STEVIE: A LIFE IN THE KEY OF SONGS
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
May 14–16, $36-$97, 7:30
www.bam.org
PoetWarrior Productions’ Black Masters Concert Series, which has paid tribute to such artists as Curtis Mayfield and Sly & the Family Stone, continues May 14–16 at BAM with “Stevie: A Life in the Key of Songs.”
On a Sunday in the fall of 1976, as part of my father’s bar mitzvah present to me — a record a week for one year — I picked up Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, and I was never the same again. The music industry, from the Billboard charts to radio airplay to live performance, would never be the same again either.
The double LP features such killer tracks as “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” “Village Ghetto Land,” and “Sir Duke” (as well as “I Wish,” “Pastime Paradise,” and “Isn’t She Lovely”) that crossed genres and racial boundaries. It was the culmination of a remarkable four-year period in which Wonder released five classic albums: Music of My Mind (1972, “Superwoman”), Talking Book (1972, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” “Superstition”), Innervisions (1973, “Living for the City,” “Higher Ground”), Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974, “Boogie On Reggae Woman,” “You Haven’t Done Nothin’”), and Songs in the Key of Life. In the middle of it all, Wonder was in a car accident that left him in a coma, and he temporarily lost his sense of smell.
The albums will be celebrated by the BRC (Black Rock Coalition) Orchestra on May 14 (Music of My Mind and Talking Book), May 15 (Innervisions and Fulfillingness’ First Finale), and May 16 (Songs in the Key of Life) at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House. The band, under the music direction of Darrell M. McNeill and LaFrae Sci, consists of keyboardist Ray Angry, vocalists and guitarists David Ryan Harris and Peter Lord, singer-songwriter Sandra St. Victor, harmonica virtuoso Gregoire Maret, guitarist Mark Whitfield, and, for the last two shows, Corey Glover and Vernon Reid from Living Colour. The setlist will also include tunes from the same period that Wonder wrote for other artists.
The Michigan-born Wonder turns seventy-six on May 13, so this should be one fabulous birthday party.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]