I was in grade school in the 70s and Stevie Wonder’s music was always played at our school dances. His music was the backdrop of my youth growing up in Chicago.
@bettyboohadapoo Black Sabbath- Master of Reality...they proved you don't have to play fast to be heavy; AC/DC- Powerage...may not be technically metal, but man are they fun (Chuck Berry was a big influence); Motorhead- Ace of Spades and Metallica- Master of Puppets....fast and heavy; Guns-n-Roses- Appetite for Destruction....they put the chutzpah back into the genre! Probably many newer metal bands I've left out, but I'm in my 50's and spend most of my time listening to Mississippi Blues, Motown, and Curtis these days! Cheers.
Hard to believe that this was 50 years ago in 2024. I was 12 years old. My Mom bought this album. LOVED it EVER since. Stevie Wonder had a feel for the hardships for humanity. God Bless him.
I LOVE Stevie Wonder. I grew up in the 60's and 70's, WITHOUT QUESTION he is at the top of this genre, POP music. I can play and sing EVERY song S.W. ever wrote. But to equate him with Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach is a bit of hometown reporting. The 2 genres are not in the same solar systems, musically speaking. I'm sure some would disagree with my analysis, but not studious musicians. The musical compositions of the 20th century were born from the masters from the era of classical music during the 16th - 19th centuries. Harmonies, piano, & organ pieces from that era are what brought Western societies to modern musical compositions. In 1976, would Steveland Hardaway Morris have produced the album "Songs in the Key of Life" if Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and such type never composed? Next witness, your honor. I rest. Pop Music is simple music. Doesn't mean it's not amazing, soul-stirring beats, because it can make anyone get up and dance. Where Bach's "Air on G String" will never get you to do more than tap your foot, softly. Politely. 😅 But apples & kumquats. No comparison. If I upset you, call me a PRICK. But call me a cab, quick!
You're right. If Stevie had been born in Vienna and had counterpoint training he'd be spitting out funky sonatas. But of course, he already has. We are blessed :)
@@Joey_Fabitz This isnt pop music. Quite disrespectful to label it such. This is soul, jazz, funk. Stevie's is in no way shape or form derrivative of classical music, and anyone who understands the music your hearing knows that is without a doubt on the levels of a mozart or beethoven.
He moved me with his sound when I was 9 years, my oldest brother was a drummer, and another brother was trumpet. NorCal 1974 was the same year I fell in love in our Independence Day’s fireworks show that lit up 5 feet away from me. Star struck I was. My brothers had this music in the house when Mom and Dad were gone. Blessed I am for knowing his sound all my life.❤
I love Stevie Wonder. I remember hearing this song when it first came out. I was 12 years old and living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Mayfield Heights, if you know the area. What a powerful song. I'm still moved by it. So much has changed, at least I thought it had.
A then unknown Michael Sembello on guitar & keyboards and Deniece Williams on background vocals & tambourine. This is an amazing performance and the band is just awesome.
Note the young lady in Stevie's background vocal group with the reddish hair. It's Deniece Williams ('Niecy") about a year or two before embarking on an award-winning solo career.
Everybody tore this performance up completely!! Stevie, Backing vocals, the drummer, Michael Sembello on the keys, the bassist, the guitarist, the sound engineer, the lighting technician, the camera man, everybody!
Such a powerful song and expression of Stevie's real voice and message following his liberation from Motown. And a huge shout to the young drummer Ollie Brown (age 21) who absolutely kills it.
Such a powerful song, so real and poetic at the same time full of magical sounds that describe a painful story. I was 16 years old when I discovered this masterpiece and has stuck on me ever since.
Back ground ladies vox - really beautiful - one of them is hitting the top of the chord - effortlessly - this is in a high key too. -F# - song goes into waltz time for the synth bridge - Stevie's vocal is incredible - just a real pumping R&B song with a great lyric/story line rhythm section so in the pocket
Mr. Wonder take a blank canvas an paints With his lyrics, The day to day struggle, but also how proud of a people these black Americans are. Thu his words he let you know how important the family unit to This and all communities...
