It might be hard to believe now, but back in the mid-1970s, Stevie Wonder was considering quitting the music business.
With 17 studio albums under his belt (including the critically acclaimed Fulfillingness' First Finale, Innervisions, Talking Book and Music Of My Mind), and a string of awards to his name, Little Stevie Wonder wasn't quite so little anymore.
Unhappy with life in the US, and probably contemplating what was left to achieve on a 12-inch record, he considered throwing it all in and emigrating to Ghana to work with children with disabilities. Plans were already underway for a farewell concert when he changed his mind and signed what was at the time the biggest recording deal in history.
The first album from the multi-year deal was Songs In The Key Of Life, a landmark double album that shows Wonder's immense versatility, spanning classical arrangements, pop, ballads, jazz, funk, and much more.
Like What Hi-Fi?, it's just turned 50. With Wonder currently on tour, playing the album in its entirety, let's dig into it and explore what makes it such a great workout for your system (not to mention one of my favourite albums of all time).
A musical education
I still remember the first time I heard the opening harmonies of Love's In Need Of Love Today come through the speakers of my JVC microsystem. It was the late nineties, and I was in my late teens. My knowledge of Wonder's work was rudimentary at best. But, having loved some of his early tracks from various Motown Chartbusters compilations I had bought or borrowed from friends, and aware of his immense influence on the pop and hip-hop scenes of the time, I was keen to know more.
I recorded a Wonder VH1 documentary on VHS (see, it really was the late nineties), and while I don't remember much about that, I do remember the brief snippet of Sir Duke it played, complete with profile shots of some of the musicians who played on the track. Those horns. The sheer unbridled joy of it. I watched that bit so many times I must have worn out that section of the VHS tape.
I promptly bought the album on CD, and excitedly stuck it on my JVC microsystem.
Now I still lived at home with my parents, and my system was no listening room setup – it was classic Argos catalogue fare. But even through its relatively weedy speakers, those opening harmonies sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before. It was otherworldly.
I came for Sir Duke, but reader, I stayed for a musical education.
Love's In Need Of Love Today is certainly a bold opening choice. While most of the album's tracks are around four minutes in length – perfect for radio play – the opener stretches out over more than seven minutes. But then when you're critically acclaimed, with 17 albums already to your name by age 26, I guess you can afford to take your sweet time.
Flexing your system's muscles
Things stay fairly placid through Have A Talk With God and Village Ghetto Land – though both tracks have plenty of fine detail that a decent system will pick up on – before kicking into gear with the jazz funk flex of Contusion.
But it was track five I really hammered. Sir Duke is a tribute to Duke Ellington and also name-checks other jazz pioneers, among them Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. And how better than with an absolute foot-stomper?
This is Wonder letting rip after the relative constraints of the heavier subject matter of the previous tracks. This is a celebration of the joy music can also bring, in one of the most grin-like-an-idiot tracks ever committed to vinyl.
By now the album is really finding its stride. I Wish follows and to really appreciate it, your system will need a great sense of musicality. We're back in ballad territory with Knocks Me Off My Feet, while Pastime Paradise (sampled by Coolio for Gangsta's Paradise) serves up a whomping bassline that really underpins the track.
Disc two also has plenty of highlights, including Isn't She Lovely (which is indeed lovely), As (which you might recognise from the cover by George Michael and Mary J Blige), Joy Inside My Tears and the angry but funky Black Man.
If you've never heard the album in its entirety (including the bonus tracks like All Day Sucker and Ebony Eyes), or even if it's just been a while, I urge you to give it a listen from start to finish to really flex all of your system's muscles.
As the title suggests, it's a musical journey taking in numerous styles and tones, with subjects ranging from childhood memories and first love to racial injustice and music's ability to spread happiness.
Thank goodness Little Stevie decided to stay in the music business after all.
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