Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life 180g Vinyl Record Double LP + 7” + Book

$

47

Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life Vinyl Record Double LP + 7” + Book. A masterpiece, now issued as a set that includes two 12-inch LPs and a 7-inch "A Something's Extra" EP. It also comes with a 24-page lyric booklet. New, Sealed.

The superstar’s most ambitious and most successful album, originally released on vinyl as a two-LP set, plus a seven-inch, four-track disc. Every one of the 21 songs was produced, arranged, written and composed by Stevie Wonder. The package debuted at Number One on the Billboard charts, remaining there for 14 weeks – longer than any other Motown album before or since.

Songs In The Key of Life was released October 8, 1976, while its first 45, “I Wish,” came out a few weeks later and made its chart debut December 4. The following month, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100. “I Wish” was among the last songs recorded for the project; Wonder said he wrote it during a Motown picnic during the summer of ’76. The earliest track is thought to be the instrumental, “Contusion,” first put onto tape in December 1973.

Recording of the masterwork was spread over four studios: three in California (Hollywood’s Crystal Industries, Record Plant sites in Los Angeles and Sausalito) and at New York’s Hit Factory. Much of the music was created on the Yamaha Electrone Polyphonic Synthesizer GX10, reflecting Stevie’s lifelong fascination with new technology. He also recruited blue-chip musicians, including such Wonder regulars as Nathan Watts (bass), Michael Sembello (guitar), Steve Madaio (trumpet) and Trevor Lawrence (tenor sax), and guest stars like Bobbi Humphrey and Herbie Hancock. The album’s media launch took place September 7, 1976, at Long View Farm, North Brookfield in Massachusetts.

Songs In The Key of Life was such a monumental piece of work “because I had those songs and I felt that all of those were…snapshots of a time and a place and an emotion that all fit together very well,” Wonder later told British music writer Barney Hoskyns. “I’m very conscious of the flow of the music on an album and that whole deal, because I’m listening objectively as a person. And I’m pretty critical.” He also noted that a variety of studios played their part in his ’70s work. “You think of it as being a canvas on which I was able to draw and paint pictures.”