How could an artist capable of composing such searing, insightful lyrics as these descend - a mere ten years later - into the bathos and triteness of 'I Just Called to Say I Love You'? It seems his muse abandoned him after the Hotter than July album, never to return.
You guys say this about every vintage performance on TH-cam. Having lived during that time, it's because people didn't want to be rude to the people around them. Now it's just customary to be rude and selfish.
I was 6 years old when this song came out. As a child I was moved by this song...and till this day I still get chill bumps when I hear it. I am so grateful and blessed to have known and grown with Stevie's music.
There are three artists in this video who would reach #1 . Stevie, of course. Deniece Williams in 1978 with her duet with Johnny Mathis, "Too Much Too Little Too Late" and "Let's Hear It For The Boy" (1984), and Michael Sembello with "Maniac" in 1983.
I was a young boy when this song came out, but I love to instantly. Even as young boy I understood with saying because my family and I had left it ourselves. Now im an older man who is played guitar we're about 45 years. It was men like Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Steve Howe were my greatest influences early in life. They have all served me well in the joy I got from listening to them to the inspiration I have when I play my guitar. What a wonderful Road 🎸 🎶 🎵🎶 ll :
Awesome. I remember I was in Stevie Wonder Live Concert in my city one day, and I witnessed something extraordinary happened, (many amazing things in his excellent show, actually, but one of them was) when Stevie abruptly stopped his speech after a song, when he heard somebody in audience who was sitting far from him, sang to themselves (softly actually, not loud, even many people couldn't hear... but amazingly Stevie could hear it), an old song, which maybe has some similarity as the song Stevie just finished singing, the song that he too, likes it a lot. Anyway, Stevie heard it, stop his speech, made short conversation with the said person, and then Stevie told to the audience, he love that song and he will try to sing that song with the band exactly at that moment, and he did, with the band, kind of unrehearsed unplanned, jamming/ impromptu playing the song, excellently. It was blew me away and sometime makes me goose bump even now when I remember it.
Brilliant. Everything he put put in the 70s was just amazing.
He had hits in the 60s too as little Stevie which where brilliant too .
He ruled the 70s
Truth! HIs best era.
King of the 70s
I was in grade school in the 70s and Stevie Wonder’s music was always played at our school dances. His music was the backdrop of my youth growing up in Chicago.
I am a 50 year old Metal head. Only now discovering 70s era Stevie Wonder. Freaking genius.
Stevie started so much shit in music just like black sabbath. 👍
Enjoy! Curtis Mayfield, Johnnie Taylor, Marvin Gaye…. So many for you to discover 🙂
Welcome to Greatness.
Coming from the other perspective, I've never heard a Metal head music, ever, what is a must hear for a pensioner soul man like myself? thx
@bettyboohadapoo Black Sabbath- Master of Reality...they proved you don't have to play fast to be heavy; AC/DC- Powerage...may not be technically metal, but man are they fun (Chuck Berry was a big influence); Motorhead- Ace of Spades and Metallica- Master of Puppets....fast and heavy; Guns-n-Roses- Appetite for Destruction....they put the chutzpah back into the genre!
Probably many newer metal bands I've left out, but I'm in my 50's and spend most of my time listening to Mississippi Blues, Motown, and Curtis these days! Cheers.
Almost 50 years on, it still sounds as raw, passionate and powerful as back in the day.
Why shouldn’t it? History is just us, not backwards just in a different place.
Sadly, because much of the details of this song still ring true.
The sense of injustice is there in the lyrics.The man's a f*cking genius.
Hard to believe that this was 50 years ago in 2024. I was 12 years old. My Mom bought this album. LOVED it EVER since. Stevie Wonder had a feel for the hardships for humanity. God Bless him.
This seems like an important piece of musical history…!!!
He never released a less than great album from the 70s
It is!!!
whoever was responsible for stevie's wardrobe in the 70s was on point
This man is up there with the Mozart's, Bach's, Beethoven's. He's a genius.
I LOVE Stevie Wonder. I grew up in the 60's and 70's, WITHOUT QUESTION he is at the top of this genre, POP music. I can play and sing EVERY song S.W. ever wrote.
But to equate him with Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach is a bit of hometown reporting.
