The Motown artist Berry Gordy said was in another league: “He excelled in every field”
Look up the greatest names in music, and a large percentage will no doubt be attached to Motown in some way, shape or form.
That was a record label dedicated to the art of making a hit. They churned out great songs in the same way factories churn out products. It was an assembly line dedicated to melody, a packaging department where the only thing they wrapped up was records, and the staff were made up of some of the greatest musical minds on the planet.
Berry Gordy deserves credit for what he managed to achieve with this record label. There’s no escaping the fact that were it not for him setting up the Detroit-based company, music would look a lot different to how it looks today. However, there were instances when he almost let a talent slip through his fingers because of a momentary lapse in judgment. That being said, there was no mistaking the unrelenting talent of Stevie Wonder.
“He excelled in every field, it wasn’t just his writing,” said Gordy when talking about the exceptional talent that was Wonder, “But it was his producing that was unique, sound that was unique and his chord structure that people are still trying to figure out today.”
You didn’t need to be the owner of a successful record label to identify Stevie Wonder as a musical talent, though. Crowds everywhere were completely in awe of his musicianship, and before he had even released a song, people were up in arms over the man who would help revolutionise music.
His live shows never faltered in quality. Marvin Gaye, another legendary product of Motown, said that he hated following Wonder at a gig because there was no way you could live up to the piano player’s energy. It says something when a talent like Marvin Gaye feels overwhelmed by your skill as an artist, and it’s praise that Wonder has pretty evidently earned.
“I hated it when he came out before me,” said Gaye, “Because he had twice the energy of all of us combined. He drained our fans dry.”
Stevie Wonder’s first number one single was the result of a jam that he used to play live at his shows. The track was called ‘Fingertips’, and while he had a slight backbone for the track, there was no specifically set way to play it. Depending on how the crowd were and how the show was going, Wonder would mix things up, giving people a completely unique experience every single time he went on stage. When that song was eventually recorded and committed to wax, people could experience a Wonder show without actually attending, and it became clear to them why there was so much hype around them.
That quality in live performance has never left him, and he was able to apply it within the studio. He’s recognised as a genius on stage, off stage, and basically everywhere he goes. No wonder Berry Gordy called him one of the best to ever do it.
