Stevie Wonder has expanded the scope of what was already the most epic studio album in his catalogue, 1976’s Songs in the Key of Life.
Four unheard songs from the recording sessions have been released today as a new EP of the same name, marking the 50th anniversary of an album which won album of the year at the Grammys and contains a number of Wonder’s landmark tracks including Sir Duke, As and Isn’t She Lovely.
“We’ve lived with Songs in the Key of Life for 50 years, but there’s still more to hear,” Wonder said in a statement. “We didn’t add these songs to the album, but they were part of what I was feeling and discovering as we made it. They bring me back to that time in my life, and now they get to become part of yours.”
The songs are suffused with the style Wonder had crafted during the 1970s, and which arguably reached its apotheosis on that 21-track double album: a sunlit, spiritually attuned type of soul and R&B, celebrating love and the richness of existence while acknowledging emotional strife and social struggle.
The album’s backings are gorgeously detailed, instantly recognisable psychedelic soul arrangements with funk and jazz detailing, bringing in the futurist sound of keyboards and synth bass but fleshing everything out with a huge range of organic instrumentation.
The unheard tracks continue in that vein: It’s Easier is a shimmying, bossa nova-esque number that questions whether to walk away from the very concept of love; My Life Story of Love is quintessential Wonder with the singer using bucolic imagery (“let her bloom into my flower of love”) on a tale of a blossoming relationship; I Can See the Sun in Late December is a slow jazz ballad about determined optimism and self-discovery; and I’m Into Livin’ is a squelchy funk track as Wonder renounces his old partying and womanising ways and pledges himself to a single lover.
All four are written and produced by Wonder, though My Life Story of Love features a co-writing credit for former Supremes member Susaye Greene, who also co-wrote Michael Jackson’s I Can’t Help It with Wonder. The original recording and mixing engineers, John Fischbach and Gary O Adante, recently mixed the tracks for release.
The voices of two future stars – Thelma Houston and Deniece Williams – can be heard as backing vocalists on I’m Into Livin’, along with Shirley Brewer, who features on Songs in the Key of Life’s Ordinary Pain.
The new EP comes as Wonder prepares to play Songs in the Key of Life in full on an arena tour, which begins 13 October in Birmingham, UK. Wonder then tours across Europe before returning to the UK for three more dates in London, Manchester and Glasgow, then plays five US cities: New York City, Chicago, Washington DC, Detroit and Los Angeles.
Wonder’s most recent new material was the single Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart, released in 2024, though he hasn’t released a new studio album since 2005’s A Time to Love.
In 2020 he announced a new “project” entitled Through the Eyes of Wonder, though no further news on its status has been released since.
