Sep 16, 2017

RhoDeo 1737 Grooves

Hello, the coming weeks at grooves it's all about Stevland Hardaway Morris, a child prodigy considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century. He has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, one of the most-awarded male solo artists, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the top 60 best-selling music artists. Blind virtually since birth, his heightened awareness of sound helped him create vibrant, colorful music teeming with life and ambition. Nearly everything he recorded bore the stamp of his sunny, joyous positivity; even when he addressed serious racial, social, and spiritual issues (which he did quite often in his prime), or sang about heartbreak and romantic uncertainty, an underlying sense of optimism and hope always seemed to emerge.  ........ N'joy

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Stevland was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, the third of six children of Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway, a songwriter. He was born six weeks premature which, along with the oxygen-rich atmosphere in the hospital incubator, resulted in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a condition in which the growth of the eyes is aborted and causes the retinas to detach; so he became blind. When he was four, his mother divorced his father and moved to Detroit with her children. She changed her name back to Lula Hardaway and later changed her son's surname to Morris, partly because of relatives. Wonder has retained Morris as his legal surname. He began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica and drums. He formed a singing partnership with a friend; calling themselves Stevie and John, they played on street corners, and occasionally at parties and dances.

In 1954, his family moved to Detroit, where the already musically inclined Stevie began singing in his church's choir; from there he blossomed into a genuine prodigy, learning piano, drums, and harmonica all by the age of nine. While performing for some of his friends in 1961, Stevie was discovered by Ronnie White of the Miracles, who helped arrange an audition with Berry Gordy at Motown. Gordy signed the youngster immediately and teamed him with producer/songwriter Clarence Paul, under the new name Little Stevie Wonder. Wonder released his first two albums in 1962: A Tribute to Uncle Ray, which featured covers of Wonder's hero Ray Charles, and The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie, an orchestral jazz album spotlighting his instrumental skills on piano, harmonica, and assorted percussion. Neither sold very well, but that all changed in 1963 with the live album The 12 Year Old Genius, which featured a new extended version of the harmonica instrumental "Fingertips." Edited for release as a single, "Fingertips, Pt. 2" rocketed to the top of both the pop and R&B charts, thanks to Wonder's irresistible, youthful exuberance; meanwhile, The 12 Year Old Genius became Motown's first chart-topping LP.

During 1964, Wonder appeared in two films as himself, Muscle Beach Party and Bikini Beach, but these were not successful either. Sylvia Moy persuaded label owner Berry Gordy to give Wonder another chance. Dropping the "Little" from his name, Moy and Wonder worked together to create the hit "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", and Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s, including "With a Child's Heart", and "Blowin' in the Wind", a Bob Dylan cover, co-sung by his mentor, producer Clarence Paul. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his label mates, including "The Tears of a Clown", a No. 1 hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

In 1968 he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the title Eivets Rednow, which is "Stevie Wonder" spelled backwards. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of "Alfie", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as "I Was Made to Love Her", "For Once in My Life" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours". A number of Wonder's early hits, including "My Cherie Amour", "I Was Made to Love Her", and "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", were co-written with Henry Cosby.

In September 1970, at the age of 20, Wonder married Syreeta Wright, a songwriter and former Motown secretary. Wright and Wonder worked together on the next album, Where I'm Coming From; Wonder writing the music, and Wright helping with the lyrics. They wanted to "touch on the social problems of the world", and for the lyrics "to mean something" 1971 proved a turning point in Wonder's career. On his 21st birthday, his contract with Motown expired, and the royalties set aside in his trust fund became available to him. A month before his birthday, Wonder released Where I'm Coming From, his first entirely self-produced album, which also marked the first time he wrote or co-wrote every song on an LP (usually in tandem with Wright), and the first time his keyboard and synthesizer work dominated his arrangements.

Wonder did not immediately renew his contract with Motown, as the label had expected; instead, he used proceeds from his trust fund to build his own recording studio and to enroll in music theory classes at USC. He negotiated a new deal with Motown that dramatically increased his royalty rate and established his own publishing company, Black Bull Music, which allowed him to retain the rights to his music; most importantly, he wrested full artistic control over his recordings, as Gaye had just done with the landmark What's Going On.

