, but even worse, the *perception* of crime was going up. The Detroit News had been running a campaign to whip up fear, which it called its Secret Witness campaign, and running constant headlines about rapes, murders, and muggings. These in turn had led to increased calls for more funds for the police, calls which inevitably contained a strong racial element and at least implicitly linked the perceived rise in crime to the ongoing Civil Rights movement. At this point the police in Detroit were ninety-three percent white, even though Detroit's population was over thirty percent Black. The Mayor and Police Commissioner were trying to bring in some modest reforms, but they weren't going anywhere near fast enough for the Black population who felt harassed and attacked by the police, but were still going too fast for the white people who were being whipped up into a state of terror about supposedly soft-on-crime policies, and for the police who felt under siege and betrayed by the politicians. And this wasn't the only problem affecting the city, and especially affecting Black people. Redlining and underfunded housing projects meant that the large Black population was being crammed into smaller and smaller spaces with fewer local amenities. A few Black people who were lucky enough to become rich -- many of them associated with Motown -- were able to move into majority-white areas, but that was just leading to white flight, and to an increase in racial tensions. The police were on edge after the murder of George Overman Jr, the son of a policeman, and though they arrested the killers that was just another sign that they weren't being shown enough respect. They started organising "blu flu"s -- the police weren't allowed to strike, so they'd claim en masse that they were off sick, as a protest against the supposed soft-on-crime administration. Meanwhile John Sinclair was organising "love-ins", gatherings of hippies at which new bands like the MC5 played, which were being invaded by gangs of bikers who were there to beat up the hippies. And the Detroit auto industry was on its knees -- working conditions had got bad enough that the mostly Black workforce organised a series of wildcat strikes. All in all, Detroit was looking less and less like somewhere that Berry Gordy wanted to stay, and the small LA subsidiary of Motown was rapidly becoming, in his head if nowhere else, the more important part of the company, and its future. He was starting to think that maybe he should leave all these ungrateful people behind in their dangerous city, and move the parts of the operation that actually mattered out to Hollywood. Stevie Wonder was, of course, one of the parts that mattered, but the pressure was on in 1967 to come up with a hit as big as his records from 1965 and early 66, before he'd been sidetracked down the ballad route. The song that was eventually released was one on which Stevie's mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, had a co-writing credit: [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "I Was Made to Love Her"] "I Was Made to Love Her" was inspired by Wonder's first love, a girl from the same housing projects as him, and he talked about the song being special to him because it was true, saying it "kind of speaks of my first love to a girl named Angie, who was a very beautiful woman... Actually, she was my third girlfriend but my first love. I used to call Angie up and, like, we would talk and say, 'I love you, I love you,' and we'd talk and we'd both go to sleep on the phone. And this was like from Detroit to California, right? You know, mother said, 'Boy, what you doing - get off the phone!' Boy, I tell you, it was ridiculous." But while it was inspired by her, like with many of the songs from this period, much of the lyric came from Moy -- her mother grew up in Arkansas, and that's why the lyric started "I was born in Little Rock", as *her* inspiration came from stories told by her parents. But truth be told, the lyrics weren't particularly detailed or impressive, just a standard story of young love. Rather what mattered in the record was the music. The song was structured differently from many Motown records, including most of Wonder's earlier ones. Most Motown records had a huge amount of dynamic variation, and a clear demarcation between verse and chorus. Even a record like "Dancing in the Street", which took most of its power from the tension and release caused by spending most of the track on one chord, had the release that came with the line "All we need is music", and could be clearly subdivided into different sections. "I Was Made to Love Her" wasn't like that. There was a tiny section which functioned as a middle eight -- and which cover versions like the one by the Beach Boys later that year tend to cut out, because it disrupts the song's flow: [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "I Was Made to Love Her"] But other than that, the song has no verse or chorus, no distinct sections, it's just a series of lyrical couplets over the same four chords, repeating over and over, an incessant groove that could really go on indefinitely: [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "I Was Made to Love Her"] This is as close as Motown had come at this point to the new genre of funk, of records that were just staying with one groove throughout. It wasn't a funk record, not yet -- it was still a pop-soul record, But what made it extraordinary was the bass line, and this is why I had to emphasise earlier that this was a record by the Funk Brothers, not the Wrecking Crew, no matter how much some Crew members may claim otherwise. As on most of Cosby's sessions, James Jamerson was given free reign to come up with his own part with little guidance, and what he came up with is extraordinary. This was at a time when rock and pop basslines were becoming a little more mobile, thanks to the influence of Jamerson in Detroit, Brian Wilson in LA, and Paul McCartney in London.  But for the most part, even those bass parts had been fairly straightforward technically -- often inventive, but usually just crotchets and quavers, still keeping rhythm along with the drums rather than in dialogue with them, roaming free rhythmically. Jamerson had started to change his approach, inspired by the change in studio equipment. Motown had upgraded to eight-track recording in 1965, and once he'd become aware of the possibilities, and of the greater prominence that his bass parts could have if they were recorded on their own track, Jamerson had become a much busier player. Jamerson was a jazz musician by inclination, and so would have been very aware of John Coltrane's legendary "sheets of sound", in which Coltrane would play fast arpeggios and scales, in clusters of five and seven notes, usually in semiquaver runs (though sometimes in even smaller fractions -- his solo in Miles Davis' "Straight, No Chaser" is mostly semiquavers but has a short passage in hemidemisemiquavers): [Excerpt: Miles Davis, "Straight, No Chaser"] Jamerson started to adapt the "sheets of sound" style to bass playing, treating the bass almost as a jazz solo instrument -- though unlike Coltrane he was also very, very concerned with creating something that people could tap their feet to. Much like James Brown, Jamerson was taking jazz techniques and repurposing them for dance music. The most notable example of that up to this point had been in the Four Tops' "Bernadette", where there are a few scuffling semiquaver runs thrown in, and which is a much more fluid part than most of his playing previously: [Excerpt: The Four Tops, "Bernadette"] But on "Bernadette", Jamerson had been limited by Holland, Dozier, and Holland, who liked him to improvise but around a framework they created. Cosby, on the other hand, because he had been a Funk Brother himself, was much more aware of the musicians' improvisational abilities, and would largely give them a free hand. This led to a truly remarkable bass part on "I Was Made to Love Her", which is somewhat buried in the single mix, but Marcus Miller did an isolated recreation of the part for the accompanying CD to a book on Jamerson, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and listening to that you can hear just how inventive it is: [Excerpt: Marcus Miller, "I Was Made to Love Her"] This was exciting stuff -- though much less so for the touring musicians who went on the road with the Motown revues while Jamerson largely stayed in Detroit recording. Jamerson's family would later talk about him coming home grumbling because complaints from the touring musicians had been brought to him, and he'd been asked to play less difficult parts so they'd find it easier to replicate them on stage. "I Was Made to Love Her" wouldn't exist without Stevie Wonder, Hank Cosby, Sylvia Moy, or Lula Mae Hardaway, but it's James Jamerson's record through and through: [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "I Was Made to Love Her"] It went to number two on the charts, sat between "Light My Fire" at number one, and "All You Need is Love" at number three, with the Beatles song soon to overtake it and make number one itself. But within a few weeks of "I Was Made to Love Her" reaching its chart peak, things in Detroit would change irrevocably. On the 23rd of July, the police busted an illegal drinking den. They thought they were only going to get about twenty-five people there, but there turned out to be a big party on. They tried to arrest seventy-four people, but their wagon wouldn't fit them all in so they had to call reinforcements and make the arrestees wait around til more wagons arrived. A crowd of hundreds gathered while they were waiting. Someone threw a brick at a squad car window, a rumour went round that the police had bayonetted someone, and soon the city was in flames. Riots lasted for days, with people burning down and looting businesses, but what really made the situation bad was the police's overreaction. They basically started shooting at young Black men, using them as target practice, and later claiming they were snipers, arsonists, and looters -- but there were cases like the Algiers Motel incident, where the police raided a motel where several Black men, including the members of the soul group The Dramatics, were hiding out along with a few white women. The police sexually assaulted the women, and then killed three of the men for associating with white women, in what was described as a "lynching with bullets". The policemen in question were later acquitted of all charges. The National Guard were called in, as were Federal troops -- the 82nd Airborne Division, and the 101st Airborne from Clarksville, the division in which Jimi Hendrix had recently served. After four days of rioting, one of the bloodiest riots in US history was at an end, with forty-three people dead (of whom thirty-three were Black and only one was a policeman). Official counts had 1,189 people injured, and over 7,200 arrests, almost all of them of Black people. A lot of the histories written later say that Black-owned businesses were spared during the riots, but that wasn't really the case. For example, Joe's Record Shop, owned by Joe Von Battle, who had put out the first records by C.L. Franklin and his daughter Aretha, was burned down, destroying not only the stock of records for sale but the master tapes of hundreds of recordings of Black artists, many of them unreleased and so now lost forever. John Lee Hooker, one of the artists whose music Von Battle had released, soon put out a song, "The Motor City is Burning", about the events: [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "The Motor City is Burning"] But one business that did remain unburned was Motown, with the Hitsville studio going untouched by flames and unlooted. Motown legend has this being down to the rioters showing respect for the studio that had done so much for Detroit, but it seems likely to have just been luck. Although Motown wasn't completely unscathed -- a National Guard tank fired a shell through the building, leaving a gigantic hole, which Berry Gordy saw as soon as he got back from a business trip he'd been on during the rioting. That was what made Berry Gordy decide once and for all that things needed to change. Motown owned a whole row of houses near the studio, which they used as additional office space and for everything other than the core business of making records. Gordy immediately started to sell them, and move the admin work into temporary rented space. He hadn't announced it yet, and it would be a few years before the move was complete, but from that moment on, the die was cast. Motown was going to leave Detroit and move to Hollywood.