The 2 genres are not in the same solar systems, musically speaking.
I'm sure some would disagree with my analysis, but not studious musicians.
The musical compositions of the 20th century were born from the masters from the era of classical music during the 16th - 19th centuries.
Harmonies, piano, & organ pieces from that era are what brought Western societies to modern musical compositions.
In 1976, would Steveland Hardaway Morris have produced the album "Songs in the Key of Life" if Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and such type never composed?
Next witness, your honor. I rest.
Pop Music is simple music. Doesn't mean it's not amazing, soul-stirring beats, because it can make anyone get up and dance.
Where Bach's "Air on G String" will never get you to do more than tap your foot, softly. Politely. 😅
But apples & kumquats. No comparison.
If I upset you, call me a PRICK. But call me a cab, quick!
You're right. If Stevie had been born in Vienna and had counterpoint training he'd be spitting out funky sonatas. But of course, he already has. We are blessed :)
@@Joey_Fabitz This isnt pop music. Quite disrespectful to label it such. This is soul, jazz, funk. Stevie's is in no way shape or form derrivative of classical music, and anyone who understands the music your hearing knows that is without a doubt on the levels of a mozart or beethoven.
@@arch1vst Spoken like an uneducated musical dolt.
What have you composed in this century?
@@arch1vstYou're right dude. This is DAMN sophisticated music. That instrumental synth part after the chorus blows my mind harmonically.
He moved me with his sound when I was 9 years, my oldest brother was a drummer, and another brother was trumpet. NorCal 1974 was the same year I fell in love in our Independence Day’s fireworks show that lit up 5 feet away from me. Star struck I was. My brothers had this music in the house when Mom and Dad were gone. Blessed I am for knowing his sound all my life.❤
I love Stevie Wonder. I remember hearing this song when it first came out. I was 12 years old and living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Mayfield Heights, if you know the area. What a powerful song. I'm still moved by it. So much has changed, at least I thought it had.
One love , from the West side of Columbus.
I moved to Cleveland Heights at the age of 16 from Youngstown. So, I know what you mean.
@@twill1142 I remember this song when I was 8 while living in Youngstown.
Im frm west akron
Dayton, Ohio
his live performances are better than the 95% of the artists studio records
A then unknown Michael Sembello on guitar & keyboards and Deniece Williams on background vocals & tambourine. This is an amazing performance and the band is just awesome.
thank yo was wondering who he was
He looks so different without the beard
Wow! Any ideas who the drummer is?
Reginald McBride on Bass
That's awesome! If you listen to Shes a maniac, you can hear those signature keys. It sounds like a Stevie song
Stevie delivers this classic with all his heart BUT DAMN those ladies delivered some fantastic support...so awesome
Yes they did.
Note the young lady in Stevie's background vocal group with the reddish hair. It's Deniece Williams ('Niecy") about a year or two before embarking on an award-winning solo career.
@@allenfriend1778 i identified the singer in the middle with the dark hair as Deniece
@@allenfriend1778 Deniece was so beautiful here.
Stevie Wonder is a music genius!!
forever
Thank you for your love and support am happy to have a great fan like you
@@steviewonder3881 😂 Dude, why are you impersonating him
💯
@@steviewonder3881 Wait how did you type this then?
One of the greatest musicians ever!
Well, his playing skills remained, but not his compositional genius after 1980. What happened to him? His artistic decline was painful to witness.
Quite possibly the best video on TH-cam.
It amazes me that the crowd just sat there no clap no stomp no smile no nothing even robots rock to Stevie
@stevenedwards8257: Pink cheeks. They don't feel nuthin.
Yea this was NOT made for them 😂😂😂 this is OUR music
In their defense it was shocking and not their culture so gotta cut them some slack haha
Even robots rock to Stevie is a bar
His drummer and backing singers are outstanding
song still jams today 2023
The richness of the backing singers 🔥🔥🤌🏿
this concert has to be the greatest r n b performance ever,the man was in a league of his own
Everybody tore this performance up completely!! Stevie, Backing vocals, the drummer, Michael Sembello on the keys, the bassist, the guitarist, the sound engineer, the lighting technician, the camera man, everybody!
