Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder signed his first recording contract at 11 years old.  It was a very lopsided deal, which one study described as “slavery”, in favor of Motown.

Stevie renewed his contract with Motown in 1966, the year he turned 16.  There was a clause upon which he could void it when he turned 21, which Wonder opted to do upon reaching that age in 1971.  It is said during that time, while he was briefly an independent artist, Stevie recorded a couple albums on his own.  Apparently, one of those was Where I’m Coming From, and the other may have been Music of My Mind.  Both were eventually released through Motown, respectively in 1971 and 1972.

Around the time he was re-negotiating his contract, there was a bidding war for Stevie’s services, besides Motown wanting to retain him.  In other words, Wonder had leverage on his side.  So he knew upon re-signing with Berry Gordy and co., they had no choice but to accept the music he had already put together without their input, i.e. Where I’m Coming From and the works which were to come after it.

Gordy admitted in an interview that at the time Motown had become dependent on Stevie.  So Berry, being averse to “experimenting too much”, was personally “scared” during Wonder’s musical transition.  The mogul also intimated that he felt betrayed by the way the singer, through his lawyer, “disaffirm(ed) every contract he had with Motown”, having been under the belief that Wonder would leave.

On the other hand, Stevie believed that the label was cheating him.  Furthermore, he was under the impression that Motown’s executives couldn’t understand “where (he was) coming from”.

Besides wanting a fairer share of the proceeds from his works, Wonder also craved holistic artistic freedom.  He had become “bored” of his musical output and wanted to spread his wings.  So upon re-signing with Motown, he secured fuller creative control of his music.  That was besides higher royalties and other financial perks.  For instance, according to Gordy, Stevie received “$13 million to sign… another contract, which was unprecedented at the time”.  Or as Medium put it, he signed what was akin to “the first 360 deal” in American music industry history.

Therefore, 1971 also marked the end of Stevie’s behind-the-scenes collaborations with the likes of Motown employees Sylvia Moy, Henry Cosby and the Funk Brothers, who were heavily involved in the first decade of his career.  They came to be replaced by musicians such as Malcolm Cecil, Robert Margouleff and Yvonne Wright, who Wonder regularly worked with during his “classic era”.

Where I’m Coming From, wasn’t particularly memorable.  For instance, it peaked at #62 on the Billboard 200, the lowest of any Stevie Wonder studio album released after the 1960s.  The two singles issued from the project were Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer and If You Really Love Me.  The latter sounds like something Stevie would have released during the 1960s, though the former went on to become sort of a classic.

As such, 1972’s Music of My Mind is generally considered to be the unofficial onset of the “classic era” of Wonder’s career.  Stevie may have gone on to drop more signature hits in the 1980s.  But it was circa the early 1970s that he was winning Grammys like crazy and really established himself as a music legend with longevity.

Most musicians don’t survive transitioning from one musical era into another, such as when you consider 1960s’ African-American music as compared to that of the 1970s.  But Wonder went from a child star to helping define the sound of his generation as an adult.  Perhaps it can be argued that starting so young was advantageous to his career.  If Stevie had rather become a professional as an older teenager or adult, maybe he would have been more artistically confined to a particular style.

Music of My Mind, which reached #21 on the Billboard 200, wasn’t necessarily a major success.  But it did establish the stylistic leanings upon which Stevie would go on to drop his greatest works.

What followed was 1972’s Talking Book.  Two tracks from that album won Grammy Awards in 1974.  You Are the Sunshine of My Life took home the trophy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, while Superstition garnered two, Best Rhythm & Blues Song and Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male.  Those were the first Grammys Stevie had ever won in his career.  And interesting to note is that Wonder toured with The Rolling Stones during the recording of Talking Book, as he wanted to extend his recognition beyond the R&B genre.  Or put otherwise, Stevie wasn’t afraid to spread his wings and experiment.

The three studio projects that followed – Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness’ Final Finale (1974) and Songs in the Keys of Life (1976) – all earned their own respective Album of the Year Grammy Awards.  The last of those three is considered to be Stevie Wonder’s signature work.  He had such an amazing run during (the earlier part of) the 1970s that Wonder set a couple of Grammy records, the likes of which may never be broken, in the process.