Freed from the dictates of Motown's hit-factory mindset, Wonder had already begun following a more personal and idiosyncratic muse. One of his negotiating chips had been a full album completed at his new studio; Wonder had produced, played nearly all the instruments, and written all the material (with Wright contributing to several tracks). Released under Wonder's new deal in early 1972, Music of My Mind heralded his arrival as a major, self-contained talent with an original vision that pushed the boundaries of R&B. The album produced a hit single in the spacy, synth-driven ballad "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)," but like contemporary work by Hayes and Gaye, Music of My Mind worked as a smoothly flowing song suite unto itself. Around the same time it was released, Wonder's marriage to Wright broke up; the two remained friends, however, and Wonder produced and wrote several songs for her debut album.

For the follow-up to Music of My Mind, Wonder refined his approach, tightening up his songcraft while addressing his romance with Wright. The result, Talking Book, was released in late 1972 and made him a superstar. Song for song one of the strongest R&B albums ever made, Talking Book also perfected Wonder's spacy, futuristic experiments with electronics, and was hailed as a magnificently realized masterpiece. Wonder topped the charts with the gutsy, driving funk classic "Superstition" and the mellow, jazzy ballad "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," which went on to become a pop standard; those two songs went on to win three Grammys between them. Amazingly, Wonder only upped the ante with his next album, 1973's Innervisions, a concept album about the state of contemporary society that ranks with Gaye's What's Going On as a pinnacle of socially conscious R&B. The ghetto chronicle "Living for the City" and the intense spiritual self-examination "Higher Ground" both went to number one on the R&B charts and the pop Top Ten, and Innervisions took home a Grammy for Album of the Year. Wonder was lucky to be alive to enjoy the success; while being driven to a concert in North Carolina, a large piece of timber fell on Wonder's car. He sustained serious head injuries and lapsed into a coma, but fortunately made a full recovery.

Wonder's next record, 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale, was slightly more insular and less accessible than its immediate predecessors, and unsurprisingly, imbued with a sense of mortality. The hits, however, were the upbeat "Boogie On, Reggae Woman" (a number one R&B and Top Five pop hit) and the venomous Richard Nixon critique "You Haven't Done Nothin'" (number one on both sides). It won him a second straight Album of the Year Grammy, by which time he'd been heavily involved as a producer and writer on Syreeta's second album, Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta. Wonder subsequently retired to his studio and spent two years crafting a large-scale project that would stand as his magnum opus. Finally released in 1976, Songs in the Key of Life was a sprawling two-LP-plus-one-EP set that found Wonder at his most ambitious and expansive. Some critics called it brilliant but prone to excess and indulgence, while others hailed it as his greatest masterpiece and the culmination of his career; in the end, they were probably both right. The hit "Isn't She Lovely," a paean to Wonder's daughter, became something of a standard. Not surprisingly, Songs in the Key of Life won a Grammy for Album of the Year; in hindsight, though, it marked the end of a remarkable explosion of creativity and of Wonder's artistic prime.

more later..

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Stevie Wonder's debut album, released when he was 11, is still an amazing musical document, showcasing his skills as a percussionist (drums and bongos), chromatic harmonica player, keyboardist (piano and organ), and composer -- and he was prodigious in all four categories. All of these skills are highlighted throughout this record, and Wonder's youthful, exuberant voice had a maturity suggesting that greatness was around the corner. Perhaps most surprising to contemporary listeners will be the emphasis on instrumentals, which made this a fairly unusual album by Motown standards to begin with. Apart from a few shouts in the background in some of the more free-form tracks, there's not a vocal to be heard here, yet the sounds are rich and diverse enough that one never misses them. What's more, a lot of what's here is extremely sophisticated instrumental music for its time, and the "jazz" reference in the title is not a matter of optimistic convenience or self-aggrandizement -- a lot of this is legitimate jazz.



