This recording is only 33 minutes long, but what it lacks with length it makes up with quality. It contains no less than THREE Stevie Wonder songs that not only were previously unreleased, but were even previously unknown, as far as I can tell. It's likely this was the one and only time they were played in public.
I have no frigging idea what their actual song titles are. Wonder is known for having hundreds of unreleased songs. I checked a list of all the known ones (mainly due to them being played in concert at some point) and there's nothing that comes close to matching. So the titles of those three - "Can You See the Sun Rising," "Baby That's Why" and "Stay with You" - are my best guesses. The last two are plausible, based on repeated lyrics, but the first one is a wild guess that is almost certainly wrong, since virtually no phrases are repeated in that one. If you have better titles, please let me know!
In 1973, Stevie was in his "golden age," which is generally considered to be from 1972 to 1976. Every song he touched then sounded good, so it's not that surprising that the previously unknown songs are all good as well. They're not lost classics, but they would have been worthy of inclusion on his albums at the time, in my opinion, and that's saying a lot considering how good his albums were in those years.
Normally with these sorts of bootlegs, the sound quality is middling to poor, because the odds of anyone having high quality recording equipment smuggled into a private party is vanishingly small. But this one sounds so good that I'm pretty sure it's a soundboard. Perhaps Wonder or Vigoda or someone else there wanted it recorded for posterity.
Clearly, Wonder seized the occasion to take some risks that he wouldn't normally take in his concerts. The only songs he played at this party that had been previously released were "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and "Blame It on the Sun." But those had only been released a couple of months earlier. It's clear some of the band members weren't very familiar with them, because you can hear Wonder sometimes calling out the chord changes even on "You Are the Sunshine of My Life." Not surprisingly, he did that sometimes for the new songs as well. That said, you can't really tell from the music that the band was winging it, because they followed along capably, with only a few audible mistakes.
In addition to the songs I've mentioned, Wonder also played a short bluesy birthday song that I'm guessing was improvised on the spot. I don't consider it a newly discovered song, due to its short and simple nature. Lacking any better title, I'm calling it "Happy Birthday Johanan."
Finally, "All in Love Is Fair" was played. That would have sounded just as unfamiliar to the audience and the other band members, because it wouldn't be released until the album "Innervisions" came out eight months later.
Speaking of audiences, the audience here must have been very small indeed, judging by the amount of clapping between songs. In short, there's almost none. I'm guessing there were a dozen or two people at most. The location is unknown, except for the fact that it was in New York City. But it could have been held at a privately booked restaurant, or maybe someone's house.
I removed some aimless doodling and/or tuning between songs. But there wasn't much that I cut, less than a minute. It seems there was very little talking between songs, and what there is had Wonder way off mike. I didn't cut any of that.
01 Can You See the Sun Rising (Stevie Wonder)
02 talk (Stevie Wonder)
03 Happy Birthday Johanan (Stevie Wonder)
04 You Are the Sunshine of My Life (Stevie Wonder)
05 Blame It on the Sun (Stevie Wonder)
06 All in Love Is Fair (Stevie Wonder)
07 Baby That's Why (Stevie Wonder)
08 Stay with You (Stevie Wonder)
By luck, it happens that there's a quality photograph of Vigoda and Wonder standing next to each other, so naturally I used that for the album cover. I'm guessing was taken around this time, give or take a year or so. The only problem was the photo was in black and white, so I colorized it.
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ReplyDeleteMany thanks
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