Stevie Wonder: Live at the Rainbow Room (New York City, July 13, 73)

It’s worth remembering, when people talk about how young this or that pop star is to be topping the charts or headlining a festival, that when Stevie Wonder released Innervisions three weeks after playing this show, it was his sixteenth studio album, and he was still just 23 years old. Even serious injuries sustained in a car crash weeks after the release of Innervisions didn’t delay his seventeenth album, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and that was followed by the double Songs in the Key of Life two years later. Few artists have ever come close to matching the creativity of Stevie Wonder in the ‘70s, and while the studio albums are masterpieces of discipline and songcraft, the very welcome release Live at the Rainbow Room (New York City, July 13, 73) showcases the more relaxed and sometimes lighthearted side to his monumental talent.

Though the man has been a superstar since the age of 12, somehow you know a Stevie Wonder show will be a warm and human affair, and so it proves. He leads his phenomenal band, which at this point included several members who had performed on his 1972 masterpiece Talking Book – such as bass legend Scott Edwards (RIP), Ray Parker, Jr. and backing singers Shirley Brewer and Lani Groves – through 10 songs, including four that would shortly appear on the new album. It’s an interesting setlist; many of the then-new or recent songs, like “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” already have the timeless feel of classics, whereas Motown party favourite “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” then just three years old, already sounds like something from a bygone era. That’s not just due to the passage of time and changes in fashion though; the artist himself had gone through something of an evolution in the past couple of years. He follows “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” with “Visions.” And while the former was a pop record written with the intention of entertaining the public, “Visions” was beautiful music informed by the acute observations and humanitarian philosophy of a man who had been living in the public eye since he was a child, but who had never lost his connection with the hardships and realities outside of the bubble of stardom. This was extraordinary music to be writing at 23 and it’s a beautiful and moving performance.

The band responds to Stevie’s soulful performance with great skill and delicacy, not least guitarist Michael Sembello – he of Flashdance’s “Maniac” no less – who plays a stunningly lyrical jazz-inflected solo. The way that several of the songs, including “Visions” extend into lengthy instrumental sections shows a side to Stevie Wonder’s talent that he had only rarely indulged publicly at the time. Early in his career, Motown had tried to link the artist in the public mind with Ray Charles, but that wasn’t just a crass ploy based on their mutual disability; like Charles, Stevie Wonder has a natural aptitude for jazz that has never really been allowed to rival his more straightforward talent as an interpreter of songs. Everyone knows that he’s a virtuoso at pretty much anything musical he puts his hand to, but it’s nice to hear him stretch out as he does here.

Not surprisingly, the album’s best tracks are those he was probably most engaged with at the time; the forceful, socially conscious funk of “Living for the City,” the beautiful ballad “To Know You is to Love You,” which he had written with his ex-wife Syreeta Wright shortly before their amicable divorce in 1972. He’s clearly having fun, too; there’s an extended version of “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” that begins full of beautifully tender melancholy and eventually becomes a silly knockabout with Stevie playing harmonica and singing in a strangled lounge-act voice. A straightforward, heavy-funk version of “Superstition” is the icing on the cake, although the show actually ends with the warm and lovely “My Dream.” This is essentially a long, semi-improvised thank you to the audience (“if in my future albums and singles you’re disappointed… know your disappointment will only encourage me to do better…” which should really be pure unadulterated schmaltz, but which manages to be as charming as it’s presumably intended to be. It doesn’t hurt that the band is great of course, but the warmth, positivity and sincerity that Stevie Wonder embodies allows him to get away with this kind of thing. James Brown couldn’t have – and wouldn’t have wanted to do it – but neither could Paul McCartney. Stevie Wonder has released a few live albums over the years, but Live at the Rainbow Room is a precious insight into the kind of show he was putting on during the most vital years of his career and we’re lucky to have it.