CoronaVinyl Day 98 (Blind Musician): Innervisions by Stevie Wonder

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is blind musician, and while there have been many great blind musicians over the years, from bluesmen Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, and Blind Willie McTell to '70s and '80s country star Ronnie Milsap to '80s blues rock guitar player Jeff Healey to famed opera singer Andrea Bocelli.  Of course, the two most famous blind musicians of the last 70 years are Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder.  I already featured a Ray Charles album a few weeks back, so now it's Stevie's turn.

Blind from a very young age, Stevie Wonder was (and still is) a musical genius, signing a record deal with Motown's Tamla label when he was only 11.  In 1963, when he was 13, he became the youngest artist to ever have a Billboard Hot 100 #1 song, when "Fingertips" hit the top spot.  Of course, he has continued to make music over the past five decades.

I am lucky to have all five albums from what is considered Wonder's "classic" period -- 1972's Music of My Mind and Talking Book, 1973's Innervision, 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale, and 1975's Songs in the Key of Life.  There aren't many artists who had a better five-album run than that.

I'm going with Innervisions for today's selection.  It's an iconic soul and funk album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and was subsequently ranked #23 and #24, respectively, on Rolling Stone's initial and revised 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time list.  The album marked Wonder's continued maturity in his songwriting and subject matters, as he dealt with drug abuse, racism, and politics on Innervisions.  Given that he had been putting out music for a decade already (and some of his most recognizable songs had been released during that time), it's hard to believe that Wonder was only 23 when the album came out.  What's more amazing is that Wonder plays all the instruments on four of the nine tracks on the album, and most of the instruments on the other tracks, including the drums.  The guy was and still is a prodigy, and this is one of his finest efforts.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Living for the City"
"Living for the City" is a 7+-minute commentary on social and racial inequality, detailing the story of a young man from Mississippi who decides to try his luck in New York, only to get chewed up and spit out by the big city and the criminal justice system.  The song uses "city" noises, like traffic and the like, and some spoken word background parts to give it a real-world feel.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Higher Ground"
How can you not love that fantastic, funky riff, courtesy of Wonder's Hohner clavinet?  This is a funk classic, with a message of reincarnation and second chances.  It was recorded just before Wonder was in an brutal car accident that left him in a coma for four days.  Legend has it that, when Wonder was in the early stages of recovery, his road manager would sing the song's melody to Wonder, who responded by moving his fingers to the music.  Of course, Red Hot Chili Peppers would cover this on 1989's Mother's Milk.