Music Legend Enters New Creative Period
By Bob Mehr
 

Friday, November 30, 2007
 

As soon as you hear the voice, the familiar halting speech patterns, the hard hearty laugh, you know it's him. Following a decade-plus touring absence, Stevie Wonder is back on the road and talking about his music.

His return to the stage has a rather sad genesis, however. In 2006, his mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, died unexpectedly. Rather than suffer silently from the loss, Wonder decided to honor her and heal his own hurt by heading out on tour this past summer, sparking what's become his busiest creative period since the early-'90s.

The once-prolific Stevie Wonder is working on another album, a followup to 2005's "A Time To Love," his first record in a decade.

In between dates, Wonder has also been in the studio, working on a follow up to 2005's A Time To Love (itself Wonder's first album in a decade). His forthcoming effort --
titled The Gospel Inspired by Lula -- is shaping up as a bold conceptual piece focusing on the various spiritual and cultural crises facing the world.

Calling from the midst of his "A Wonder Autumn Night" tour -- which arrives at FedExForum on Sunday -- the 57 year-old icon discusses a range of topics including the role his mother played in his early musical education, the impact of modern technology on his work, and what his next album will sound like.

Q: You started out playing this summer. What made you continue beyond the initial dates you had scheduled?

A: Well, the whole idea behind the tour is to go throughout the country giving my thanks to all the people for what they did for my career, which in effect made it possible for me to give my mother a far better life than she would've had.

Q: Did your mother have a big influence in terms of what you were listening to as a child?

A: I think there were things she listened to as a young adult, and as a baby I heard those things and was drawn to them. But also, I was listening to things I found while I was playing with the radio [he sings a bit of Italian opera]. She'd be like 'Turn that sh** off!' (laughs)
But she liked the Staple Singers, back when they were doing gospel. She liked Frank Sinatra. She liked Bobby "Blue" Bland and Little Junior Parker. She's the one that let me hear Ray Charles. But the amazing thing about it was that when I heard Ray Charles, I only discovered he was blind a week or so before I met him. I don't remember her telling me he's blind. But when I was at Motown they said, "We're gonna write a letter to Ray Charles in Braille" -- and I said "Whaaat? He's blind?"

Q: Interestingly, your mother is actually credited as a co-writer on some of your very early songs like "I Was Made to Love Her" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours."

A: The songs she worked on, obviously I was living at home. So a lot of the things I wrote, I wrote in our basement. She would sometimes be there listening and have an idea for a song or a title or a concept, and I would work with her and write.

Q: The album you're working on now, The Gospel Inspired by Lula -- is it actually going to be a religious-themed record?

A: Before she passed, my mother said to me, "You've had all these wonderful things that have happened to you, these blessings in your life. You need to do an album giving praise to God." So I want to do that. But it's not a preaching kind of situation. It's really talking about the different ways that people speak of their commitment to their faith.
I just think that as a people we have a chance to correct some things that are completely out of control: we have terrorism, we have war. See, man has always been affected by one very simple and unfortunate thing -- and that is ego. I just believe we need to get our egos out of the way and get committed to what is really important: which is the perpetuation of life....
I had this road manager, and he would say about working with people: "We ain't gotta be friends, but we can be friendly." And I think that while we all have differences of opinion, and different approaches to life, the most important thing to understand is that we can't go anywhere but here. We can't go to some other planet, we can't disappear. So when you talk about the potential destruction in the world, it's a troublesome thing. That's part of what the album is about.

Q: And musically how are you approaching it?

A: I'm working with the group Take 6, and thinking about doing some stuff with drummers from Africa. Some of it will use various genres of music -- whether it be country, or gospel, or hip-hop, or some rap stuff, or singing in Arabic or singing in Zulu. It will be a lot of different things.

Q: You've always been someone who's been on the cutting edge of technology -- particularly your work with early synthesizers. How do you feel about current technology in music?

A: The technology is incredible, but you have to use it in the right way. As far as listening to music, I would like for people to have a greater experience of hearing sound the way it can now be produced. The various players, MP3 players, they're convenient but the quality is not the same. I encourage the makers of all that technology to find ways of making it more accessible so people can really experience how truly great sound -- pure sound -- can be.

Q: Do you feel like the recording process is dramatically different now because of the advancements in technology?

A: Yes and no. People are more tempo conscious than they used to be. The defining beat these days is very hypnotic. Whereas a song like "Superstition," you had a certain tempo, and in the middle it slowed down, then came back up a little bit. Well, that's because I was playing it and the first thing I put on the track was drums -- and I was not using a metronome or a click track (laughs). But with Songs in The Key of Life, I did use a click track. But even with that, you have to find that middle ground that allows it to feel natural, and not programmed. You gotta play in between and feel how it flows.

Q: You've influenced several generations of musicians. Do you turn on the radio and hear something and think, "OK, that's a little bit of me in there"?

A: Sure, I can hear it in various things. But I hear a lot of influences in artists today. I was very impressed by how Kanye West was able to use Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman." Some of the bass stuff that Timbaland has done with Justin Timberlake is kinda cool. But see, I love all that stuff, I love all the artists, too. Whether it be India.Arie or John Mayer, or some of the other young people out there, I'm encouraged and inspired by them as well.

Q: Earlier in your career -- particularly that period from (1972's) Music of My Mind to (1976's) Songs In The Key of Life -- you were incredibly prolific. In the last 20 years, your albums haven't come out as regularly. What's changed for you?

A: The difference, say, between when I was working on Songs In The Key of Life to right now -- at the beginning of making that record I didn't have any children; by the end of it I had my daughter Aisha. Now I have seven children, plus my wife's son, so that's eight family members. Also, I'm involved in various things outside of my music -- I have a radio station in L.A. So you have various responsibilities as you go along in life.
But because music has so much been my mantra, in some ways it's no different. That's a place I can always go and be away from whatever is going on. When I sit and play the piano, songs just happen.

Q: Given how long you've been part of the musical landscape, it's easy to forget that you're only 57. Do people often make the mistake of thinking you're older?

A: People do ask, 'Who's the oldest: you or Smokey (Robinson, who was born in 1940)?' And I say, 'Whoa, hold on, son! (laughs) You know, I'm younger, because the people at (Motown) were 10 years older than me. But when you think about it now, it's all relative. Because Michael (Jackson) and Prince are going to be 50 soon, so everyone's kinda hitting that point.

Q: Part of the thing with artists that have been around for so long like you, is that you see them grow and change through their body of work and those songs do mean a lot to people over time.

A: And that's what's really exciting about the tour right now. When I do songs, some of them are not necessarily singles or hits, but people hear them and respond to them. With a song that wasn't a hit, you get this kind of energy that's more about the experience of the music rather than how big or popular the song was. When we do "Ribbon in the Sky," people get on the floor and start dancing.
And as we go into the newer stuff they check on what's happening now. So, it's just a great chance for us to connect. And I feel very blessed to do that.