With Deniece Williams singing background!
Just noticed that!!!!
And then she came out with let's hear it for the boy (Footloose).
Good spot !
Is she the one in the green turtle neck?
@@googleuser2609
10 years later
Such a powerful song and expression of Stevie's real voice and message following his liberation from Motown.
And a huge shout to the young drummer Ollie Brown (age 21) who absolutely kills it.
1st time i heard full version it blew my tiny white mind been groovin to stevie for 50+ yrs baby
Such a powerful song, so real and poetic at the same time full of magical sounds that describe a painful story. I was 16 years old when I discovered this masterpiece and has stuck on me ever since.
Thank you for your love and support am happy to have a great fan like you
@@steviewonder3881 I think you used the right word there..masterpiece
That song gives me chills every time I hear it and I've heard it thousands of times.
A MASTERPIECE still in 2023 ! Love to Stevie Wonder, A God of Music 🎵❤️🇨🇦
The GOAT. Seriously
I think this was one of the best live performances. Gritty and raw. 👍🏻🏴
I was 12 when this song came out. Still one of my favorite songs
Happy Birthday, Stevie Wonder!!! 🎉😎
ty
now i know why stevie is popping up
happy bday to an american original
Stevie Wonder is the GOAT
Stevie is th Greatest All Round Musician of th 20th century.
White Boy Jamaican seh dat.
Just give this man a BIG hug!
This song blows me away every single time I hear it... Timeless classic
音も声もパフォーマンスも最高潮！彼の叫び声が心に響いて仕方がない💘💘💘💘💘💘💘
Back ground ladies vox - really beautiful - one of them is hitting the top of the chord - effortlessly - this is in a high key too. -F# - song goes into waltz time for the synth bridge - Stevie's vocal is incredible - just a real pumping R&B song with a great lyric/story line rhythm section so in the pocket
She is Deniece Williams, just look for her here in TH-cam
Its the tall one
Not denice
I can only imagine what it was like for a young dude like him to grow up when he did and where he did. They call that a miracle where I am from ❤
For the record MICHAEL JACKSON LOVED THIS STEVIE WONDERA "LIVING FOR THE CITY" 💞🫶🏾🫂
Stevie “Wonder”. What else is there to say? Pure magic.
Mr. Wonder take a blank canvas an paints With his lyrics, The day to day struggle, but also how proud of a people these black Americans are.
Thu his words he let you know how important the family unit to This and all communities...
Love ❤ you Stevie Wonder .listening to your music since the 1970s love
this is his best song never gets old
I'm so glad and proud to be from Detroit aka Motown! Grew up listening to Motown all my life and I'm 39 now ❤️
Killer version of this classic.
Agreed....SUPERSTITION is one of Mr. Wonder's awesome other songs....but this one is tremendous too!
One of the BEST of all the times
So much rhythm, a special vibration.
This man is such an inspirational character , great example to the rest of us, that nothing is impossible.
One of the more underrated drummers in rock
Soul at it finest. Lyrics just magical
There is no one like Stevie Wonder
man, this performance was rocking!!❤❤❤
WHEN I WAS YOUNG THIS WAS FUNKY MUSIC, NOW IT'S WORLD HERITAGE
How could an artist capable of composing such searing, insightful lyrics as these descend - a mere ten years later - into the bathos and triteness of 'I Just Called to Say I Love You'? It seems his muse abandoned him after the Hotter than July album, never to return.
Those people that lined the walls appear soulless. How you can be so still and stoic when such a great song is playing is beyond me!
Germans...
You guys say this about every vintage performance on TH-cam. Having lived during that time, it's because people didn't want to be rude to the people around them. Now it's just customary to be rude and selfish.
Pure Magic! One of the greatest artists of all time!
This is SO WONDERFUL! Got me crying, remembering the coolness of the 70's!
What a brilliant drummer ♥️
Unbelievable. Hands up who was this talented aged 24? Yup. Genius
I was 6 years old when this song came out. As a child I was moved by this song...and till this day I still get chill bumps when I hear it. I am so grateful and blessed to have known and grown with Stevie's music.