In wenigen Jahren hatte Stevie Wonder einen neuen Sound aus Blues, Soul, Jazz und seiner eigenen Virtuosität geschaffen. Davon zeugen eine Vielzahl von Alben, Hits und Grammys. Nach einer Pause gelang ihm 1980 mit "Hotter than July" wieder ein aufsehenerregendes Album, mit "Happy Birthday" verband er ein oft gespieltes Gute-Laune-Geburtstagslied mit der politischen Botschaft, den Geburtstag von Martin-Luther-King zum nationalen Feiertag in den USA zu machen. Ein weiterer großer Erfolg war das Lied "I just call to say I love you", das er für den Film ‚The Lady in Red‘ komponiert hatte und das mit einem Oscar ausgezeichnet wurde. Als Duettpartner und Mundharmonika-Solist trat er seit den 70er Jahren immer wieder auch in Liedern von Kolleginnen und Kollegen in Erscheinung, von Frank Sinatra über Michael Jackson bis hin zu Elton John und den Eurythmics. Hochverehrt und bewundert, ausgezeichnet mit den höchsten Ehren der Kulturbranche - Stevie Wonder ist längst eine lebende Legende der Popmusik. Im Gespräch mit Ocke Bandixen würdigt Peter Urban die langanhaltende Bedeutung seiner Musik, die sich nicht zuletzt durch die zahlreichen Samples aus dem HipHop-Bereich ab den 90er und 2000er Jahren zeigt. Peter Urban erzählt von persönlichen Begegnungen und Konzerten, die allerdings inzwischen Seltenheitswert haben: In den letzten Jahren machen Stevie Wonder gesundheitliche Probleme zu schaffen. Im ersten Teil von ‚Stevie Wonder: Black Music Genius‘ ging es um seine Kindheit als Kinderstar "Little Stevie Wonder", um seine ersten eigenen Kompositionen Anfang der 70er bis hin zu seinen zahlreichen Hits und dem 76-Album "Songs in the key of life", das bis heute als eines der wichtigsten Alben der Popmusik-Geschichte gilt. Peters Playlist für Stevie Wonder: The 12-Year-Old Genius – Recorded Live (1963): Fingertips Uptight (1965): Uptight Down To Earth (1966): A place in the sun, Hey love I Was Made To Love Her (1967): I was made to love her, Send me some lovin‘ Greatest Hits (1968): I‘m wondering For once in my life (1968): For once in my life, Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day, You met your match, I don't know why My Cherie Amour (1969): My cherie amour Signed, Sealed, Delivered (1970): We can work it out, Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours, Heaven help us all, Sugar Where I'm Coming From (1971): Look around, Do yourself a favour, Something out oft the blue, If you really love me Music Of My Mind (1972): Love having you around, Superwoman, I love every little thing about you, Happier than the morning sun, Keep on running, Evil Taliking Book (1972): das gesamte Album Innervisions (1973): das gesamte Album Fullfillingness First Finale (1974): das gesamte Album Songs In The Key Of Life (1976): das gesamte Doppelalbum plus extra EP Stevie Wonder's Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants (1979): Send one your love Hotter Than July (1980): Did I hear you say you love me, All I do, Master Blaster (Jammin‘), Lately, Happy Birthday Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I (1982): Frontline, Ribbon in the sky, Do I do In Square Circle (1985): Go home, Overjoyed, It's wrong (Apartheid) Characters (1987): Skeletons, Get it (mit Michael Jackson), Free Conversation Peace (1995): For your love A Time To Love (2005): Moon blue, From the bottom of my heart, Shelter in the rain, So what the fuss (mit Prince, En Vogue), A time to love (mit India Arie) Singles: Where is our love song (2020), Can't put it in the hands of fate (2020)

Patti Smith is a singer songwriter, poet, author, and visual artist who was at the forefront of the New York city punk movement. Her 1975 debut album 'Horses' announced her arrival, and since then she has carved out a career that allows her to speak truth to power in and outside of her work, and is cited by many artists including Michael Stipe, Johnny Marr and Shirley Manson as an important influence on their own work. In this wide ranging conversation with Nic, Patti talks about getting back out on the road and connecting with audiences after the seclusion of pandemic lockdown, why climate change is the issue of our time, and her upcoming "Evidence" exhibition with 'Soundwalk Collective' at Center Pompidou in Paris. Patti also shares her first live music experience, attending the Motown Revue bus tour with Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and "Little" Stevie Wonder in Philadelphia in 1963, her stairwell conversation with Jimi Hendrix at the opening of his Electric Lady Studios just three weeks before his tragic death and her love of Opera, orchestral movie soundtracks, and many different styles of popular music.

Today Sue brings you news on Little Stevie Wonder, "House of the Dragon", and the Random Fact of the Day on Ernest Hemmingway! (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

50 years ago yesterday, Ray Parker Jr. and I were in the same room… well, it was Madison Square Garden, he was 18, playing with Little Stevie Wonder, who was opening for The Stones, and, it was Mick's birthday. That's some cool shared history… I, a mere speck in the story am claiming my seat. Today was not quite so historic, yet any time in Ray's company is a huge treat. Add IIFC Award-Winning Filmmaker, Fran Strine to the mix, whose documentary, Who You Gonna Call, about Ray, just dropped, and well, it gets even more special. We talked about how they met on Fran's previous doc, Hired Gun, which also featured Ray, and where the idea for WYGC was borne. Ray's story was just too big to not tell. Known internationally, cross-generation for Ghostbusters, there's so much more to the story. Growing up in Detroit, police brutality firsthand, playing the clarinet and the sax, how he got his first guitar, and his 10,000 hours before he hit 13 when he had his first big gig with The Spinners. Crazy. Barry White, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Gladys Knight, and Bill Withers, followed, while he was still a kid. How Stevie changed his life, how his mother motivated him, moving to LA, doing his own thing, getting no credit for his Grammy-winning #1 You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, Raydio, his hit, Jack and Jill, to Ghostbusters––a last minute do or don't get paid stroke of genius. This story is at the heart of Who You Gonna Call, but like Grammy-Winning Hollywood Walk of Famer Ray, there's so much more to the story. I loved the doc and this time with these two exceedingly talented and charming men. You can catch the film on Prime and Peacock https://www.amazon.com/Who-You-Gonna-Call-Ultra/dp/B0B2Q4FCX7 Run! It's that good. Ray Parker Jr. & Fran Strine Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson Wednesday, 7/27/22, 5 pm PT, 8 pm ET Streamed Live on my Facebook Replay here: https://bit.ly/3OKtPRn All BROADcasts, as podcasts, also available on iTunes apple.co/2dj8ld3 Stitcher bit.ly/2h3R1fla tunein bit.ly/2gGeItj Also on iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, Voox, OwlTail, Backtracks, PlayerFM, Himalaya, Podchaser, and Listen Notes Thanks to Rick Smolke of Quik Impressions, the best printers, printing, the best people people-ing. quikimpressions.com Nicole Venables of Ruby Begonia Hair Studio Beauty and Products, for the best tressed. http://www.rubybegoniahairstudio.com/ And, Blue Microphones

In 1973, Stevie Wonder enters into his creative peak and leaves behind the boy genius, Little Stevie Wonder phase. Eugene Brown joins us as a Motown subject matter expert and owner of Eugeradio. He provides important context around the the tracks that reflect the changing times and social struggles of the day in what is arguably one of his best albums. He also shares stories about a car accident that left him in a coma shortly after the album release and how it changed how he felt about a number of the songs, especially "Higher Ground". We also explore how this album influenced Ray Charles, and how it was influenced by Marvin Gaye. Of course, you can't miss all of our 3 non hits at the end. Enjoy!!Support the show

In 1973, Stevie Wonder enters into his creative peak and leaves behind the boy genius, Little Stevie Wonder phase. Eugene Brown joins us as a Motown subject matter expert and owner of Eugeradio. He provides important context around the the tracks that reflect the changing times and social struggles of the day in what is arguably one of his best albums. He also shares stories about a car accident that left him in a coma shortly after the album release and how it changed how he felt about a number of the songs, especially "Higher Ground". We also explore how this album influenced Ray Charles, and how it was influenced by Marvin Gaye. Of course, you can't miss all of our 3 non hits at the end. Enjoy!!Support the show

Stevie Wonder may be the most talented musician to ever live. After being signed to Motown at 12 years old as "Little Stevie Wonder", Stevie proved to be an unmatched musical visionary, even without the ability to see. Stevie's classic run in the 1970's cemented him as a musical genius and innovator the likes of which we have yet to see again. From classic songs like "Superstition" and "Isn't She Lovely", to amazing albums like "Songs in the Key of Life" and "Hotter Than July", Stevie has proven himself to be one of the greatest of all time. Come hang out with Sight After Dark (Sifa and Dan) as they discuss all things Stevie Wonder!  

From her chance meeting with Little Stevie Wonder to her original composition intended for Frank Sinatra, Rosemary talks about her decades long career as a singer, bandleader and musician support system while revealing why she had to pretend she was a tambourine player to even get paid.

** visit acedoutpodcast.com to see photos and more **“The funk is the stench that you smell after you work really hard.” So says MURGA BOOKER, drummer, percussionist, shaman & card-carrying funkateer. And he would know. After all, from 1980 to ‘85, Booker was deeply embedded in the P-Funk camp, working with George Clinton and everyone else around Disc Ltd. Studios in Detroit. He was snatched up by Rubber Band drummer Frankie “Cash” Waddy and Bootsy Collins himself after they had heard him play the Moroccan clay drums at his pad. They were also impressed by Booker's work with Weather Report, bassist Michael Henderson, and Detroit soul group the Fantastic Four. By then, Muruga had figured out how to make himself indispensable to producers and bandleaders alike. “I saw everybody in Detroit at Motown playing congas and bongos and maybe some timbales.” He explains. “So I went to Israeli and Greek doumbek and Moroccan clay drums… By having those instruments, I was not in any direct competition.” This explains the sounds of albums like the Electric Spanking of War Babies, which you might have noticed has a lot more varied and freaky percussion in the mix than Funkadelic records previous. Muruga's funky hands are also busy on Clinton solo joints such as Computer Games (1982) and You Shouldn't Nuf Bit Fish (1983), the P-Funk AllStars' Urban Dance Floor Guerillas (1983), and the lesser known gem, a Bootsy project called GodMama (1981). But that's not all. Being around George during this period also put Murugua in direct proximity to Sly Stone, whom Booker was able to entice to play bass (!) on his project, Muruga and the Soda Jerks, a quirky, New Wave-sounding version of the P signed and produced by Clinton. But Muruga's contribution to Parliament-Funkadelic was not only musical but also medicinal. He served as the group's masseuse and yoga instructor, teaching Bernie Worrell, George, Sly, et al breathing techniques in between bites of Booker's mother's paprikash. But Muruga's musical journey didn't start with the P — not by a long shot. In fact, as a teenager in 1960, Steve (not yet Muruga) Booker already had a hit. The band was called the Low Rocks and the song was “Blueberry Jam,” a super-sped up reworking of “Blueberry Hill” by Fats Domino. “We were the young garage punks of the era” says Booker, who was recruited directly from the audience when the previous Low Rocks drummer abruptly quit at a house party. The gig wound up lasting only a year, but the band had some exciting opportunities, including backing up Little Stevie Wonder in a battle of the bands. Soon after that, Steve Booker began to see the drums not just as an instrument but also as a theory of life. He basically moved into Detroit's legendary blues and folk club the Chess Mate, where he would eventually become bandleader. There he would play hours-long drum solos every night. But the young Serbian stickman still lacked some key ingredients. One night, after he had finished yet another one of his extended excursions, a Black gentleman approached. “I see what you're trying to do,” he told Booker. But rather then launching into a lecture, the man handed him a cassette tape of Drums of Passion by Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji. And just like that, Booker's life changed. He spent the next two weeks in his mom's living room, eight hours per day, dancing to Drums and seeing how the music made his body move. Things were starting to make sense. “If you do not love Africa or it's people, then you cannot love the blues, or jazz, or rock and roll,” he says. The lessons came in handy when he played support for none other than John Lee Hooker, whom he grew to admire deeply. “I realized that Hooker was not just a blues man, but he was a spiritual ju ju man, a healer,” says Booker. “Also he was a storyteller… That comes from griot. The griot is the storyteller of the tribe.” The pairing of the two went so well they were featured as a double bill, “Hooker & Booker.” Booker also had some of the best jams in his life at The Scene club in New York, where the top musicians of the day would go to let it all hang out musically when they weren't in the studio or on tour. There the Band of Gypsys' Buddy Miles served as a musical lightning rod of sorts. “When you go play the top clubs like The Scene,” Booker explains, “it's top musicians going there, but jamming and intermingling and exchanging with each other… That's the place where a George Clinton or a Sly Stone or a Mitch Mitchell or a Larry Coryell could go. But Buddy Miles… He was creating an atmosphere that drew all of those musicians like bees to honey.” By the late 60's into the 70s, Booker's deep plunges into musical depths had evolved into an intense curiosity and appreciation for spiritual contemplation—even more so than many peers of the era. This phase of his journey truly began on Day 1 of the iconic Woodstock Festival, where he landed in a helicopter to perform with Tim Hardin. It was there that he found himself in the presence of Swami Satchidananda, with whom Booker would live in ashram for two years as a celibate monk. In fact, it was Satchidananda who gave Muruga his name.As a result of such intense studies, Muruga became very adept at tuning in rather than tuning out, and adapting his more avant garde, exploratory tendencies to a centered principle. “A musician has to listen,” he explains. “Then you respond.” But he contends that he reached his highest plateau as a drummer once he mastered the concept of ambience and space, which he defines as: “to play the space as well as the note, and to create ambience with the space within the notes.” This seemingly unlikely marriage of freedom and discipline ultimately leads to Muruga's theory of employing “law and grace” when serving up the Funk. “1-2-3-4 is a law,” he teaches. “On the one is the law… But grace is ‘I'm being in the oneness' while I am playing.” In other words, the law guides you until you are ready to transcend it, to exist in the groove. “You must know this,” he insists. “Otherwise you don't even know funk.” Today, Muruga lives in Ann Arbor and is as jovial and active as ever, an orthodox priest and patented inventor of the Nada drum with a catalog of music that is deep and wide. In this expansive, inspiring and often hilarious interview, Muruga talks about how he used to add wah-wah's and phasers to his cymbals in order to “wake people up” by reenacting the then-ongoing Vietnam War onstage—causing half an audience in the South to give him a standing ovation, and the other half to walk out. Muruga also talks about why the rhythmic concept of “the push and drag” is the essence of life, mistakes drummers tend to make when playing the blues, and why he got scared the first time he heard the drum machine. As if that weren't enough, Muruga also describes being made fun of by Don Rickles for 20 minutes straight, the magic of Sly Stone's recording techniques, why Richie Havens is an “illuminary,” and that time he jammed one-on-one with JIMI HENDRIX on bass.Produced & Hosted by Ace AlanCohosted by Jay Stonew/ Content Produced by Aaron Booker & AndreFoxxeWebsite & Art by 3chardsEngineered by Nick “Waes” Carden at the Blue Room in Oakland, CABut we couldn't have done it without Mawnstr and especially Scott SheppardIntro track “I Can Never Be” from Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth by the Funkanauts. Go get it wherever music is sold. RIP Brotha P. Rest in Power ROBIN RUSSELL of New Birth(Aug 27, 1952 — Sep 8, 2021) ** visit acedoutpodcast.com to see photos and more **

