I interviewed Stevie Wonder..
and I'll never get over it.
The Rooster is my newsletter. It is free to read but I like to put recommendations behind the paywall for my paid subscribers. This week I have curated a playlist of my favourite Stevie Wonder songs…
When I was eleven years old, I entered a school talent contest. I decided I would sing the Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney song Ebony and Ivory. I stood up on the stage, the whole school watching on, and just as I was about to open my mouth to sing, a boy from the audience shouted out loudly, so the whole audience could hear,
“Yer flyin low!”
I was confronted with a predicament. Should I acknowledge his statement, look down and check the zip of my flies and pull it up? or should I ignore him and start the performance? In a paralysis of panic I chose to ignore the boy. I kept my head up and tried to sing the song. But I was rattled. I missed my base note. I started the song too high .
I had chosen to sing acapella , and if you know the song you will know that the second refrain is an entire octave higher than the first. So I started..
Ebony and ivory… live together in perfect harmony..
I was in the wrong key. I had to push through the entire song, not being able to reach the high notes. I was mortified. There was nowhere to hide. I will never be able to listen to that song without remembering the acute mortification that I felt in front of my whole school all those years ago.
Stevie Wonder arrived in my life through my parents’ mostly white record collection, in a very white Dublin in the eighties. The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ram, Elton John, Woody Guthrie, James Taylor, Bob Dylan and one Duke Ellington album that I listened to over and over again as a kid. They never owned a Stevie album but his voice shone through on the duet with McCartney enough for me to want to humiliate myself in front of my school. Every Christmas, we would play my fathers copy of Elton John’s - Too Low For Zero album. I only recently found out that the harmonica solo on the song Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues is by Stevie Wonder.
So he was always there, in the periphery of my musical sphere. In my mid teens I broke away from my parents and siblings musical influence and discovered trip hop and Brit Pop, and then dance music and rave culture in my years at university in Belfast. It wasn’t until I had moved to England aged twenty one that I started looking backwards for my musical inspiration. I was living in Farnborough Hampshire, in a house with five guys, and I was homesick; sad without the tight knit group of friends I had made in Belfast and dislocated at this new feeling of being a foreigner in England. I spent a lot of time scratching badly and mixing on my decks in my bedroom. In my spare time when I wasn't working behind the till of a local shop, I would go down to the local car boot sale and buy second hand records.
I bought an album of cover versions by Stevie Wonder first of all. Next I bought Talking Book. It opened with You Are The Sunshine Of My Life. I was immediately ensconced. The tenderness and deep soulfulness of these songs, but then the irresistible funk of Superstition, meant that I played the album on repeat. I was delighted with myself when I got my hands on a triple LP Anthology called Stevie Wonder; Looking Back. I started buying every Stevie Wonder album I could find; Songs In The Key Of Life , Inner Visions, Fulfillingness First Finale. Somehow, I found the records that Stevie Wonder made when he was asserting his independence and becoming a man, at the same time as I was newly left Ireland, alone in England, attempting to become a woman.
There was something about his voice that year that provided a sense of optimism when I really needed it. The joy of discovering his music was a reminder that there was always something around the corner that was worth holding out for. He gave me hope.
From then on, Stevie Wonder was part of my life. I have spent years playing songs or versions of his songs to dance floors. I have witnessed countless times the way his grooves make people move. I walked down the aisle to his song " Happier Than the Morning Sun from his album Music Of My Mind. When I turned forty I went to Hampstead Heath Ponds on my own for a blissful swim, and then lay down in the long grass of Hampstead Heath, and listened to Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key Of Life from beginning to end. That was my birthday gift to myself and has been ever since.
His songs bring me simultaneously right to the core of my ‘self’ and far out into the stars. They open me up and bring forth feelings of joy and pain. And feelings that I can’t articulate with words. Vibrations from within. A sense of being acutely alive.
On my weekly music podcast Sidetracked, my co-host Nick Grimshaw and I have talked about Stevie Wonder a lot recently. He was coming to England this Summer to play five shows. He wasn't playing Glastonbury. The final show of his Love Light and Song tour was going to be in Hyde Park on 12 July, the same night as our friend Ian’s fortieth birthday party. We were both gutted that we wouldn’t be able to see Stevie this time round. We discussed driving up to Birmingham on a Monday night to see his show. We begged shamelessly on the podcast for anyone who might have an ‘in’ with Stevie to let us know so we could invite him on a guest when he was in town.
After Nick and I talking about how much we wanted to interview Stevie on Sidetracked, our producer Gráinne took us seriously enough to find the person in charge of Stevie Wonder in the UK and ask them to consider it. Miraculously Stevie’s team didn't say no. That was on a Monday morning. By the Wednesday Stevie had said that he was up for doing it.
We had no details. We had no confirmation. We had no idea what he would agree to, how long the interview would last or whether it would be filmed, just that if it happened it would take place on Thursday or Friday, and he was up for it.
All week I didn't allow myself to think that this could actually happen. But on the Friday morning Gráinne the producer rang to say we had been told to be at his hotel that afternoon.
