Stevie Wonder Surprise-Releases Four Previously Unheard ‘Songs in the Key of Life’

Today, Stevie Wonder surprise-released Tunes in the Key of Life 50: The EPwhich includes 4 formerly unreleased studio recordings. He taped “It’s Easier,” “My Life Story of Love,” “I Can See the Sun in Late December,” and “I’m Into Livin'” throughout the sessions for his renowned 1976 album however kept them for the previous half century. Now that he’s preparing a trip honoring the 50th anniversary of that album, he chose to lastly provide them.

“We’ve dealt with Tunes in the Key of Life for 50 years, however there’s still more to hear,” Wonder stated. “We didn’t include these tunes to the album, however they became part of what I was feeling and finding as we made it. They bring me back to that time in my life, and now they get to enter into yours.”

The recording engineers who blended the initial album, John Fischbach and Gary O. Adante (credited as Gary Olazabal), combined the tunes for the brand-new EP. The tunes even more extend the tradition of the initial album, that included another four-song EP, A Something’s Extra

The tracks were timed to the 50th anniversary of the release of the diamond-certified album, which came out on Sept. 28, 1976. The EP showed up on streaming services at 4:54 a.m. PDT, the time the initial Tunes in the Key of Life sessions covered, at which time bassist Nathan Watts mentioned, “Fo’FiftyFo’,” which ended up being an in-joke Wonder and his artists have actually utilized to mark completion of sessions since.

When Wanderer ranked the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Tunes in the Key of Life positioned at Number Four”[The album] includes an extraordinary variety of life experiences– from the giddy delight of an infant in the tub (‘Isn’t She Lovely,’ including the weeps and laughs of Wonder’s baby child Aisha Morris) through homages to his musical heroes (‘Sir Duke’) to discouragement about the indifference of the rich (‘Village Ghetto Land’),” the publication stated. “Wonder pulled from every you can possibly imagine musical source– the overjoyed ‘Sir Duke’ referrals Duke Elington and Ella Fitzgerald, while ‘As’ included Herbie Hancock on Fender Rhodes.”

The 4 tunes on the EP state on the double album’s styles of acknowledging all life and love need to provide. It opens with “It’s Easier,” a positive separation tune with the message, “It’s much easier to state, ‘Love, bye-bye’/ Than to go around with a heart that wishes to sob.” The likewise sad “It’s My Life Story of Love” discovers Wonder singing, “It’s my life story of love that never ever comes to life,” though he sounds more enthusiastic than plaintive as he declares he’ll win his love back in lyrics he co-wrote with the Supremes’ Susaye Greene. “I Can See the Sun in Late December” is a slow-shuffling ballad about fond memories for warmer times. And “I’m Into Livin'” is a simple, jazzy funk ballad on which Wonder sings, “I’m into livin’ for your sweet, sweet love, L-O-V-E, love,” his voice fluctuating with the music.

As on the initial album, Wonder plays the majority of the instruments on the EP’s tunes, consisting of drums, GX-1-Dream Machine, Bass-GX-1-Dream Machine, Fender Rhodes, and electrical bass, otherwise, in addition to singing. Gregory Phillinganes played the Rhodes on “My Life Story of Love,” and Watts played bass on “It’s Easier” and “I Can See the Sun in Late December.” “I’m Into Livin'” includes backup vocals by Shirley Brewer (who sang on the album’s “Ordinary Love”), Thelma Houston (who later on tape-recorded the hit “Don’t Leave Me This Way”), and long time Wonder backup vocalist Deneice Williams.

Marvel will carry out the 17 tunes from the initial double album on a world trip this fall. It begins in Birmingham, England, on Oct. 13 and covers in Los Angeles on Dec. 19.

This short article was initially released on Rolling Stone.

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