Stevie Wonder is one of wife Nidhi’s all-time favourite artists – right from when she was young teenager all the way till her young today! She even had ‘Superstition’ as her ring tone for a while (created by moi ☺️!) Now, somewhere between Led Zep and Eric Clapton, I missed out on the whole Stevie Wonder experience – it was Nidhi who really introduced me to Stevie Wonder’s incredible universe of music, well beyond “I Just Called…” which of course was on the radio forever. And , my ultimate bad – I have failed to get Nidhi to one his concerts so far – as soon as this darn Covid situation is out of the way, I promise !

Genius. Musical Prodigy. Greatest Solo Artist of All Time…..and always the Happiest Guy in the Room! ? I could just write this post only as a string of one superlative adjective after another, and it would still work. Stevie has sold over 100M records and won 25 Grammys including ‘Album of The Year in 1974, 1975 and 1977. (Paul Simon won ‘Album of The Year’ in 1976 and in his thank you speech, Paul thanked Stevie for not releasing an album in 1976 ?). He also has an Oscar ( Best Original Song for ‘The Woman in Red’).

Superstition – Stevie’s second #1 single and ranked at #74 in the list of ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time’ by Rolling Stone magazine – is an incredible song. Interesting story – tying it back to my love of Classic Rock. Jeff Beck was a huge Stevie fan and wanted to work with him so they agreed to collaborate on Stevie’s ‘Talking Book’ album. One afternoon in the studio Beck was fooling about on the drum kit and came up with this drumbeat (yes, the guitar legend Jeff Beck! ?). Stevie walked in as Beck was playing (??‍♂️!) , absolutely loved the beat, and told Beck to keep playing it while he started improvising on the synth. And just like that, on the spot, he came up with the riff. The two of them wrote the song in a couple of hours! Stevie’s original plan was to give the song to Beck but Motown’s Brian Gordy refused to let him as he thought it would be a monster hit for Stevie – and of course he was right!

‘Isn’t She Lovely’ is a song that actually brings happy moisture to my eyes every time I hear it. It’s a song Stevie wrote celebrating his new-born baby daughter, Aisha. Every time I hear it, I remember the feeling of intense love I felt the first time I held my daughter Rukmini in my arms! The song featured on Stevie’s mind-blowing album ‘Songs In The Key of Life’, the album version starts with a new-born crying. Aisha is now a singer herself – and sings back-up for her dad.  You must see the video of Stevie singing this live in London – that’s Aisha on stage at 3:05 – can you imagine being on stage when your dad sings to the world about how much he loves you! Now on the album, Stevie being the genius he is, brilliantly plays every instrument on the track. But on this one it’s the lyrics about his daughter that always get me. For me this is in his top three songs. And I know what you’ll say…what about ‘Signed Sealed Delivered I’m Yours’, ‘Sir Duke’ , ‘My Cherie Amour’, ‘For Once In My Life’, ‘You are The Sunshine Of My Life’, ‘Uptight’, ‘I Wish’….well, please reach out to Nidhi to discuss – she’s the Stevie Wonder expert in the family!?

Stevie was on the radio a lot in Delhi – how could he not be?! He had his first #1 at the age of 12 – “Little Stevie Wonder” – making him the youngest artist ever to have a solo #1 with ‘Fingertips’. You absolutely must watch the YouTube video for Fingertips – he’s fantastic, of course , though I guess even genius is helped to have amazing musicians accompany them – yes, that’s Marvin Gaye on the drums! The cutest part of the video is at the end – Stevie is having so much fun, he has to be ‘forced’ off the stage so other acts can follow ??