INNERVISIONS : Stevie Wonder (1973)
I remember, long ago, engaging in a discussion as to whether John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley might actually have been emissaries from an advanced alien race, “angels” if you will, sent to Earth to help nudge our wayward spiritual evolution back on course. These aliens could only sustain their human form for so long, hence all the premature deaths of rock stars such as Mozart, Keats, Rimbaud, Van Gogh, etc.
Well, Stevie Wonder is either an angel who figured out how to keep his human disguise intact, or a mortal Earthling who operates on quantum levels far beyond the constraints that keep most of us tethered to the mundane. Recently I’ve been hooked again on Innervisions, his 1973 masterpiece, and I would have to be a fairly accomplished poet to even begin to describe the genius and beauty on display within its grooves. This record capped an amazing run of releases (Music Of My Mind, March 1972; Talking Book, October 1972; then Innervisions in August, 1973) comparable only to The Beatles (Rubber Soul > Revolver > Sgt. Pepper) in terms of artistic expansion within a mere year and a half. And Stevie is only one guy, writing all the tunes and performing them largely by himself, with layered textures of keyboards and synthesizers, mindbending vocals, and eye-popping drumming. Talented guests (including Willie Weeks, Dean Parks, David T Walker) provide guitars, bass, percussion, and backing vocals.
From the get go, Stevie challenges us, teases us. “Too High” tickles your musical senses, taking dissonant clusters of vocal harmony and triangulating them up and down the scale, a melody backed by chords with names music professors could argue over for hours, jumping down a descending whole tone staircase like a stone bouncing off a cliff. In anyone else’s hands, the first thirty seconds of this album would be unlistenably complex, yet Stevie makes it sound fun, exciting, inviting. Next thing you know you are bopping along to the sad tale of a young girl who dies of an overdose! A far cry from any Motown hit formula, and Stevie makes it easy to absorb...dissonance and tragedy in the context of a funky pop song. Next up, “Visions” is as delicate as a bee’s wing, while “Living For The City” is nothing less than cinematic, the hard luck story of a country boy who winds up in a New York prison. “Golden Lady” follows, one of the most beautiful love songs ever, its simple melody underpinned by chord changes that can only be called sublime. “Higher Ground” is a joyous funk spiritual, while “Jesus Children” questions the faith of the overly fervent. “All In Love Is Fair” features a vocal performance that could blow down the walls of Jericho. The gently exuberant advice of “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” and the cautionary “Misstra Know-It-All” conclude the song-cycle, making us wish the girl in “Too High” had heard these final songs first...
This record can make the sun shine when you are feeling down, get a party moving, or provide good company on the road, while addressing some of society’s most perniciously universal issues (racism, poverty, drug addiction)...the beats are funky, the electric pianos warm and enveloping, the songs segue into one another seamlessly...you are on a sailboat in the tropics, then soaring like an eagle on rising currents of emotion...walking the streets of the ghetto and then gazing into the eyes of your dreamlover...each song is a masterpiece unto itself, and listening to the whole album will humble you and make you glad to be alive and witness to what music can achieve in the hands of a master. And, for musicians, learning these tunes is an advanced course in song structure, chord movement, melody and harmony on a par with any classical composer (except that your toes never stop tapping and you can hum the melodies to yourself without a degree in music theory).
Innervisions is simply a record that speaks to everyone, anyone can enjoy it, and no one should be without it.
in