In this episode, we take a look at the long and incredible career of Stevie Wonder.  Since he was known as the child prodigy, "Little Stevie Wonder" on the Motown Revue to some of the greatest albums in the history of music, Stevie Wonder has and still is one of the most. influential recording artists of all time.  Listen to the full playlist here:Follow Pinch Recording on Instagram:Pinch RecordingE Scott LindnerNick "The Ear" Angeloor visit us atwww.pinchrecording.comwww.escottlindner.comwww.paperhousenetworkUse Code PINCH for 15% OFF at SilkCityHotSauce.comNick Angelo's Revolving 10 on SpotifyGet Some M

The summer of beach films continues as Kyle Reinfried of Foodie Films joins Brian once again to chat a Beach Party Movie. This time they're chatting 1964's Bikini Beach! Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello are back as Frankie and Dee Dee they are joined by drag racers, a surfing ape, a Beatle knockoff (also played by Frankie Avalon) and Boris Karloff among other surprises. Don Rickles returns...kind of...and so does "Little" Stevie Wonder. Will Kyle and Brian enjoy all the silly fun or has the Beach Party Franchise finally jump the shark?

Este especial lo dedicamos a "Little Stevie Wonder", como fue bautizado en sus inicios, y que desde entonces destacó dentro de la industria musical.Para muchos, Stevie Wonder es considerado un genio de la música, y que además sus múltiples premios en los Grammy, y uno en los Óscar, logran comprobar.Hablamos sobre su historia, de lo que para algunos fue una discapacidad visual, pero que para él nunca fue un impedimento para crear música. Les compartimos algunas historias detrás de sus canciones, y como siempre, lo mejor de su música.Además, como en cada capítulo, escuchamos estas canciones:* You Are The Sunshine Of My Life* I Just Call To Say I Love You* Superstition* Part-Time Lover* Ngiculela-Es Una Historia- I Am SingingCon Jesús Martínez y Gerardo OrtegaSíguenos en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codigolibre.radio/https://www.instagram.com/gerryortegaisme/Escúchanos en https://www.codigolibreradio.com#SomosLoQueDecimos See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Este especial lo dedicamos a "Little Stevie Wonder", como fue bautizado en sus inicios, y que desde entonces destacó dentro de la industria musical. Para muchos, Stevie Wonder es considerado un genio de la música, y que además sus múltiples premios en los Grammy, y uno en los Óscar, logran comprobar. Hablamos sobre su historia, de lo que para algunos fue una discapacidad visual, pero que para él nunca fue un impedimento para crear música. Les compartimos algunas historias detrás de sus canciones, y como siempre, lo mejor de su música. Además, como en cada capítulo, escuchamos estas canciones: * You Are The Sunshine Of My Life * I Just Call To Say I Love You * Superstition * Part-Time Lover * Ngiculela-Es Una Historia- I Am Singing Con Jesús Martínez y Gerardo Ortega Síguenos en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codigolibre.radio/ https://www.instagram.com/gerryortegaisme/ Escúchanos en www.codigolibreradio.com #SomosLoQueDecimos

Today’s show features music performed by Louis Armstrong and Little Stevie Wonder

My guest for this episode is Tom Bones Malone. Tom is a legend in the music business. Since his early days at North Texas, Tom has made a name for himself as a talented multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer. He's been a late-night TV staple with his decade-long runs on Saturday Night Live and The Late Show With David Letterman. And has lent his talents to everyone from Aretha to Zappa. And man, does he have some great stories to tell! Check out what Tom has to say about his Rock and Roll beginnings, his legendary North Texas State experiences, contracting work and playing trumpet for Little Stevie Wonder, the importance of not turning down gigs, advice on attitude and relationships, using both sides of the brain, why people have problems improvising, playing on live TV, being a part of music and cultural history, avoiding the dark side of fame, why every gig is a great gig, advice for multi-instrumentalists, and so much more! So pour yourself a big glass, pull up a chair, and let the hang begin! ----------------------------------------------------------- The homepage of Tom “Bones” Malone: http://www.tombonesmalone.net/ Get your mind right with Mindfulness Secrets: bit.ly/MindfulnessSecrets Show your chops some love with Robinson's Remedies Products: bit.ly/ChopLove --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thetrumpetgurus/support

For our second ever artist deep dive, we ascend to higher ground with the Captain of Clavinet; the Hotshot of Harmonica; the Champion of the Charts: the genius and the virtuoso himself, Stevie Wonder. Our categories for today's episode will guide you through his biography, bringing you facts, figures, some love and hate for Barry Gordy, and a whole lot of Wonder: (1) The Little Stevie Wonder era (2) The early Tamla/Motown era (3) The classic era (4) The later era (5) Best Stevie Wonder song Links mentioned in the episode: - Jacob Collier's "Sir Duke” analysis on Vox - Stevie Wonder playing a drum solo - Slate's “Wonder Week"

Join Carla and Gregg as they discuss Thanksgiving traditions, the recent Grammy Nominations, why they have issues with John Legend and Alicia Keys, and the impact of Chappelle's Show. They also share their very different experiences of growing up Black in a predominantly white community (Go Comets!) and offer their best Terrence Howard impressions. Today's "Whatcha Streaming": Jingle Jangle The Undoing Voices of Fire Links to today's references: Little Stevie Wonder appears in Muscle Beach Party That One Time Carla was in Ebony Magazine Terrence Howard's CrazyPants Emmy Red Carpet Interview Theme Music Composed and Performed by Gregg Butler --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/relativedistance/support

On this week's show, we pair in conversation the artists behind two of 2020's best albums: soul and blues legend Bettye LaVette and indie wunderkind Phoebe Bridgers. Though separated by five decades in age, when the two met backstage at a Tibet House US benefit at Carnegie Hall earlier this year, they immediately developed a mutual friend crush. Now that we've gotten them reconnected here, it appears something very dope is on the horizon... but more on that in the talk! Their warm, freewheeling convo takes in a lot, including: a wonderful overview of a career Bettye calls “tenuous at best”; the unexpected benefits of promoting a new album during the pandemic; and privilege in the music industry. We also get to hear about making Pete Townshend cry, quirky Little Stevie Wonder, and learn the answer to Bettye's query "What is a Princess Nokia?" Check it out, and subscribe now to stay in the loop on future episodes of the Talkhouse Podcast, including Norah Jones with Jeff Tweedy, and then Jeff again(!) with comedian Nick Offerman, and Bootsy Collins (Bootzilla, baby!) with Mix Master Mike (Beastie Boys). Plus be sure to check our Soundcloud archives for recent shows featuring Tame Impala with Caribou, Carly Rae Jepsen with mxmtoon, Diplo with Charlie Crockett, and loads more. —Elia Einhorn, Talkhouse Podcast host and producer For this week’s episode, Bettye LaVette was recorded by her adoring hubby Kevin Kiley, and Phoebe Bridgers by her pal Marshall Vore. Our long-suffering producer is Mark Yoshizumi. The Talkhouse Podcast theme song was composed and performed by The Range. Dude released gorgeous new music this year — check it out! Please direct all podcast-related ideas, vitriol, and compliments to elia@thetalkhouse.com. Seriously, I love hearing from you guys. And if we're honest with ourselves, isn't the end always sneaking up on us?

