Happy 50th Anniversary to Stevie Wonder’s thirteenth studio album Where I’m Coming From, originally released April 12, 1971.
We discover music in myriad ways, these internet-driven days. In older, more trying times, it was (in the UK at least) one of the four TV channels, BBC Radio or a blank tape shoved joyfully into your hand by a friend that led to new discoveries. These days, that tape from a friend probably takes the form of a playlist assembled by an algorithm from a multinational conglomerate that pays the artist peanuts.
Alongside the explosion of internet-based listening and recommendation engines, the array of TV shows using music in an interesting and savvy way has proliferated beyond compare. Shows like Insecure spend time crafting and curating the soundtrack, whilst avid listeners scour the internet for track lists and stream the songs featured immediately.
One such program was Spike Lee’s updated and reimagined-for-TV version of his debut film She’s Gotta Have It (1986). Spike being Spike though, it was a slightly more classic-based approach to the soundtrack with jazz, soul and hip-hop all thrown together to accompany the high jinks of Nola Darling’s life and times, rather than the young, fresh and new approach of Insecure.
Being an avid fan of Lee’s work, the decision to watch was an easy one made even better by the soundtrack. New discoveries like Oliver Nelson’s “Martin Was A Man, A Real Man” entered my life and sparked the tangential expeditions that my curiosity powered. One episode, in particular though, struck me dumb. A slightly morose piano line started up and my mind went haywire. It sure sounds like him . . . could it be . . .? When the vocals came in, my shame was complete.
I’ve written before about my shame of Stevie Wonder ignorance, but was history about to repeat itself? Indeed, it was. Once I’d heard Talking Book, I’d eagerly sought out the rest of his golden run of the 1970s, luxuriating in the glories of those epochal albums, but this song wasn’t there. I also knew enough of his 1980s output to know it wasn’t lurking there—so what was it?
Of course, some kind soul on the internet had already collated the playlists from She’s Gotta Have It, so I searched for the source of my latest bout of Stevie Wonder based ignorance. And there it was. The delicate, haunting tale of loss was “Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer” from 1971’s Where I’m Coming From. Of course, as sure as night follows day, the album was soon running on repeat as I rectified this latest foolish bout of ignorance.
This revelation occurred at the beginning of April last year, just as the full extent of my hugely compromised immune system dawned on me as we went into national lockdown for the first time and just a couple of months after I had purchased my first-ever record player. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that When I’m Coming From was soon winging its way to me in vinyl form. My response to lockdown was to play Stevie Wonder records. All the time. To the point where my four-and-a-half-year-old can identify any Stevie track from the 1970s as him within three nanoseconds of it starting. (That may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight).
Where I’m Coming From was probably played more than any other album during those early difficult months. Sure, part of it was due to its recent introduction to my life, but the main reason it got played so much was that it is an endlessly fascinating album—it serves as a transitional piece for both Stevie Wonder and Motown as a whole.
Throughout the 1960s, Wonder had been a staple of the Motown family both as a writer and performer. But as the 1970s dawned, both parties were changing. It was clear that artists like Wonder and Marvin Gaye were agitating for greater creative control than they were afforded in the production line that Berry Gordy had created. Moreover, their outlook had shifted from the company’s singles orientated perspective to a more artist-centered expansion towards albums as more fully formed expressions.
The tension between the two approaches is evident in two things before a note of music has even been heard. The title of the album can clearly be read as part of a politely worded refrain in the to-and-from between artist and label. A glance at the track list and running time shows three of the nine songs clocking in at way more than the archetypal three-minute pop song that Motown had established itself with.
Gordy, though, didn't get where he’d got by being anything less than incredibly astute and pragmatic. He could see other musical acts in a variety of genres were expanding their remit and knew it was only a matter of time before his acts would break free. He also knew that Wonder’s recording contract was up after this album so to continue to restrain him would only lead to a more likely departure from the Motown family after it. What harm could it do to loosen the reins slightly?
In loosening the reins, Gordy allowed a subject that he’d been extremely reticent to approach a chance to explode into Motown’s output. Despite the late 1960s being such a tumult of racism, war and poverty, Gordy had steadfastly avoided Motown tackling social issues, but it had become too much to bear or contain. The artists wanted to speak their truths on the state of the world and Stevie Wonder certainly does that on Where I’m Coming From.
Although Wonder played the majority of instruments and produced himself, a key collaborator was his new wife, Syreeta, whom he had married in September of 1970. Co-writing and contributing some backing vocals, she undoubtedly shares the credit for a constantly fascinating and explorative piece of art.
