The artist Paul McCartney thought embodied music: “A musical monster”
There are few pop stars that seem to have an understanding of music like Paul McCartney. He would probably be the first person to tell you that he doesn’t know the first thing about what a treble clef is or what key his songs are in, but McCartney has somehow developed a kind of Jedi sense that knows where a track should go whenever he sits down at the piano or with a guitar in his hand. For all of the great melodies he composed himself, McCartney still thought anyone looking to know the first thing about music should study Stevie Wonder.
When The Beatles first dominated the landscape, though, Wonder was already becoming one of the most prolific soul singers ever. He may have been getting into music while still in his teens, but his ability to sing his heart out and dominate the harmonica made him one of the few musical dynamos of the early Motown scene.
If you look at where Wonder went after he was free from his contract, you can tell that he has a firm grip on what he’s doing. The first period of his career may have been defined by pop songs, but Wonder wasn’t looking to sing standard pop fare for the rest of his life. He was an artist, and that meant diving into the world of jazz, fusion, and pretty much anything that his heart desired on albums like Talking Book and Songs in the Key of Life.
Everything usually fit under the umbrella of soul, but the playing was far more challenging than usual. Compared to the wild chord changes you would hear in Beatles songs from time to time, where else would you find a chord progression like ‘Sir Duke’, which takes chords that should have no relation whatsoever and yet are tied together in a way that makes perfect sense?
By the time McCartney got the opportunity to work with Wonder, he knew he was dealing with a musical master, recalling in The Lyrics, “He’s his own man. He’ll show up when he’s ready. It was great when he arrived. It was fascinating because he is such a musical monster; he just is music. You had to be super precise because any mistake he would hear.”
Although anyone with a sensitive stomach to sugary pop pieces usually recoils at the duo’s collaboration on ‘Ebony and Ivory’, you just need to look at their other duet to see what they can really do. Before they made one of the misguided pop songs of all time, ‘What’s That You’re Doing’ was one of the most engaging McCartney tracks he ever made in the 1980s, featuring Wonder flying across his keyboard and adding effects that made it sound like an electric guitar in spots.
In fact, there’s a good chance that Wonder had an adverse effect on McCartney that even he wasn’t aware of. If you look at the trajectory of McCartney’s career, his later interest in making musical oratorios might have stemmed from him trying to up his game as a musician in the presence of someone like Wonder. John Lennon may have challenged Macca on a lyrical level, but when it came to raw musicianship, Wonder was among the few geniuses who could give the former Beatle a run for his money.