Episode one hundred and three of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Hitch-Hike” by Marvin Gaye, and the early career of one of Motown’s defining artists. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Any Other Way” by Jackie Shane. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—- Erratum I say that Smokey Robinson was the only person allowed to be both a writer/producer and performer at Motown. That was Marvin Gaye’s later statement, but at this point Eddie Holland was also still doing all those things.   Resources As usual, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.  For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I’ve used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown.  To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy’s own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown’s thirty-year history. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 693 tracks released on Motown singles. There is a Complete Motown Singles 1959-62 box available from Hip-O-Select with comprehensive liner notes, but if you just want the music, I recommend instead this much cheaper bare-bones box from Real Gone Music. For information on Gaye specifically, I relied on Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz. The best collection of Gaye’s music is The Master, a four-disc box covering his recordings from “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” to the very last recordings of his life.   Transcript A brief note — this week’s episode contains some minor mentions of parental and domestic abuse, and some discussions of homophobia. I don’t think those mentions will be upsetting for anyone, but if you’re unsure you might want to check the transcript before listening. Today we’re going to look at the start of one of the great careers in soul music, and one of the great artists to come out of the Motown hit factory. We’re going to look at the continued growth of the Motown company, and at the personal relationships that would drive it in the 1960s, but would also eventually lead to its downfall. We’re going to look at “Hitch-Hike”, and the early career of Marvin Gaye: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Hitch-Hike”] One thing we’ve not talked about much in the podcast so far is the way that the entertainment industry, until relatively recently, acted as a safety valve for society, a place where people who didn’t fit in anywhere could build themselves a life and earn a living without playing along with the normal social conventions. And by instinct, temperament, and upbringing, Marvin Gaye was one of those people. He was always someone who rubbed up against authority. He spent his youth fighting with his abusive father, and eventually left home to join the Air Force just to get away from his father. But he didn’t stay long in the Air Force either — he was discharged due to mental problems, which he later claimed he’d faked, with his honourable discharge stating “Marvin Gay cannot adjust to regimentation and authority”. Back in Washington DC, where he’d grown up, and feeling like a failure, he formed a doo-wop group called the Marquees — in later years, Gaye would state that he’d come up with the name as a reference to the Marquis de Sade, but in fact Gaye hadn’t heard of de Sade at the time. The Marquees were like a million doo-wop groups of the time, and leaned towards the sweeter end of doo-wop, particularly modelling themselves on the Moonglows. The group performed around Washington, and came to the attention of Bo Diddley, who was living in the area and friends with a neighbour of the group. Diddley took them under his wing and wrote and produced both sides of their first single, which had another member, Reese Palmer, singing lead — Palmer also claimed that he wrote both songs, but Diddley is credited and they certainly sound like Diddley’s work to me. The tracks were originally backed by Diddley’s band, but Okeh, the record label for whom they were recording, asked that one of the two sides, “Wyatt Earp”, be rerecorded with session musicians like Panama Francis who played on almost every R&B record made on the East Coast at the time. Oddly, listening to both versions, the version with the session musicians sounds rather more raw and Bo-Diddleyesque than the one with Diddley’s band. The result had a lot of the sound of the records the Coasters were making around the same time: [Excerpt: The Marquees, “Wyatt Earp”] At the same initial session, the Marquees also sang backing vocals on a record by Billy Stewart. We’ve encountered Stewart briefly before — his first single, “Billy’s Blues”, was the first appearance of the guitar figure that later became the basis for “Love is Strange”, and he played piano in Diddley’s band. With Diddley’s band and the Marquees he recorded “Billy’s Heartache”: [Excerpt: Billy Stewart, “Billy’s Heartache”] However, the Marquees’ first record did nothing, and the group were dropped by the label and went back to just playing clubs around Washington DC. It looked like their dreams of stardom were over. But one of the group’s members, Chester Simmons, took a job as Bo Diddley’s driver, and that was to lead to the group’s second big break. Diddley was on a tour with the Moonglows, who as well as being fellow Chess artists had also backed Diddley on records like “Diddley Daddy”: [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, “Diddley Daddy”] Harvey Fuqua, the group’s leader, was complaining to Diddley about the rest of the group, and in particular about Bobby Lester, the group’s tenor singer. He was thinking of dropping the entire group and getting a new, better, set of Moonglows to work with. Simmons heard Fuqua talking with Diddley about this, and suggested that the Marquees might be suitable for the job. When the tour hit DC, Fuqua auditioned the Marquees, and started working with them to get them up to the standard he needed, even while he was still continuing to tour with the original Moonglows. Fuqua trained the Marquees in things like breath control. In particular, he had a technique he called “blow harmony”, getting the group to sing with gentle, breathy, “whoo” sounds rather than the harder-edged “doo” sounds that most doo-wop groups used — Fuqua was contemptuous of most doo-wop groups, calling them “gang groups”. He taught the Marquees how to shape their mouths, how to use the muscles in their throats, and all the other techniques that most singers have to pick up intuitively or never learn at all. The breathy sound that Fuqua taught them was to become one of the most important techniques that Gaye would use as a vocalist throughout his career. Fuqua took the group back with him to Chicago, and they added a sixth singer, Chuck Barkside, who doubled Simmons on the bass. There were attempts at expanding the group still further, as well — David Ruffin, later the lead singer of the Temptations, auditioned for the group, but was turned down by Fuqua.  The group, now renamed Harvey and the Moonglows, cut a few tracks for Chess, but most were never released, but they did better as backing vocalists. Along with Etta James, they sang the backing vocals on two hits by Chuck Berry, “Almost Grown” and “Back in the USA”: [Excerpt: Chuck Berry, “Back in the USA”] At the time, Etta and Harvey were in a relationship, and Marvin took note — being in a relationship with someone else in the industry could be good for your career. Marvin was starting to discover some other things, as well — like that he really didn’t enjoy being on stage, even though he loved singing, and that the strain of touring could be eased with the use of cannabis. Marvin didn’t want to be on the stage at all — he wanted to be making records. The studio was where he was comfortable. The new Moonglows did release some recordings of their own, one of which, “Mama Loochie”, had Marvin on lead vocals, and was cowritten by Marvin and Harvey: [Excerpt: Harvey and the Moonglows, “Mama Loochie”] Another record that featured Marvin, though not as lead vocalist, was “Twelve Months of the Year”, an attempt to recapture the success of the original Moonglows’ “Ten Commandments of Love”. On that one, Marvin does the spoken recitation at the beginning and end, as well as singing backing vocals: [Excerpt: Harvey and the Moonglows, “Twelve Months of the Year”] But the Moonglows were coming to the end of their career — and Harvey was also coming to the end of his relationship with Etta James. Anna Records, one of the labels owned by members of the Gordy family, had made a distribution agreement with Chess Records, and Leonard Chess suggested to Harvey that he move to Detroit and work with Anna as a Chess liaison. Soon Harvey Fuqua was fully part of the Gordy family, and he split up with Etta James and got into a relationship with Gwen Gordy. Gwen had split up with her own partner to be with Harvey — and then Gwen and her ex, Roquel Davis, co-wrote a song about the split, which Etta James sang: [Excerpt: Etta James, “All I Could Do Was Cry”] Marvin had come with Harvey — he’d signed with him as a solo artist, and Harvey thought that Marvin could become a Black Frank Sinatra, or better. Marvin was signed to Harvey Records, Harvey’s label, but after Harvey and Gwen got together romantically, their various labels all got rolled up in the Motown family. At first, Marvin wasn’t sure whether he would be recording at all once Harvey Records was shut down, but he made an impression on Berry Gordy by gatecrashing the Motown Christmas party in 1960 and performing “Mr. Sandman” at the piano. Soon he found that Berry Gordy had bought out his recording contract, as well as a fifty percent share of his management, and he was now signed with Tamla. Marvin was depressed by this to an extent — he saw Fuqua as a father figure — but he soon came to respect Gordy. He also found that Gordy’s sister Anna was very interested in him, and while she was seventeen years older than him, he didn’t see that as something that should stand in the way of his getting together with the boss’ sister. There was a real love between the twenty year old Marvin Gaye and the thirty-seven-year-old Anna Gordy, but Gaye also definitely realised that there was an advantage to becoming part of the family — and Berry Gordy, in turn, thought that having his artists be part of his family would be an advantage in controlling them. But right from the start, Marvin and Berry had different ideas about where Marvin’s career should go. Marvin saw himself becoming a singer in the same style as Nat “King” Cole or Jesse Belvin, while Gordy wanted him to be an R&B singer like everyone else at Motown. While Marvin liked singers like Sam Cooke, he was also an admirer of people like Dean Martin and Perry Como — he would later say that the sweaters he wore in many photos in the sixties were inspired by Como, and that “I always felt like my personality and Perry’s had a lot in common”. They eventually compromised — Marvin would record an album of old standards, but there would be an R&B single on it, one side written by Berry, and the other written by Harvey and Anna. The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye was only the second album released by Motown, which otherwise concentrated on singles, but neither it nor the single Berry wrote, “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide”, had any commercial success: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide”] As well as singing on the album, Marvin also played drums and piano, and while his singing career wasn’t doing wonderfully at this point, he was becoming known around Motown for turning his hand to whatever was needed, from drumming on a session to sweeping the floor. The most notable thing about the album, though, was that he changed the spelling of his surname, from Gay spelled G-a-y to G-a-y-e. He gave three different reasons for this, at least two of which were connected.  The first one was that he was inspired by Sam Cooke, whose career he wanted to emulate. Cooke had added an “e” to his surname, and so Marvin was doing the same. The second reason, though, was that by this time the word “gay” was already being used to refer to sexuality, and there were rumours floating around about Marvin’s sexuality which he didn’t want to encourage. He did like to wear women’s clothing in private, and he said some things about his experience of gender which might suggest that he wasn’t entirely cis, but he was only interested in women sexually, and was (like many people at the time) at least mildly homophobic. And like many people he confused sexuality and gender, and he desperately didn’t want to be thought of as anything other than heterosexual. But there was another aspect to this as well. His father was also someone who wore women’s clothing, and tied in with Marvin’s wish not to be thought of as gay was a wish not to be thought of as like his father, who was physically and emotionally abusive of him throughout his life. And his father was Marvin Gay senior. By adding the “e”, as well as trying to avoid being thought of as gay, he was also trying to avoid being thought of as like his father. While Marvin’s first album was not a success, he was doing everything he could to get more involved with the label as a whole. He played drums on records, despite never having played the instrument before, simply because he wanted to be around the studio — he played on a record we’ve already looked at, “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Please Mr. Postman”] He played with the Miracles on occasion, and he also played on “I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call it the Blues” by Little Stevie Wonder: [Excerpt, Little Stevie Wonder, “I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call it the Blues”] And on “That’s What Girls are Made For”by the Spinners (the group known in the UK as the Detroit Spinners): [Excerpt: The Spinners, “That’s What Girls are Made For”] And he both co-wrote and played drums on “Beechwood 4-5789” by the Marvelettes, which made the top twenty:  [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, “Beechwood 4-5789”] But this kind of thing ended up with Gaye being pushed by Berry Gordy in the direction of writing, which was not something he wanted to do. At that time in Motown, there was a strict demarcation, and the only person who was allowed to write *and* perform *and* produce was Smokey Robinson — everyone else was either a writer/producer or a singer, and Marvin knew he wanted to be a singer first and foremost. But Marvin’s own records were flopping, and it was only because of Anna Gordy’s encouragement that he was able to continue releasing records at all  — if he hadn’t given up himself, he would almost certainly have been dropped by the label. And indirectly, his first hit was inspired by Anna. Marvin’s attitude to authority was coming out again in his attitude towards Motown and Berry Gordy. By this point, Motown had set up its famous charm school — a department of the label that taught its singers things like elocution, posture, how to dress and how to dance. Marvin absolutely refused to do any of that, although he later said he regretted it.  Anna told him all the time that he was stubborn, and he started thinking about this, and jamming with Mickey Stevenson, the Motown staff songwriter and producer with whom he worked most closely, and who had started out as a singer with Lionel Hampton. The two of them came up with what Marvin later described as a “basic jazz feeling”, and then Berry Gordy suggested a few extra chords they could stick in, and the result was “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Stubborn Kind of Fellow”] You can hear what he meant about that starting out with a jazz feel, most notably with Beans Bowles’ flute part, but the finished product was very much an R&B record — Marvin sounds more like Ray Charles than Sinatra or Como, and the backing vocals by Martha and the Vandellas are certainly not anything that you would have got behind a crooner. The record went right up the R&B chart, making the R&B top ten, but it didn’t cross over to the pop audience that Gaye was after. He was disappointed, because what he wanted more than anything else was to get a white audience, because he knew that was where the money was, but after getting an R&B hit, he knew he would have to do as so many other Black entertainers had, and play to Black audiences for a long time before he crossed over. And that also meant going out on tour, something he hated. At the end of 1962 he was put on the bill of the Motortown Revue, along with the Contours, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Little Stevie Wonder, Mary Wells, and the Miracles. On the live album from that tour, recorded at the Apollo, you can hear Gaye still trying to find a balance between his desire to be a Sinatra-type crooner appealing to a white audience, and his realisation that he was going to have to appeal to a Black audience. The result has him singing “What Kind of Fool Am I?”, the Anthony Newley show tune, but sticking in interpolations inspired by Ray Charles: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “What Kind of Fool Am I?”] This was a real concern for him. He would later say “Commercially, though, I learned quickly that it was primarily my people who were going to support me. I vowed always to take care of them, give ’em the funk they wanted. It wasn’t my first choice, but there’s integrity in the idea of pleasing your own people. Secretly, I yearned to sing for rich Republicans in tuxes and tails at the Copacabana. No matter.” He hated that tour, but some of the musicians on the tour thought it was what made him into a star — specifically, they knew that Gaye had stage fright, hated being on stage, and would not put his all into a live performance. Unless they put Little Stevie Wonder on before him. Wonder’s performances were so exciting that Gaye had to give the audience everything he had or he’d get booed off the stage, and Gaye started to rise to the challenge. He would still get stage fright, and try to get out of performing live at all, but when he turned up and went on stage he became a captivating performer. And that was something that was very evident on the first recording he made after coming off the tour. The Apollo recording we just heard was from the last week of the tour, and two days after it concluded, on December 19th 1962, Marvin Gaye was back in the studio, where he felt most comfortable, writing a song with Mickey Stevenson and Clarence Paul. While there were three writers of the song, the bulk of it was written by Gaye, who came up with the basic groove before the other writers got involved, and who played both piano and drums on the record: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, “Hitch-Hike”] “Hitch-Hike” became Gaye’s first real crossover hit — it made number twelve on the R&B chart, but also made the top forty on the pop chart, largely because of his appearances on American Bandstand, where he demonstrated a new dance he’d made up, involving sticking your thumb out like a hitch-hiker, which became a minor craze among Bandstand’s audiences — we’re still in the period where a novelty dance was the most important thing in having a hit. The song also became the first Marvin Gaye song to get covered on a regular basis. The first cover version of it was by the Vandellas, who sang backing vocals on Marvin’s version, and who used the same backing track for their own recording — this was something that happened often with Motown, and if you listen to albums by Motown artists in the sixties, you’ll frequently hear a hit single with different vocals on it: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, “Hitch-Hike”] But while Martha and the Vandellas were the first to cover “Hitch-Hike”, they were far from the only ones — it became a favourite for white rock groups like the Sonics or the Rolling Stones to cover, and it would be the inspiration for many more rock records by people who wanted to show they could play soul. By June 1963, Marvin Gaye was a bona fide star, and married to Anna Gordy. He was even able to buy his mother a house. But while everything seemed to be going swimmingly as far as the public were concerned, there were already problems — at their wedding reception, Gaye and Anna got into a huge row which ended up with Anna hitting Gaye on the head with her shoe heel. And while he’d bought the house for his mother, his father was still living with her, and still as toxic as he had ever been.  But for the moment, those things didn’t matter. Marvin Gaye was on top of the world, and had started a run of singles that would come to define the Motown sound, and he was also becoming a successful songwriter — and the next time we look at him, it’ll be for a classic song he wrote for someone else.

