The day Stevie Wonder got into a fist fight with his own drummer
It’s well-established that Stevie Wonder has been blind for the vast majority of his life, and that despite this, he’s managed to overcome virtually all of the barriers one might think are placed in opposition to his disability. If he were blessed with sight, we’d still be calling him a genius, for the songs that he crafted were unlike anything else being created by his contemporaries, and his approach to melody and arrangement was superior to anyone else’s efforts.
As staggering as all of this is, listening to his music, you often don’t think about his blindness, and why should you? The quality speaks for itself without having to acknowledge that he was at a disadvantage to most of his peers, but his prodigious talents and ability to pick up any instrument are staggering, regardless of whether he could see or not.
On record, the majority of the instruments were played by him, and he’d demonstrated virtuosic ability on keys, harmonica and drums even from his earliest records released while he was a teenager. However, all musicians are limited as to how much responsibility they can take on during live performances, and so, for his tours, he had to recruit some of the best session musicians in the business to back him up and flawlessly recreate his masterpieces.
One such member who joined during the tour for his 1972 album, Talking Book, was Ray Parker Jr, whom he enlisted as a guitarist. While Parker speaks highly of his time playing with Stevie and didn’t have issues with the rigorous approach that he had to being a bandleader, some struggled with this way of commandeering the band, and felt as though they were unable to have their voice heard over the precise rulings of Wonder.
Speaking to the R&B Money podcast, Parker Jr recounted one occasion where the drummer that Wonder had recruited had had enough, and before walking out on the group, chose to confront Stevie in a manner that he would instantly regret. “He can’t see,” Parker Jr reminded the podcast, before adding, “but I tell you this, you wouldn’t know it. He’s incredible”. This alone should have been something the drummer took into consideration before confronting the legendary singer, but alas, the story tells a different tale.
“When I got in the band, I remember he got into an argument with the drummer,” Parker Jr continued. “By the way, Stevie in those days was ripped, I mean, he was built and buff and did push-ups and everything. The drummer got an attitude and said, ‘man I’m tired of Stevie, put a blindfold on me and I’ll fight him’. This is just not a good idea.” While this may have sounded like the perfect start to a slapstick routine, it ended up being anything but that for the unfortunate drummer.
“You should’ve seen the guy, he’s trying to find Stevie,” the guitarist explained, “And every time, he went ‘bam’. Straight punches. This went on for a couple of minutes, and we threw in the towel and said stop. Stevie was beating him down. I don’t think he got one punch on Stevie because he could hear it. He was hitting the guy so fast, and we all thought this ain’t no fight. If he’d have taken the blindfold off, he may still have gotten the same ass-whooping.”
Evidently, you don’t mess with Stevie Wonder, whether in the studio or the ring. He’ll have the better of you, and you’ll live to regret having questioned his superiority.