Stevie Wonder - The Jazz Soul Of Little Stevie    (flac  180mb)

01 Fingertips,2:55
02 Square 2:59
03 Soul Bongo 2:17
04 Manhattan At Six 3:44
05 Paulsby 2:44
06 Some Other Time 5:07
07 Wondering 2:49
08 Session Number 112 3:15
09 Bam 3:33

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Stevie Wonder began demonstrating his production skills and compositional acumen on his first of two albums in 1966. Although still just a teenager, Wonder was already anxious to do more than simply grind out love tunes. He covered Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and also contributed "Pretty Little Angel" alongside the monster hits "Nothin's Too Good for My Baby" and the title song. It was also a signal Wonder had moved beyond simply paying homage to Ray Charles and now wanted to establish his own musical identity.



Stevie Wonder - Up-Tight    (flac 222mb)

01 Love A Go-Go 2:46
02 Hold Me 2:36
03 Blowin' In The Wind 3:46
04 Nothing's Too Good For My Baby 2:39
05 Teach Me Tonight 2:39
06 Uptight (Everything's Alright) 2:55
07 Ain't That Asking For Trouble 2:49
08 I Want My Baby Back 2:49
09 Pretty Little Angel 2:12
10 Music Talk 2:52
11 Contract On Love 2:06
12 With A Child's Heart 3:08

Stevie Wonder - Up-Tight  (ogg  88mb )

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Stevie Wonder's third album signaled more artistic growth, but was the first of his career that didn't make much commercial headway. It didn't contain a single big hit, something that wouldn't happen again to Wonder for many, many years. There were moments of uncertainty and awkwardness on such songs as "Angel Baby (Don't You Ever Leave Me)" and "Lonesome Road." Wonder was laying the groundwork for numerous classics that routinely came throughout the 1970s and '80s; his voice was losing its cuteness and beginning to gain the richness and edge that punctuated many of his future albums.



Stevie Wonder - Down To Earth   (flac 195mb)

01 A Place In The Sun 2:52
02 Bang Bang 2:42
03 Down To Earth 2:50
04 Thank You Love 2:55
05 Be Cool Be Calm (And Keep Yourself Together) 2:43
06 Sylvia 2:34
07 My World Is Empty Without You 2:53
08 The Lonesome Road 3:06
09 Angel Baby (Don't You Ever Leave Me) 2:45
10 Mr. Tambourine Man 2:30
11 Sixteen Tons 2:42
12 Hey Love 2:41

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Notable for containing Wonder's then-most recent Top Ten hit, the title track, and its follow-up, "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday," this album otherwise contains contemporary filler like "Light My Fire," plus a peculiar arrangement of "Hello, Young Lovers" from The King and I that makes it sound like "For Once In My Life."



Stevie Wonder - My Cherie Amour   (flac 230mb)

01 My Cherie Amour 2:55
02 Hello Young Lovers 3:15
03 At Last 2:51
04 Light My Fire 3:44
05 The Shadow Of Your Smile 2:44
06 You And Me 2:46
07 Pearl 2:47
08 Somebody Knows, Somebody Cares 2:35
09 Yester-Me Yester-You, Yesterday 3:08
10 Angie Girl 3:03
11 Give Your Love 3:47
12 I've Got You 2:34

. Stevie Wonder - My Cherie Amour  (ogg  90mb)

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Rather than rushing out an album in the spring of 1968, when "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day" (Number 9 Pop, Number One R&B) hit, Motown waited, through the modest summer success of "You Met Your Match" (Number 35 Pop, Number Two R&B), until "For Once in My Life" (Number Two Pop and R&B) became Wonder's next mammoth single, to release an album. As a result, this album contained all three hits, making it one of Wonder's more consistent albums of the '60s, even with filler like "Sunny" and "God Bless the Child." The real find, however, is the driving "I Don't Know Why," which, when placed on the B-side of Wonder's next single, "My Cherie Amour," became a hit on its own, going to Number 39 (Pop) and Number 16 (R&B).



Stevie Wonder - For Once In My Life   (flac 215mb)

01 For Once In My Life 2:16
02 Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day 2:44
03 You Met Your Match 2:36
04 I Wanna Make Her Love Me 2:53
05 I'm More Than Happy (I'm Satisfied) 2:55
06 I Don't Know Why 2:43
07 Sunny 3:10
08 I'd Be A Fool Right Now 2:53
09 Ain't No Lovin' 2:32
10 God Bless The Child 3:05
11 Do I Love Her 2:55
12 The House On The Hill 2:36

.  Stevie Wonder - For Once In My Life  (ogg  87mb)

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