Episode one hundred and three of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Hitch-Hike" by Marvin Gaye, and the early career of one of Motown's defining artists. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Any Other Way" by Jackie Shane. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ ----more---- Erratum I say that Smokey Robinson was the only person allowed to be both a writer/producer and performer at Motown. That was Marvin Gaye's later statement, but at this point Eddie Holland was also still doing all those things.   Resources As usual, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode.  For Motown-related information in this and other Motown episodes, I've used the following resources: Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound by Nelson George is an excellent popular history of the various companies that became Motown.  To Be Loved by Berry Gordy is Gordy's own, understandably one-sided, but relatively well-written, autobiography. Women of Motown: An Oral History by Susan Whitall is a collection of interviews with women involved in Motown. I Hear a Symphony: Motown and Crossover R&B by J. Andrew Flory is an academic look at Motown. The Motown Encyclopaedia by Graham Betts is an exhaustive look at the people and records involved in Motown's thirty-year history. And Motown Junkies is an infrequently-updated blog looking at (so far) the first 693 tracks released on Motown singles. There is a Complete Motown Singles 1959-62 box available from Hip-O-Select with comprehensive liner notes, but if you just want the music, I recommend instead this much cheaper bare-bones box from Real Gone Music. For information on Gaye specifically, I relied on Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz. The best collection of Gaye's music is The Master, a four-disc box covering his recordings from "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" to the very last recordings of his life.   Transcript A brief note -- this week's episode contains some minor mentions of parental and domestic abuse, and some discussions of homophobia. I don't think those mentions will be upsetting for anyone, but if you're unsure you might want to check the transcript before listening. Today we're going to look at the start of one of the great careers in soul music, and one of the great artists to come out of the Motown hit factory. We're going to look at the continued growth of the Motown company, and at the personal relationships that would drive it in the 1960s, but would also eventually lead to its downfall. We're going to look at "Hitch-Hike", and the early career of Marvin Gaye: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Hitch-Hike"] One thing we've not talked about much in the podcast so far is the way that the entertainment industry, until relatively recently, acted as a safety valve for society, a place where people who didn't fit in anywhere could build themselves a life and earn a living without playing along with the normal social conventions. And by instinct, temperament, and upbringing, Marvin Gaye was one of those people. He was always someone who rubbed up against authority. He spent his youth fighting with his abusive father, and eventually left home to join the Air Force just to get away from his father. But he didn't stay long in the Air Force either -- he was discharged due to mental problems, which he later claimed he'd faked, with his honourable discharge stating "Marvin Gay cannot adjust to regimentation and authority". Back in Washington DC, where he'd grown up, and feeling like a failure, he formed a doo-wop group called the Marquees -- in later years, Gaye would state that he'd come up with the name as a reference to the Marquis de Sade, but in fact Gaye hadn't heard of de Sade at the time. The Marquees were like a million doo-wop groups of the time, and leaned towards the sweeter end of doo-wop, particularly modelling themselves on the Moonglows. The group performed around Washington, and came to the attention of Bo Diddley, who was living in the area and friends with a neighbour of the group. Diddley took them under his wing and wrote and produced both sides of their first single, which had another member, Reese Palmer, singing lead -- Palmer also claimed that he wrote both songs, but Diddley is credited and they certainly sound like Diddley's work to me. The tracks were originally backed by Diddley's band, but Okeh, the record label for whom they were recording, asked that one of the two sides, "Wyatt Earp", be rerecorded with session musicians like Panama Francis who played on almost every R&B record made on the East Coast at the time. Oddly, listening to both versions, the version with the session musicians sounds rather more raw and Bo-Diddleyesque than the one with Diddley's band. The result had a lot of the sound of the records the Coasters were making around the same time: [Excerpt: The Marquees, "Wyatt Earp"] At the same initial session, the Marquees also sang backing vocals on a record by Billy Stewart. We've encountered Stewart briefly before -- his first single, "Billy's Blues", was the first appearance of the guitar figure that later became the basis for "Love is Strange", and he played piano in Diddley's band. With Diddley's band and the Marquees he recorded "Billy's Heartache": [Excerpt: Billy Stewart, "Billy's Heartache"] However, the Marquees' first record did nothing, and the group were dropped by the label and went back to just playing clubs around Washington DC. It looked like their dreams of stardom were over. But one of the group's members, Chester Simmons, took a job as Bo Diddley's driver, and that was to lead to the group's second big break. Diddley was on a tour with the Moonglows, who as well as being fellow Chess artists had also backed Diddley on records like "Diddley Daddy": [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, "Diddley Daddy"] Harvey Fuqua, the group's leader, was complaining to Diddley about the rest of the group, and in particular about Bobby Lester, the group's tenor singer. He was thinking of dropping the entire group and getting a new, better, set of Moonglows to work with. Simmons heard Fuqua talking with Diddley about this, and suggested that the Marquees might be suitable for the job. When the tour hit DC, Fuqua auditioned the Marquees, and started working with them to get them up to the standard he needed, even while he was still continuing to tour with the original Moonglows. Fuqua trained the Marquees in things like breath control. In particular, he had a technique he called "blow harmony", getting the group to sing with gentle, breathy, "whoo" sounds rather than the harder-edged "doo" sounds that most doo-wop groups used -- Fuqua was contemptuous of most doo-wop groups, calling them "gang groups". He taught the Marquees how to shape their mouths, how to use the muscles in their throats, and all the other techniques that most singers have to pick up intuitively or never learn at all. The breathy sound that Fuqua taught them was to become one of the most important techniques that Gaye would use as a vocalist throughout his career. Fuqua took the group back with him to Chicago, and they added a sixth singer, Chuck Barkside, who doubled Simmons on the bass. There were attempts at expanding the group still further, as well -- David Ruffin, later the lead singer of the Temptations, auditioned for the group, but was turned down by Fuqua.  The group, now renamed Harvey and the Moonglows, cut a few tracks for Chess, but most were never released, but they did better as backing vocalists. Along with Etta James, they sang the backing vocals on two hits by Chuck Berry, "Almost Grown" and "Back in the USA": [Excerpt: Chuck Berry, "Back in the USA"] At the time, Etta and Harvey were in a relationship, and Marvin took note -- being in a relationship with someone else in the industry could be good for your career. Marvin was starting to discover some other things, as well -- like that he really didn't enjoy being on stage, even though he loved singing, and that the strain of touring could be eased with the use of cannabis. Marvin didn't want to be on the stage at all -- he wanted to be making records. The studio was where he was comfortable. The new Moonglows did release some recordings of their own, one of which, "Mama Loochie", had Marvin on lead vocals, and was cowritten by Marvin and Harvey: [Excerpt: Harvey and the Moonglows, "Mama Loochie"] Another record that featured Marvin, though not as lead vocalist, was "Twelve Months of the Year", an attempt to recapture the success of the original Moonglows' "Ten Commandments of Love". On that one, Marvin does the spoken recitation at the beginning and end, as well as singing backing vocals: [Excerpt: Harvey and the Moonglows, "Twelve Months of the Year"] But the Moonglows were coming to the end of their career -- and Harvey was also coming to the end of his relationship with Etta James. Anna Records, one of the labels owned by members of the Gordy family, had made a distribution agreement with Chess Records, and Leonard Chess suggested to Harvey that he move to Detroit and work with Anna as a Chess liaison. Soon Harvey Fuqua was fully part of the Gordy family, and he split up with Etta James and got into a relationship with Gwen Gordy. Gwen had split up with her own partner to be with Harvey -- and then Gwen and her ex, Roquel Davis, co-wrote a song about the split, which Etta James sang: [Excerpt: Etta James, "All I Could Do Was Cry"] Marvin had come with Harvey -- he'd signed with him as a solo artist, and Harvey thought that Marvin could become a Black Frank Sinatra, or better. Marvin was signed to Harvey Records, Harvey's label, but after Harvey and Gwen got together romantically, their various labels all got rolled up in the Motown family. At first, Marvin wasn't sure whether he would be recording at all once Harvey Records was shut down, but he made an impression on Berry Gordy by gatecrashing the Motown Christmas party in 1960 and performing "Mr. Sandman" at the piano. Soon he found that Berry Gordy had bought out his recording contract, as well as a fifty percent share of his management, and he was now signed with Tamla. Marvin was depressed by this to an extent -- he saw Fuqua as a father figure -- but he soon came to respect Gordy. He also found that Gordy's sister Anna was very interested in him, and while she was seventeen years older than him, he didn't see that as something that should stand in the way of his getting together with the boss' sister. There was a real love between the twenty year old Marvin Gaye and the thirty-seven-year-old Anna Gordy, but Gaye also definitely realised that there was an advantage to becoming part of the family -- and Berry Gordy, in turn, thought that having his artists be part of his family would be an advantage in controlling them. But right from the start, Marvin and Berry had different ideas about where Marvin's career should go. Marvin saw himself becoming a singer in the same style as Nat "King" Cole or Jesse Belvin, while Gordy wanted him to be an R&B singer like everyone else at Motown. While Marvin liked singers like Sam Cooke, he was also an admirer of people like Dean Martin and Perry Como -- he would later say that the sweaters he wore in many photos in the sixties were inspired by Como, and that "I always felt like my personality and Perry's had a lot in common". They eventually compromised -- Marvin would record an album of old standards, but there would be an R&B single on it, one side written by Berry, and the other written by Harvey and Anna. The Soulful Moods of Marvin Gaye was only the second album released by Motown, which otherwise concentrated on singles, but neither it nor the single Berry wrote, "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide", had any commercial success: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide"] As well as singing on the album, Marvin also played drums and piano, and while his singing career wasn't doing wonderfully at this point, he was becoming known around Motown for turning his hand to whatever was needed, from drumming on a session to sweeping the floor. The most notable thing about the album, though, was that he changed the spelling of his surname, from Gay spelled G-a-y to G-a-y-e. He gave three different reasons for this, at least two of which were connected.  The first one was that he was inspired by Sam Cooke, whose career he wanted to emulate. Cooke had added an "e" to his surname, and so Marvin was doing the same. The second reason, though, was that by this time the word "gay" was already being used to refer to sexuality, and there were rumours floating around about Marvin's sexuality which he didn't want to encourage. He did like to wear women's clothing in private, and he said some things about his experience of gender which might suggest that he wasn't entirely cis, but he was only interested in women sexually, and was (like many people at the time) at least mildly homophobic. And like many people he confused sexuality and gender, and he desperately didn't want to be thought of as anything other than heterosexual. But there was another aspect to this as well. His father was also someone who wore women's clothing, and tied in with Marvin's wish not to be thought of as gay was a wish not to be thought of as like his father, who was physically and emotionally abusive of him throughout his life. And his father was Marvin Gay senior. By adding the "e", as well as trying to avoid being thought of as gay, he was also trying to avoid being thought of as like his father. While Marvin's first album was not a success, he was doing everything he could to get more involved with the label as a whole. He played drums on records, despite never having played the instrument before, simply because he wanted to be around the studio -- he played on a record we've already looked at, "Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes: [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, "Please Mr. Postman"] He played with the Miracles on occasion, and he also played on "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call it the Blues" by Little Stevie Wonder: [Excerpt, Little Stevie Wonder, "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call it the Blues"] And on "That's What Girls are Made For”by the Spinners (the group known in the UK as the Detroit Spinners): [Excerpt: The Spinners, "That's What Girls are Made For"] And he both co-wrote and played drums on "Beechwood 4-5789" by the Marvelettes, which made the top twenty:  [Excerpt: The Marvelettes, "Beechwood 4-5789"] But this kind of thing ended up with Gaye being pushed by Berry Gordy in the direction of writing, which was not something he wanted to do. At that time in Motown, there was a strict demarcation, and the only person who was allowed to write *and* perform *and* produce was Smokey Robinson -- everyone else was either a writer/producer or a singer, and Marvin knew he wanted to be a singer first and foremost. But Marvin's own records were flopping, and it was only because of Anna Gordy's encouragement that he was able to continue releasing records at all  -- if he hadn't given up himself, he would almost certainly have been dropped by the label. And indirectly, his first hit was inspired by Anna. Marvin's attitude to authority was coming out again in his attitude towards Motown and Berry Gordy. By this point, Motown had set up its famous charm school -- a department of the label that taught its singers things like elocution, posture, how to dress and how to dance. Marvin absolutely refused to do any of that, although he later said he regretted it.  Anna told him all the time that he was stubborn, and he started thinking about this, and jamming with Mickey Stevenson, the Motown staff songwriter and producer with whom he worked most closely, and who had started out as a singer with Lionel Hampton. The two of them came up with what Marvin later described as a "basic jazz feeling", and then Berry Gordy suggested a few extra chords they could stick in, and the result was "Stubborn Kind of Fellow": [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow"] You can hear what he meant about that starting out with a jazz feel, most notably with Beans Bowles' flute part, but the finished product was very much an R&B record -- Marvin sounds more like Ray Charles than Sinatra or Como, and the backing vocals by Martha and the Vandellas are certainly not anything that you would have got behind a crooner. The record went right up the R&B chart, making the R&B top ten, but it didn't cross over to the pop audience that Gaye was after. He was disappointed, because what he wanted more than anything else was to get a white audience, because he knew that was where the money was, but after getting an R&B hit, he knew he would have to do as so many other Black entertainers had, and play to Black audiences for a long time before he crossed over. And that also meant going out on tour, something he hated. At the end of 1962 he was put on the bill of the Motortown Revue, along with the Contours, the Supremes, the Marvelettes, Little Stevie Wonder, Mary Wells, and the Miracles. On the live album from that tour, recorded at the Apollo, you can hear Gaye still trying to find a balance between his desire to be a Sinatra-type crooner appealing to a white audience, and his realisation that he was going to have to appeal to a Black audience. The result has him singing "What Kind of Fool Am I?", the Anthony Newley show tune, but sticking in interpolations inspired by Ray Charles: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "What Kind of Fool Am I?"] This was a real concern for him. He would later say "Commercially, though, I learned quickly that it was primarily my people who were going to support me. I vowed always to take care of them, give 'em the funk they wanted. It wasn't my first choice, but there's integrity in the idea of pleasing your own people. Secretly, I yearned to sing for rich Republicans in tuxes and tails at the Copacabana. No matter." He hated that tour, but some of the musicians on the tour thought it was what made him into a star -- specifically, they knew that Gaye had stage fright, hated being on stage, and would not put his all into a live performance. Unless they put Little Stevie Wonder on before him. Wonder's performances were so exciting that Gaye had to give the audience everything he had or he'd get booed off the stage, and Gaye started to rise to the challenge. He would still get stage fright, and try to get out of performing live at all, but when he turned up and went on stage he became a captivating performer. And that was something that was very evident on the first recording he made after coming off the tour. The Apollo recording we just heard was from the last week of the tour, and two days after it concluded, on December 19th 1962, Marvin Gaye was back in the studio, where he felt most comfortable, writing a song with Mickey Stevenson and Clarence Paul. While there were three writers of the song, the bulk of it was written by Gaye, who came up with the basic groove before the other writers got involved, and who played both piano and drums on the record: [Excerpt: Marvin Gaye, "Hitch-Hike"] "Hitch-Hike" became Gaye's first real crossover hit -- it made number twelve on the R&B chart, but also made the top forty on the pop chart, largely because of his appearances on American Bandstand, where he demonstrated a new dance he'd made up, involving sticking your thumb out like a hitch-hiker, which became a minor craze among Bandstand's audiences -- we're still in the period where a novelty dance was the most important thing in having a hit. The song also became the first Marvin Gaye song to get covered on a regular basis. The first cover version of it was by the Vandellas, who sang backing vocals on Marvin's version, and who used the same backing track for their own recording -- this was something that happened often with Motown, and if you listen to albums by Motown artists in the sixties, you'll frequently hear a hit single with different vocals on it: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Hitch-Hike"] But while Martha and the Vandellas were the first to cover "Hitch-Hike", they were far from the only ones -- it became a favourite for white rock groups like the Sonics or the Rolling Stones to cover, and it would be the inspiration for many more rock records by people who wanted to show they could play soul. By June 1963, Marvin Gaye was a bona fide star, and married to Anna Gordy. He was even able to buy his mother a house. But while everything seemed to be going swimmingly as far as the public were concerned, there were already problems -- at their wedding reception, Gaye and Anna got into a huge row which ended up with Anna hitting Gaye on the head with her shoe heel. And while he'd bought the house for his mother, his father was still living with her, and still as toxic as he had ever been.  But for the moment, those things didn't matter. Marvin Gaye was on top of the world, and had started a run of singles that would come to define the Motown sound, and he was also becoming a successful songwriter -- and the next time we look at him, it'll be for a classic song he wrote for someone else.