Witnessing pure genius. We mere mortals should thank the stars above for this funk.
This man is the truth
There are three artists in this video who would reach #1 . Stevie, of course. Deniece Williams in 1978 with her duet with Johnny Mathis, "Too Much Too Little Too Late" and "Let's Hear It For The Boy" (1984), and Michael Sembello with "Maniac" in 1983.
Wow!
Michael Sembello also played in Stevie Wonder's band.
@@insertnamehere5809 - He is already listed in my post.
Watch the movie "20 Feet from Stardom" You will see these brilliant women. you will love it, it's on Netflix!
@lucypotato8793
I love Stevie Wonder because he brings out the very best and is accompanied by the very best. I will look for it.Thank you.
Just listen to how he harmonizes with the organ melody in the outro - Musical Genius!
Love that wonky analogue synth sound.
He is the Maestro...everyone else ....comes after him ..🍸🎉🌻🌹
💯
I’ve watched this 20 times since yesterday when I discovered it. Stevie was really on one! This is album of the year Wonder! A goat is what I see!
Who dislike this song that’s a shame
No doubt, brain dead, sad.
Losers. The song is unparalleled. Absolute beast of a song.
They must be livin' for the country.
The children and grandchildren of the folks standing around looking while Stevie is singing; that's who.
@@mjsvirtual1955 😂👌😂 I was thinking that when watching the video and you named it
As someone who knows the keyboard part, it is truly impressive how he can sing and play it simultaneously
My favorite of his, from a very long line of favorites. ❤️
A magnificent performance!
Beautiful song❤🙏👑
Amazing live performance. Blown away every time I see it.
Genius love his music
This is REAL music!!
never heard of fake music, but ok
I'm mesmerized with this song for some reason! It's awesome!
Thank you for your love and support am happy to have a great fan like you
Stunning!
Totally awesome Stevie Wonder in his prime
That looks like the original Mutron Phaser sitting there, Love to get hands on one of them.
The greatest mainstream studio artist as well as performing artist
This probably the most 70s thing I have ever seen!
ICONIC performance! Everyone delivered! Stevie looks and sounds AMAZING right here! ❤
Sounds so good and cutting edge 50 years later
Legend.
I was a young boy when this song came out, but I love to instantly. Even as young boy I understood with saying because my family and I had left it ourselves. Now im an older man who is played guitar we're about 45 years. It was men like Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Steve Howe were my greatest influences early in life. They have all served me well in the joy I got from listening to them to the inspiration I have when I play my guitar. What a wonderful Road 🎸 🎶 🎵🎶 ll :
Sing girls!
One good live
Love how he (they) took that little keyboard daddy anyone can learn in an hour tops and just fill in the rest with energy and love
Che capolavoro,che esecuzione!
Masterpiece!
This guy certainly has the right surname, He's a one man band, and more !
Besides being immensely musically talented, Stevie’s voice was just other worldly
What a Band! Michael Sembello, Reggie McBride, Denice Williams etc.
Is that Sembello on the synth?
@@brucephoenix3989 yes
@@brucephoenix3989 yep! 19 yo Mike Sembello!!!
Them sisters got it going on! Loveing it !!
Genius at work
Wow real music.
Stivie Wonder e sua banda são geniais!!😄🎶
wot a brilliant drummer xxx
What a symphony. 😮
Awesome. I remember I was in Stevie Wonder Live Concert in my city one day, and I witnessed something extraordinary happened, (many amazing things in his excellent show, actually, but one of them was) when Stevie abruptly stopped his speech after a song, when he heard somebody in audience who was sitting far from him, sang to themselves (softly actually, not loud, even many people couldn't hear... but amazingly Stevie could hear it), an old song, which maybe has some similarity as the song Stevie just finished singing, the song that he too, likes it a lot. Anyway, Stevie heard it, stop his speech, made short conversation with the said person, and then Stevie told to the audience, he love that song and he will try to sing that song with the band exactly at that moment, and he did, with the band, kind of unrehearsed unplanned, jamming/ impromptu playing the song, excellently. It was blew me away and sometime makes me goose bump even now when I remember it.