13 May Stevie Wonder: Perennial Inspiration or Blagger’s Legend Of Choice?

There are a handful of artists who, on discovery, change the way I listen to music.  Without question the first one to start the trend was Steveland ‘Stevie Wonder’ Morris.  I was seven years old when I truly understood the power of music and its potential for socio-political impact and I have Innervisions to thank for it. For a while I had been both frightened and mesmerised by the artwork on the family copy of Stevie’s 1973 album.  It took a while for me to actually put it on the old turntable as I kept examining the strange humanoid creatures on the inside cover.  I’d got it into my head that Stevie had drawn them himself and being blind these depictions were a fruit of the ‘innervisions’ of the title; strange other-worldly beings that only someone, whose remaining senses were heightened by the absence of sight, could concoct.  I know - a lot for a seven year old’s imagination - but ask anyone who knows me well enough and they’ll confirm my tendency to over-think things. Prior to listening to Innervisions my main exposure to Stevie were vague memories of him being number one in 1984 for what seemed like forever to my three-year old self with ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’ (it was actually closer to six weeks).  I remembered the Flamingo-pink