Pete talks about the music scene in the 50's and early 60's. Barnoldswick and its Grand dance Halls and Ballrooms owned by the Hartley family. The arrival of American Pop groups and artists ready to tour Great Britain. Gene Vicent, Gerry Lee Lewis, Little Stevie Wonder and many others. Meeting and watching performences from up and coming UK artists and groups such as Sounds Incorporated, Eden Kane, Joe Brown , Marty Wilde, Freddie and the Dreamers, a young 15 year old named Joe Cocker! The Searchers, the Hollies, The Beatles and on and on. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bernie-aird/message

1962 veröffentlichte Little Stevie Wonder seine erste Platte auf Motown. Bald darauf landete er mit «Fingertips» seinen ersten Nummer 1 Hit. 56 Jahre und 25 Grammys später spielt er Mundharmonika auf Travis Scotts «Astroworld». «Pop Routes» auf den Spuren des Musikgenies Stevie Wonder! 40 Jahre Stevie Wonder - «Songs In The Key Of Life»

Innervisions marked a significant transition in Little Stevie Wonder's career. He began to move away from the Motown romantic ballads and towards a more conscious and experimental sound. He talked about poverty, racism, drugs, and Richard Nixon. It's an album filled with social justice anthems, made almost entirely by Stevie himself at 23 years old.  Culture critic and writer Nelson George sits down with us (remotely) to talk about Stevie embracing of new musical technology, the changing landscape of black radio at the time, and  Stevie's own transformation as an artist during the early 70sMore on Nelson GeorgeNelson George Remembers Life As A City Kid (NPR) A few of Nelson's archived articles Twitter|WebsiteMore on InnervisionsBBC's review of InnervisionsStevie Wonder Emerges As A Visionary with Innervisions (Ultimate Classic Rock)Malcolm Cecil on working with Stevie (Wax Poetics)Show Tracklisting (All songs from Innervisions unless otherwise indicated):Don't You Worry 'Bout A ThingLiving For The CityToo HighLiving For The CityToo HighNew York Voices: Too HighGolden LadyJesus Children of AmericaDon't You Worry 'Bout A ThingBarbra Streisand: All In Love Is FairHigher GroundCurtis Mayfield: Future ShockDonnie: Heaven SentHarold Melvin and the Blue Notes: Hope That We Can Be Together SoonHere is the Spotify playlist of as many songs as we can find thereIf you’re not already subscribed to Heat Rocks in Apple Podcasts, do it here!

Dita Von Teese is not only the International Queen of Burlesque, but also an adoring fan of Bob Baker Marionette Theater. On this episode of The BobPod, Dita speaks with hosts Timothy Nordwind and Elena Flores about her favorite songs and memories from BBMT and plays rare music taken from the Theater's infamous music archive. Alongside songs from Little Stevie Wonder, Boots Randolph, and a cute baby seal, Dita regales us with stories of her love for antique cars, Orange County, and Betty Grable. Plus, special insights into future (very exciting!) collaborations that Dita is brainstorming with the Bob Baker Marionettes. Sit back, relax, and get ready for a BobPod portrait of the incredibly talented and unique Dita Von Teese. And for more at-home Dita, be sure to check out her latest book, “Your Beauty Mark”!