Part of the fascination comes from the instrumentation and song structure used throughout. In breaking out of the Motown formula, but not yet being enchanted by the delights of Margouleff and Cecil’s synthesizer TONTO, there are flashes where Wonder sounds like his peers and you can hear his influences beyond the Motown roster. It’s there on the psychedelic swirling organ at the climax of “Do Yourself A Favor,” bearing the hallmarks of Sly Stone, early Funkadelic or even The Doors. It’s also there on the opening track (“Look Around”) with its three beats to a bar and distinctly classical feel.
The status of the album as a transition piece for both Wonder and Motown is similarly underlined by the lyrical content. As opening verses go, “Look Around” could hardly draw a harsher line between the teenage Wonder and the young man awakened to the need to express the ills of the world: “We are idle strangers / Married to our dangers / Into space we go to change our ways / Flying to our heavens / We are all together / Into hell we chase the light of day.”
While they may still lack an assured maturity, the lyrics very definitely a signal to an end of the usual preoccupations of traditional Motown fare. Alongside these lyrics runs a sparse musical accompaniment—yet another break from the full Funk Brothers backing usually associated with the label. With just a bass (courtesy of the magnificent James Jamerson) working alongside the electric piano and some fairly somber backing vocals.
The aforementioned “Do Yourself A Favor” is the starkest example of the funk that would become an integral part of his legendary ‘70s output. Here it is a raggedy, freewheeling version of funk much informed by Sly and The Family Stone. Again, the lyrics betray a certain immaturity, but given that he was a young 21-year-old man at the time, it is hardly a huge surprise. Beyond the lyrics though lies funkiness that rolls and rocks in equal measure, driven by layers of nasty, grimy keys and handclaps galore.
Another ever-present facet of Wonder’s work is the sweetness of his love songs. Sweetness abounds on “Think of Me as Your Soldier” and “Something Out of the Blue,” both of which are odes to his love for Syreeta. It is interesting to note that the lyrical content here is less forced and more mature. Whether the blossoming love they shared is responsible or whether it is the fact the subject had long been written about by them both, it is hard to say.
Nestled in the center of the album is a typically joyous Wonder song (“If You Really Love Me”)— the brass, the handclaps and the exuberant vocals all appear on the track that was released as the first single and peaked at #8 on the Hot 100. It is easy to see why it charted well, as the constant changes in tempo end up propelling it to greater heights.
Perhaps the strangest song on the album is “I Wanna Talk to You,” a honky tonk fueled tale told by two characters, each with their own musical accompaniment. For the young Black man there’s a gospel piano backing, whereas the elderly white man is lent a rock riff as the backdrop to his point of view. Of course, as well as the obvious interpretation of the piece, there’s another layer that posits it as a depiction of the struggle between the young gun (Wonder himself) and the restrictive, old-fashioned record company.
The weakest track on the album comes in the shape of “Take Up a Course in Happiness.” Though there may be a stirring enough chorus, it is far from Wonder’s finest hour. That, though, is forgotten immediately upon the start of what comes next. As the song that prompted both my shame and newfound love, “Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer” is magnificent in its entirety.
With just piano to accompany (at first) his voice, it is a starkly sad tale of heartbreak. There is an additional burr to his voice that seems to add further layers of sadness and dismay to the already gut-wrenching lyrics. The simple device of using the seasons to illustrate a love affair offers him the structure to pour his broken heart out to maximum effect. The final refrain of “Why didn’t you stay?” reveals a man bereft and broken, devoid of answers. And the final note that is held for over 15 seconds is immense.
The final song on the album, “Sunshine in Their Eyes” has several different moods, twisting and turning restlessly. It foreshadows two songs that form part of his pantheon of greatness. Firstly, it uses children’s voices (As Songs in the Key of Life’s “Black Man” would do five years later in 1976) and secondly, the structure is reminiscent of “Superwoman” from Music of My Mind (1972).
It is the second half that really hits the spot despite the charm of the children singing during the first. The verses find him describing various dismal situations that people find themselves in to one of my favorite Stevie Wonder melodies. It is yet another example of him feeling his way towards new and interesting structures to showcase his immense gift.
It’s clear that this album doesn’t quite hit the heights of what would follow for Stevie Wonder—I mean, what does? Despite that though, it is endlessly fascinating to hear the shackles being thrown off with such joyous abandon—it is the sketch that allowed his subsequent works to become the dynamic, fully formed works of genius that they are.
If you don’t know it as well as those masterpieces, it will reward further investigation. And if you do know it already, then forgive me my ignorance and bask in the glow of knowing you beat me to it. Either way, it merits a spin today. And tomorrow.
LISTEN: