Stevie Wonder- Winterland San Francisco,CA 3/3/73
Pedro_Norte
84 Posts
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/Home.aspxDon't know if everybody is up on this website, but get on it before the capitalists & ambulance chasers fuck it up. This is some live Stevie circa 1973.Check out the loveliness of Cherie Amour where he mixes in some Marvin & Stylistics.http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/ConcertDetail.aspx?id=1915|6809
Comments
Okay, let me 'splain this to ya:
I once met somebody who saw a Stevie Wonder concert in 1971 at the Arie Crown Theatre in Chicago.
It was a traditional black audience, and they still thought of Wonder in terms of his love ballads like "My Cherie Amour."
Opening the show were Rasputin's Stash and Funkadelic, both of whom played psychedelic soul that mainstream black crowds hadn't really warmed up to at the time. Maybe Sly Stone, but little else. They didn't wanna see that - they wanted to see Stevie come on and do some poppish ballad like "Yesterme, Yesteryou, Yesterday."
Then on comes Stevie.
He's on stage with a gang of synthesizers, fooling around with a talk box funnel in his mouth, doing all these weird effects that the rock crowd would have loved, but confused the soul audience.
It was probably not an accident that he spent much of 1971-72 playing in rock-oriented venues like the Bitter End in New York, or opening for rock bands like Three Dog Night or the Rolling Stones. As a result, for most of the seventies, Stevie's albums were automatic adds on rock stations.
That's why I called him a groundbreaking black-rock revolutionary, because when Stevie switched to the synthesizers, it took a couple of albums before the black audiences warmed up to his new style. Nowadays, you think of Music Of My Mind or Talking Book as typical soul/funk of the day. But back then, in 1971-72, about the only soul acts who embraced effects to that extent were the ones who were kinda rockish, like Sly Stone, Funkadelic, or Curtis Mayfield (whose first solo LP had wah-wah and reverb for DAYS). Stevie Wonder = black rock visionary.
At least until the '80s, but that's another story!
So that would make him a "White Rock" revolutionary.
I didn't say black audiences froze him out altogether, I'm just saying that his new style took some getting used to in the R&B world. Most accounts I've seen of his live shows from that time (the Where I'm Coming From/Music Of My Mind era) had black audiences scratching their heads and wondering what was Stevie trying to prove with his hippie-rock band. Seriously. Check out Michael Haralambos' book Right On, which I think is still available - it's an early-70's book about soul music. There's a quote from Stevie around the time of Music Of My Mind...about how he was slowly losing his black audience in the South because they weren't into his Whole New Thang.
Yet.
Talking Book came out a few months later, and that's when he became the universal superstar we now know.
Okay, maybe the word "revolutionary" was too strong, but he was definitely in the mix, as far as early-70s progressive black music goes.
The same thing! Stevie was A black-rock visionary - I never said he wasa THEE ONLY visionary! Room up there for both Stevie and Bernie (and the Isleys, and Curtis, and goes-without-saying Jimi, and...hell, put Buddy Miles and the Chambers Brothers up there too!
Nope, I call TRUTH. "Black Rock" - he's a brotha, he's ONLY reclaiming what we started!
You know like I know this wasn't some backpacker watered-down-for-the-white-kids deal...
"More wind," hell - I stand by my words.
The ONLY superhero I'm-a respect around here...[/b]
[color:green] a reporter stopped me for a interview
she said she's heard stories and she's heard fables
that i'm vicious on the mike and the turntables
this young reporter i did adore
so i rocked a vicious rhyme like i never did before
she said damn fly guy im in love with you
the casanova legend must have been true
i said by the way baby what's your name
said i go by the name of lois lane
and you could be my boyfiend you surely can
just let me quit my boyfriend called superman
i said he's a fairy i do suppoose
flyin through the air in pantyhose
he may be very sexy or even cute
but he looks like a sucker in a blue and red suit
i said you need a man who's got finesse
and his whole name across his chest
he may be able to fly all through the night
but can he rock a party til the early light
he cant satisfy you with his little worm
but i can bust you out with my super sperm [/color]
...even a blind man can see thru this BULL SHIT
:EYEROLL:
Stevie's last album before he went "progressive" had him singing lame pop standards in a Detroit lounge. To a presumably WHITE audience.
So if that's your corny idea of keeping it real, have at it. I'm stickin' with the "Superstition" and standing right by it.
Rockist?
1) Speaking for myself, as a music fan who happens to be African-American, who has played in bands and written about musicians, I don't like the tired idea that black folks can only get their inspiration from whatever's in the soul Top 10 that week. If I wanna get my creative kicks from a fifty-year-old John Lee Hooker recording or a Brad Paisley country CD that came out recently, that is up to ME. If Stevie wished to be the first person to get a synth on black radio, I say go head Stevie. I grew up with that sound, loved Stevie's synth hits as a kid, and am still a fan today. It's not about acceptance, it's more about freedom to do whatever the fuck you wanna do. As for me, I don't need to be told what to listen to from some Caucasian hip-hop fan who only knows Stevie Wonder's works through some sample. (NOT YOUNG PHONICS IN PARTICULAR, JUST ANYONE WHO FEELS THEY NEED TO STEREOTYPE BLACK ENTERTAINERS)
2) I'd put "Boogie On..." in his experimental phase (1971-76). To me, his last great album was Hotter Than July, which wasn't really rockish at all, but to me a classic album all the same. Now, everything AFTER that...better find someone else to defend it, 'cause "Part-Time Lover" ain't my schtick.
3) I never said his straight soul stuff from the sixties was BAD. I'm just saying, the man was making a transition there that took everybody by surprise. You wanna hear a great black artist pandering to a white audience he wasn't sure was there? Listen to those schlocky lounge-music covers on 1970's Live, or on his instrumental album, Eivets Rednow. Coming off of that, do we need to ask why Where I'm Coming From was a 180-degree change?
Oh, and Batmon:[/b]
YOU WIN!!![/b]
No hard feelings to either one of y'all and happy holidaze...
No hate at all. Just havin fun.
After Marvin put out What's Goin On, it opened the doors to creative freedom for many Motown Artists.
I just never heard anyone classify Stevie under Black Rock. I'm not w/ stereotyping either but to place an artist in a "genre" that they were peripheral too is suspect to me. Whatever, u can see him as u do. Stevie is kinda genreless.
Cool. I was having fun Googling those Batman/Superman images! But since this is in cold hard print, I didn't wanna make it look like I was taking it that hard...
I understand what you're saying. When you think of blacks doing rock, in late 2006, Stevie is not the first name that comes to mind. While rock probably influenced him to an extent, even he probably wouldn't see himself that way. It's not like he's Bad Brains or anything, but I guess it's one of those things where "you had to be there." Myself, I was just a kid, I really do remember Stevie getting played in mild rotation on FM rock stations that wouldn't play more conventional acts like the Spinners or the O'Jays. And not long ago, I interviewed Dave Marsh, the veteran music writer, for some project I was doing on a history of black rock; since he was around when it happened, he more or less agreed that Stevie, in the mid-70's, was considered up there w/Elton and Frampton and all the rest.
You got that right!