Hot 'Lanta songwriter Cory Welch visits the program to discuss Stevie Wonder's beautiful bicentennial record Songs in the Key of Life. What might you find in this conversation? We talked about long-time bassist and musical director Nathan Watts, the contributions of Snuffy Walden to popular music and even a connection with Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph to Songs in the Key of Life. So hit that play button and immerse yourself in the world of "Little Stevie" Wonder. Enjoy!   

Hit Me Episode 24 is short and sweet and all about those lines you may have missed on four particular hit records by the Beatles, The Captain and Tennille, Little Stevie Wonder and Barenaked Ladies. The fun continues next week with the Two Chord Dance Party celebrating Hit Me's 25th episode. 

When you think of Stevie Wonder’s legendary career, what chart-toppers come to mind? “Superstition,” right? Maybe “I Wish”? Okay, but what about the start of his career, on the Motown of the ’60s? You may not know that Wonder had only one Hot 100 No. 1 in his first decade—as “Little” Stevie Wonder—and it was truly exceptional, as in bizarre: a semi-improvised live recording of a “12 Year-Old Genius” refusing to leave a Chicago stage and say goodnight. Here’s the story of “Fingertips, Part 2,” and the years that launched a true pop icon. Wonder’s imperial run of classic, chart-topping, Grammy-dominating ’70s albums had their seeds in the joyous virtuosity, and fierce independence, on display in his very first hit. Email: hitparade@slate.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you think of Stevie Wonder’s legendary career, what chart-toppers come to mind? “Superstition,” right? Maybe “I Wish”? Okay, but what about the start of his career, on the Motown of the ’60s? You may not know that Wonder had only one Hot 100 No. 1 in his first decade—as “Little” Stevie Wonder—and it was truly exceptional, as in bizarre: a semi-improvised live recording of a “12 Year-Old Genius” refusing to leave a Chicago stage and say goodnight. Here’s the story of “Fingertips, Part 2,” and the years that launched a true pop icon. Wonder’s imperial run of classic, chart-topping, Grammy-dominating ’70s albums had their seeds in the joyous virtuosity, and fierce independence, on display in his very first hit. Email: hitparade@slate.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you think of Stevie Wonder’s legendary career, what chart-toppers come to mind? “Superstition,” right? Maybe “I Wish”? Okay, but what about the start of his career, on the Motown of the ’60s? You may not know that Wonder had only one Hot 100 No. 1 in his first decade—as “Little” Stevie Wonder—and it was truly exceptional, as in bizarre: a semi-improvised live recording of a “12 Year-Old Genius” refusing to leave a Chicago stage and say goodnight. Here’s the story of “Fingertips, Part 2,” and the years that launched a true pop icon. Wonder’s imperial run of classic, chart-topping, Grammy-dominating ’70s albums had their seeds in the joyous virtuosity, and fierce independence, on display in his very first hit. Email: hitparade@slate.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Concert poster collectors should be excited to listen to this episode. Andrew Hawley, one of the world’s biggest poster collectors, comes on the Goldmine Magazine Podcast to talk about a particular poster — a 1963 day-glo 'Motortown Revue" poster — up for auction at Heritage. The following is Heritage Auctions description of this rare poster: Stevie Wonder/Marvin Gaye Sports Arena Concert Poster (1963). Extremely Rare. Oversized window card for the “Motortown Revue” in Toledo, OH on Tues. Nov. 5. This wonderful Motown multi-act poster shows an illustration of “Genius / of the / Harmonica / Little Stevie Wonder”, and lists recent hits “Workout Stevie, Workout” and “Fingertips”. The poster also features images and hit songs for the other acts on the lineup including the Miracles, “Mickey’s / Monkey”; Marvin Gaye “Pride and Joy”, “Can I Get A Witness”; Martha and the Vandellas “Heat Wave”; the Contours, “Do You Love Me”; Mary Wells, “You Lost The Sweetest Boy”; and Kim Weston, “Love Me All The Way”. Printed by “Globe Poster – Baltimore”. Measures 22″ x 35″. In Very Good condition with some restoration and touch ups, particularly to the borders and right side of the poster. This is the first time an example of this incredible poster has been offered at auction. It is widely considered by poster collectors to be THE finest Motown concert poster. “Little” Stevie Wonder was only thirteen when this show took place. Amazingly he had just scored his first no. 1 hit with “Fingertips”, which is listed on this poster. It is even more remarkable, considering it was the first live recorded single to top the charts!

Concert poster collectors should be excited to listen to this episode. Andrew Hawley, one of the world's biggest poster collectors, comes on the Goldmine Magazine Podcast to talk about a particular poster — a 1963 day-glo 'Motortown Revue" poster — up for auction at Heritage. The following is Heritage Auctions description of this rare poster: Stevie Wonder/Marvin Gaye Sports Arena Concert Poster (1963). Extremely Rare. Oversized window card for the “Motortown Revue” in Toledo, OH on Tues. Nov. 5. This wonderful Motown multi-act poster shows an illustration of “Genius / of the / Harmonica / Little Stevie Wonder”, and lists recent hits “Workout Stevie, Workout” and “Fingertips”. The poster also features images and hit songs for the other acts on the lineup including the Miracles, “Mickey's / Monkey”; Marvin Gaye “Pride and Joy”, “Can I Get A Witness”; Martha and the Vandellas “Heat Wave”; the Contours, “Do You Love Me”; Mary Wells, “You Lost The Sweetest Boy”; and Kim Weston, “Love Me All The Way”. Printed by “Globe Poster – Baltimore”. Measures 22″ x 35″. In Very Good condition with some restoration and touch ups, particularly to the borders and right side of the poster. This is the first time an example of this incredible poster has been offered at auction. It is widely considered by poster collectors to be THE finest Motown concert poster. “Little” Stevie Wonder was only thirteen when this show took place. Amazingly he had just scored his first no. 1 hit with “Fingertips”, which is listed on this poster. It is even more remarkable, considering it was the first live recorded single to top the charts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, we just called to say we love you, Stevie! No need to be superstitious: our first episode ranking the albums of Little Stevie Wonder from 1970-1987 is here, and Evan, Taran, and special guest Nia O'Reilly Amandes wade through everything from his Oscar-winning fluff to his socio-political pop hits. It's a hell of a journey, and we can't wait for you to go on it. Enjoy! /// Our theme song for this episode is "Can't You See" by Skylar Spence off of his debut album PROM KING (Carpark Records). Get it and support him here [ skylarspence.bandcamp.com/ ]. Used with permission.

