Stevie Wonder on the campaign trail

Press, 30 December 1985, Page 17

Stevie Wonder on the campaign trail

Stevie Wonder (below) is the only black superstar to have supported a variety of political causes. He talks to ROBIN DENSELOW of the London “Guardian” about music as a social force.

The London hotel room was set up like a recording studio with banks of keyboards and synthesisers perched on table tops. Seated between them, his head swaying from side to side as he played, was one of the few true living legends of pop music. Stevie Wonder was back in town and aS' always he brought his music with him.

He may still be only 35, but he has been recording hits for over 20 years (his first, “Fingertips,” was in 1963). Over that period he has established a reputation not just as the greatest black artist in America, but one of the first black artists to appeal to the mass of white rock audiences, to play with the likes of Lennon and Dylan, and consistently to use his songs as a means of social comment.

At home in Los Angeles he now has his own radio station, KJLH, but he insists on behaving agreeably unlike a businessman or a rock star. He was mostly thoughtful and quietly spoken during the interview (except when he began to mimic others), and then acted like a man obsessed.

He programmed the eouipment as if his blindness was no disability to him at all, and an easy, gently stirring riff that he had already written came through the speakers. Over the top of it he began to improvise a melody line, repeating it over and over again. He was already late for a radio interview, but no-one disturbed him. He kept playing for over 10 minutes, and it

was a rare privilege just to be in the same little room.

He did want to explain why his latest album, “In Square Circle,” had been such a long time in the making. It’s been five years since his last release, “Hotter Than July” (if one does not count the songs he provided for the film “The Woman In Red”), and even by superstar standards that’s slow going. But it didn’t seem to worry him.

“If you are creating, and you have a concept in mind, you have to wait until you are satisfied. The bottom line is to give the best you can.”

“In Square Circle” was originally planned as a double album, but came out as a single “because a double wasn’t economically feasible.” Even so, the new LP, with its mixture of pop hits like “Part-time Lover,” and the anti-apartheid protest, “It’s Wrong,” is going to be the first of a three-part series and “In Square Circle 2” should be out next year. The idea, he said, is that the series should deal with experiences people go through in their lives. “The album sleeve is square and the record is round, the earth is round and divided into squares, and we start life at square one and move through the spiral of life, just as you find in a record’s grooves.” It’s a measure of his genius that at some times his work is private and highly imaginative, but at others it is firmly grounded in reality. “Inner Visions” contains Stevie’s first great self-written

social comment song, “Living For The City,” and on almost every album since he has matched the

tuneful love songs and ballads, and the hi-tech synthesised dance songs, with ah element of social concern.

He is also the only black superstar to have constantly supported a whole variety of causes. In 1971, he appeared with John Lennon at a rally demanding the release of the White Panther leader, John Sinclair, who has been jailed for possessing marijuana. It was a somewhat surprising appearance. “I wouldn’t say ‘everybody smokes grass,’ but I think alcohol has killed more people,” he says. Five years later he appeared with Dylan in a benefit for the jailed boxer, Hurricane Carter, and in 1980, with the song “Happy Birthday,” he added his voice to those demanding that the birthday of Martin Luther King be made a national holiday.

Largely because of that song, and the Wonder-inspired campaign that went with it, the request has now been granted. There will be a new American national holiday from next year on, but it will be on January 20, five days after King’s actual birthday. Stevie says he is not surprised at his success, “Because I just knew that the thrust of energy was there. The holiday gives people a chance to examine the principles of Dr King, and understand that these principles are not for one group but for everyone to live by.” On the latest album, Stevie’s concern is with apartheid, but he says it’s just chance that “It’s Wrong” should appear this year. The song was started three years ago, but only recently .did he acquire the technology to record it

the way he wanted, “sampling” African sounds and programming them into his synthesisers. The music is in his mind, but his actions are still practical. In February this year he was arrested in an anti-apartheid demonstration in Washington. “They said I was disturbing the peace, I was singing.” During 1985, other artists- have caught up with Stevie in rediscovering music as a social force. He explains it, in a typically unexpected way, like this: “Music has always been a very significant social force. It’s value that people put upon it at various times that made it insignificant in their minds.

His own heroes include the great black and white artists he has known, and performed with over the past two decades. He enthused about Marvin Gaye’s 1972 album “What’s Going On” (“it will be a long time before someone does something to surpass that work, but no, it wasn’t the influence for ‘Living For The City’ ”). Asked about Lennon, he said he was concerned at the current McCartney versus Lennon controversy. He had known Lennon and talked to him a little. “I feel I knew him very well through his music. Many people are more expressive in their art than they are when they are talking one to one.”

After the interview, Stevie Wonder headed straight back to his keyboards.