Topics: Dj Kool Herc, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Pam Grier, The Mack, & George Jefferson. (Bonus Artist: Luck Pacheco)   1.    Snapshots   2.    General News   3.    Richard Nixon STILL President.   4.    Vietnam War: year 18 of 19   5.    The Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973, effectively removed the U.S. from the conflict in Vietnam.   6.    Deaths: 168 killed. Down from 641 in 1972   7.    Nixon, on national TV, accepts responsibility, but not blame, for Watergate; (April 30).   8.    Spiro T. Agnew resigns as Vice President and then pleads no contest to charges of evasion of income taxes while Governor of Maryland (Oct. 10).   9.    Jan: Military draft ends   10.    Jan: Roe v. Wade, SCOTUS ruled that a right to privacy extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but with some limits.   11.    Apr: The World Trade Center   12.    Economics:   13.    Oct: OPEC embargo sets off an oil/energy crisis and starts the recession.   14.    Unemployment: 4.9% / Black unemployment: 5.7 / minimum wage: still $1.60 ($64w, $3,200y, ~$19,800 in 2018)   15.    Open Comments:   16.    Sports:   17.    Super Bowl: Miami d. Washington   18.    World Series: Oakland A's d. NY Mets (4-3)   19.    NBA Championship: New York d. LA Lakers   20.    Pop Music:   21.    Top radio singles:   22.    #1 "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree", Tony Orlando and Dawn   23.    #2 "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", Jim Croce   24.    #3 "Killing Me Softly with His Song", Roberta Flack   25.    1973 Grammy Awards:   26.    ROY, “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” Roberta Flack   27.    SOY, “Killing Me Softly with His Song,”   28.    AOY, Innervisions, Stevie Wonder   29.    New Artist, Bette Midler   30.    Open Comments:   31.    Top Movies:   32.    #1 The Sting   33.    #2 The Exorcist   34.    #3 American Graffiti   35.    Top Television:   36.    #1 All in the Family   37.    #2 The Waltons   38.    #3 Sanford and Son   39.    Black Folks   40.    Illinois 1st state to declare MLK Day   41.    Alice Walker publishes 1st book   42.    Red Foxx NAACP Entertainer of the Year   43.    Open Comments:   44.    Social/Political Scene: The Birth of a Hip-Hop Nation   45.    Clive Campbell (@18yrs) - a.k.a. DJ Kool Herc (Hercules), founding father of hip hop.   46.    It's summer time of 1973 in the Bronx NY.   47.    In the recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a HISTORIC party jumps off. - And hip hop is born!   48.    Bio: Kool Herc was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, moved to NYC as a teen and started spinning records at parties with his dad's PA system.   49.    He was deep into Reggae and he styled himself like a Jamaican “selector” (DJ) and did a lot of “toasting” (talking/chanting) over the instrumentals.   50.    But his real genius was paying attention to the crowds. He said a lot of DJ's back then would put on a record and go smoke a cigarette.   51.    He watched what got the crowd going and noticed hat it was the instrumental bridge, or drum breaks, that was hot with the dancers.   52.    His SIGNATURE move and GROUNDBREAKING contribution was to use the two turntables of a regular DJ setup, NOT to switch between songs, BUT switch back and forth between the break beats and keep the crowds moving!   53.    His homie, Coke La Rock, would get on the mic and do shout outs ("so and so is in the house!"), do call-and-response phrases (yes, yes, y'all - you don't stop, ...just throw your hands in the air), and do catchy "poems" (Hotel, motel, you don't tell, we won't   54.    tell)   55.    Herc had been working on it this new style for almost a year, but that summertime party in 73 was his breakout moment.   56.    After that, the crowds got too big for the rec room and he started throwing jams in the park. Those crowds where bigger than some at the clubs and that's where all four elements of hip hop would really come together. (Dj'ing, MC'ing, dancing, and graffiti)    57.    He got stabbed at a party just a few years later, and while he was sidelined, his 2 homies and "understudies" took over hip hop, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash!    58.    Hip Hop basically started by presenting a party on wax.   59.    Question: How has partying changed? (i.e., dancing, music, sex, drugs, socializing, violence, etc...)   60.    Final thoughts: Kool Herc continues be an undervalued personality. He deserves WAY more credit.   61.    Music Scene:   62.    Pop Singles   63.    #1 - Tony Orlando and Dawn, Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree   64.    #3 - Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly With His Song   65.    #4 - Marvin Gaye, Let’s Get It On   66.    #8 - Billy Preston, Will It Go Round In Circles   67.    #10 - Diana Ross, Touch Me In The Morning   68.    #15 - Billy Paul, Me And Mrs. Jones   69.    #17 - Dobie Gray, Drift Away   70.    #19 - Stevie Wonder, You Are The Sunshine Of My Life   71.    #21 - Isley Bros., That Lady   72.    #22 - Sylvia, Pillow Talk   73.    #26 - Stevie Wonder, Superstition   74.    #32 - O’Jays, Love Train   75.    #33 - Barry White, I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More   76.    Vote:   77.    Jan - 360 Degrees of Billy Paul, Billy Paul   78.    Feb -Talking Book, Stevie Wonder   79.    Feb - The World Is a Ghetto, War   80.    Apr - Wattstax: The Living Word, Soundtrack / Various artists   81.    Apr - Neither One of Us, Gladys Knight & the Pips   82.    May - Masterpiece, The Temptations   83.    May - Spinners, The Spinners   84.    Jun - Birth Day, New Birth   85.    Jun - Call Me, Al Green   86.    Jun - Live at the Sahara Tahoe, Isaac Hayes   87.    Jul - I've Got So Much to Give, Barry White   88.    Jul - Back to the World, Curtis Mayfield   89.    Aug - Fresh, Sly and the Family Stone   90.    Aug - Touch Me in the Morning, Diana Ross   91.    Sep - Innervisions, Stevie Wonder   92.    Sep - Deliver the Word, War   93.    Sep - Let's Get It On, Marvin Gaye   94.    Dec - Imagination, Gladys Knight & the Pips   95.    Key Artist: Gladys Maria Knight, aka The Empress of Soul (@29): Singer, song writer, actress.   96.    Born and raised in ATL   97.    Started touring with the Pips at 16yrs old, signed with Motown at 22, and started dropping hits:   98.    "Every Beat of My Heart/I Heard It Through the Grapevine/If I Were Your Woman   99.    In 1973 she left Motown (Former Motown artists where EVERYWHERE) and blew up!   100.    They landed 4 straight #1 Soul Lps between 1973 and 1974   101.    Neither One of Us/Imagination/Claudine/I Feel a Song   102.    Gladys will tell you that Diana Ross, kicked her off a tour once because the crowds were feeling her more and that The Boss felt overshadowed.   103.    Some people called her the true successor to Aretha.   104.    Question: What was Glady's biggest hurdle: Too nice, Diana, song material, or a CRAZY personal life? (4 marriages, custody battles, legal issues with the Pips, child kidnapped, or the Mormons?   105.    Key Artist: Stevland Hardaway Morris (@23yrsold), aka Stevie Wonder: Musical Genius   106.    Born in Michigan, raised in Detroit   107.    Started getting down with Motown in 1961 at 11yrs old and rose to fame FAST!   108.    Fingertips/Uptight (everything's Alright/Sign, Sealed, Delivered/My Cherie Amour   109.    In 1971, he let his Motown contract expire, muscled his way to a bigger royalty, got more creative independence, and proceeded to change the history of pop music.   110.    His next 3 releases each won album of the year! - a first for an RnB act.   111.    Partly influenced by his Motown homie Marvin Gaye and his album "what's Going On", (and to some degree his FRIENDS the Beatles!) he consciously changed up his style.   112.    "We as a people are not interested in 'baby, baby' songs anymore," he said back then. "There's more to life than that.   113.    Innervisions (16th studio LP) was where he stopped being merely a "boy" genius.   114.    "It is the album that best celebrates his musical maturity and completes the transition from Little Stevie Wonder to the grown-up artist with an active imagination and burning social conscience. Coming just nine months after Talking Book, Innervisions is Wonder at  115.    the absolute peak of his powers, a 23-year-old man with the world at his fingertips." - BBC Review   116.    Question: Bigger impact, Stevie or James? (Writing, singing, performing, musician)   117.    Conclusion: IMHO, Stevie is the most important black artist ever.   118.    Movies   119.    Key Actor: Pamela Suzette Grier (@24yrs old); Actress, author, superstar girlfriend   120.    Born in North KakalaKa and raised as an Air Force kid   121.    The family settled in Denver and she went to East High School - Genina's alma mater   122.    She started competing in state wide beauty contests and that led to her moving to LA to pursue acting at 18   123.    In 1971, at 22, she made her movie debut in Big Doll House.   124.    She did a few more "women in cages" movies and broke out in 1973 with Coffy!   125.    "The baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever-hit town!"   126.    In 1974, she delivered her iconic performance as Foxy Brown   127.    A gun toting prostitute out for revenge   128.    This solidified her as really the first female action hero.   129.    It also, stigmatized her acting career, as she basically got limited to Blaxploitation roles   130.    However, she still received props for her acting skills in those roles.   131.    "What makes Coffy interesting is Miss Grier...she’s' beautiful, but also has a kind of physical life to her that is sometimes missing in beautiful actresses...she gets into an action role and does it right." - film critic, Roger Ebert   132.    Question: where have the female black action heroines gone?   133.    Key Movie: The Mack   134.    Question: What was that?!?!?!   135.    Television:   136.    Key Character: George Jefferson, Dry cleaning Business owner   137.    Played by Sherman Hemsley (@35): born and raised in Philly   138.    High school dropout and former Air force   139.    went to NYC and got regular work as a Broadway actor   140.    In 1971 (@33) he flashed on Broadway and caught the attention of the producer for "All in The Family" (sorta like Redd Foxx)   141.    In 1973 he debuted on the show as Archie's "opinionated, rude, bigoted, scheming neighbor.   142.    Always trying to move "to a deluxe apartment in the sky"!   143.    But, he was also a loving and hard-working family man, who was cleverer than Archie.   144.    Sherman himself was shy and very private.   145.    Never married and no kids.   146.    He said playing George Jefferson "was hard for me. But he was the character. I had to do it."   147.    Question: Was GJ a positive or negative character?   148.    Schoolhouse Rock! Animated musical educational short films.   149.    Aired from 1973 to 1985 (12 Yrs.)   150.    64 -3m episodes   151.    Topics covered: Math, grammar, American history, and science.   152.    The creator noticed one of his sons was having trouble remembering the multiplication tables, BUT the kid knew all the lyrics to the current rock songs.   153.    The goal was to educate through videos, motivate kids with music, and convince them learning is fun.   154.    Question: What are some of your favorite SHR episodes?   155.    Conclusion:  No doubt, for a generation of kids, every Saturday morning, SHR put it DOWN!   156.    Wrap Up   157.    Question: What had the biggest impact from 1973?

"Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning." B.B. King This week, DJ Dave is featuring music by some of the most influential artists to date - Duke Ellington, Ray Brown, Chris Brown, Rod Stewart, John Mayer, Tony Bennett, Pablo Cruise, Trio Da Paz, Little Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, Richie Havens and B.B. King!! SUBSCRIBE: iTunes  TWITTER: @MusicFirstPcast FACEBOOK: Music First Podcast INSTAGRAM: MusicFirstPodcast EMAIL: MusicFirstPodcast@gmail.com

Who you gonna call… me, please. Ray Parker, Jr., swoon. We talked growing up in Detroit, racial injustice, police brutality first hand, playing the clarinet and getting tired of blowing. I know. Ray’s first gig with The Spinners, to going on the road with Stevie Wonder, at 18 ~ without having to audition! Craziness… I saw that tour! Little Stevie Wonder opened for The Stones, with Ray on guitar and David Sanborn on sax. What a band, what a concert! What stories Ray has to go with it. One girl, one ticket, two girls, two tickets, three girls, three tickets. The boy was busy! Ray moved to LA, started playing on records, and played with… everyone. Those were the daze. Chaka Khan, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, getting ripped off writing You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, which won the Grammy, and Ray didn’t get his due credit. But, other than that it’s been a pretty sweet ride. We talked about his successful marriage, 24 yrs and counting, four sons, one making music in the studio while we were there. This is a good man. And what a musician. He played licks throughout, and a little bit of that iconic song, with Louise and I on gang vocals for “Ghostbusters”… which Ray pointed out, he never sings in the song. Coming soon, a movie ~ Who You Gonna Call, a book of the same name, and Ray hopes, his own TV show. Hell yeah. He couldn’t be more charming, and damn, is he sexy! Ray Parker Jr. on The Road Taken, Celebrity Maps to Success Wed, 4/4/18, 7 pm PT/ 10 pm ET With Louise Palanker Big thanks to Fran Strine Live on the Facebook Replay here (with Facebook Live blurry tech issues): https://bit.ly/2EolRJS All BROADcasts, as podcasts, also available on iTunes apple.co/2dj8ld3 Stitcher bit.ly/2h3R1fl tunein bit.ly/2gGeItj This week's BROADcast is brought to you by Rick Smolke of Quik Impressions, the best printers, printing, the best people people-ing. quikimpressions.com And, Nicole Venables of Ruby Begonia Hair Studio Beauty and Products for tresses like the stars she coifs, and regular peoples, like me. I love my hair, and I loves Nicole. http://www.rubybegoniahairstudio.com/

While the 60s exploded through the mass media seeking out stoned naked hippies in Haight Ashbury, it was a little more subdued and awkward in Australia. Roselands hosted a glittering cavalcade of stars from The Master's Apprentices to Little Stevie Wonder. It was always 70 degrees by the Raindrop Fountain and the entertainment was always family friendly, except when Graham Kennedy dropped his duds.

This is a BIG week! Stevie Wonder on the record player and our friend Mike Simms joins us to share some stories of him and Stevie Wonder plus his dad's 20+ year career as Stevie's Public Relations guy. You don't want to miss the antics that ensue!

This week the rock n roll librarian does something a bit different we know you all will enjoy, she actually reads the amazing kid's book 'Little Stevie Wonder'. It is the true story of a boy who lost his sight shortly after birth, grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and became one of the twentieth century’s most creative and influential musicians—an instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, musical innovator, and cultural activist. As always -please subscribe, rate and review our podcasts in iTunes!

News, a Featured Performance and a Super Stupid Knob! News: VSTWrapper 4 for DP NS-10s Win A Grammy Charles Dye's Monitoring Article FXpansion's Free Orca Synth Digidesign Unveils The 003 Family Celebrity Interview: What's it like to attend a live seminar with a grammy-winning engineer and mixer? One of our listeners, John Phillips, just found out first-hand a couple of weeks ago. Al caught up with John so that he could share his experience with everyone. http://ProMediaTraining.com Featured Performance: We ran across a very interesting article by Dan Richards over at Studio Reviews Magazine. Dan recently published an article, Why Don't My Recordings Sound Pro?, and in it he concentrated mostly on the idea that the road to getting a "pro sound" had more to do with making a good working arrangement, and less about needing a $3,000.00 microphone. He also pointed out that it was important that we sometimes try to see the forest for the trees by de-emphasizing "the gear" that we all lust after. Because, in the end, the gear doesn't make the music. Check out a tune recorded with just a few Shure SM 57s! Character voice by Juanita Grande - JuanitaGrande.com Super Stupid Knob: A rollerskating male stripper, Joe Nichols to sing at Anna Nicole's funeral and the industry-shaking impact of FedEx (Kevin Federline). Answer To Last Week's Trivia Question: Q: We're all intimately familiar with studio recording. But, what was the first live recording to top the Billboard chart? A: Fingerstips Part Two by Little Stevie Wonder in 1963. No winners this week. Maybe next time! :) See you next week! Tags: music recording studio home studio project studio mixing protools plugin digidesign frappr creative commons digidesign mix it like a record vstwrapper grammy yamaha hs-10 charles dye fxpansion digidesign 003 studio reviews magazine joe nichols anna nicole smith kevin federline stevie wonder fingertips part two promedia training