And so last Friday morning, I finally acknowledged and accepted that I was going to meet Stevie Wonder, not just meet him, but talk to him, interview him. Normally, I would do these interviews with Nick, but he had committed to going to see Oasis in Manchester, which was a huge deal for him, and he was completely heartbroken, but decided to carry on with his Manchester plans in the knowledge that Stevie Wonder still hadn't fully confirmed.
In the meantime, I decided that I needed to occupy myself. I got the shears and I took to the hedge and I cut the entire hedge furiously, and then I swept all the leaves up in the garden, in the drive, in the patio. I must have bagged about four bags of leaves. And all the time I listened to a podcast called The Wonder Of Stevie, produced by Barack Obama's production company and narrated by a journalist called Wesley Morris.
It's an incredible podcast which focusses on a five year span of creative genius that Stevie Wonder displayed in his early twenties when he released a run of five albums, starting with Music Of My Mind and ending with songs in the Key of Life.
It talks about Stevie as a child being brought into Motown and showcasing his skills to a room full of people agog, playing drums then bongos, then harmonica, then singing. Being signed immediately at eleven years old, and rechristened Little Steve Wonder. It details him taking control of his career and his finances at the age of twenty one when he came out of his first big deal with Motown, and how he demanded from Barry Gordy full control and full agency over all the creative decisions in his music and how Barry Gordy had to pay him millions upon millions of pounds to keep him at Motown.
It talks about him as a musical innovator, how he discovered the Tonto synthesiser, a big wall of dials and knobs and played it like no person before; infusing it with emotion and warmth and real human feeling and how prolific he was as an instrumentalist, how he would play every track on every album staying up for days on end during the recording sessions.
And it also talks about Stevie Wonder as an activist, how throughout his career he constantly fought for civil rights, black rights and the rights of differently abled people. Did you know that his song Happy Birthday was written as a plea to the US government to award a national holiday for Martin Luther Kings birthday? In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law, establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday. When, in March 1985, Stevie dedicated his Oscar for I Just Called To Say I Love You to Nelson Mandela, who was a political prisoner in apartheid South Africa at the time, he so angered the South African government that they banned his music.
Stevie Wonder is now in his seventh decade of performing and releasing music. And on that Friday, as I was starting to write my questions for him, I found it quite overwhelming, just trying to imagine the breadth of people that will have been touched by his music. My mother knows and loves and appreciates Stevie Wonder. She is eighty three. I love and appreciate Stevie Wonder and I’m in my forties. My son, who's eight, is learning Superstition on the drums and already loves Stevie Wonder. It's not just one generation, it’s nearly a whole centurys worth of people. There are so few artists whose music has stretched this far.
So I arrive at the hotel at 3pm. My questions are printed out and folded in my bag. My heart is in my throat. Stevie is upstairs, in the building. We can't say his name on the reception because of security so we wait to hear from his team.
We finally get shown to a suite just after six o’clock and we rush to set up our cameras and to do my make-up because now we've been told that the interview is going to start at seven o'clock.
We are ready to go for seven. We hear nothing for a full hour and a half. That is the most torturous part, sitting in that room, imagining Stevie there. I ring my son, I ring my husband. I try and do anything just to pass the time.
And then completely out of the blue, two security guards walk in. One is holding a flat string instrument and one is holding an amp. They plug the amp in at the wall. It's an American plug and it immediately blows the lights in the room. The whole suite is plunged into darkness.
In the ensuing confusion, we are told that Stevie is on his way. We have finally got to this point where we know that this is definitely happening and suddenly everything is complete chaos. Jen the production assistant is ordered to run down to reception for a maintenance man. He arrives and manages to fix the lights. The cameras are on and just like that, Stevie is in the room.
He is wearing a black tracksuit and a black leather beret. He is led to his chair, where he fiddles with the instrument and adjusts the knobs on the amplifier and when he is happy, the interview is on.
I greet him. He tells me about the instrument which is called a Harpejji and starts to play. It's like a flat harp. Imagine the fretboard of a guitar, but much wider. And when he touches the strings, he doesn't have to pluck them. He just has to press down on them and they emit a really beautiful sound. So he starts to play the harp, and as he plays it, he sings a song.
"Annie, Annie, Annie. Don’t let me go”
and suddenly I am a puddle of emotion. The whole days worth of the tension rises up and out of me.
Grainne, my producer, had said to me beforehand, if you're nervous, tell him. Don’t try and not be afraid if you are afraid. So in that moment, I told Stevie Wonder that I was nervous, and I thanked him for the music because it felt soothing. And he told me not to worry, to relax, and as well as me asking him questions, he would ask me some too.
And so that's how the interview began; with me declaring my nervousness and with him reassuring me. Then we talked.
We talked about his Mother. We talked about his songs and how they come to him. He described them as “statements of the spirit within”. We talked about God and what God is for him, not a man, not a woman, but a spirit. He told me a story of how when he was around eight or nine years old, he used to jump off the top of the woodshed with his brothers, even though his mother told him he wasn't allowed to. He did it anyway. He would throw himself off into the black not knowing when he was going to land. One day he threw himself off and he didn't realise that his mother had come across them, and she was waiting to catch him. He jumped right into her arms. He did an angry impression of his mother then, which was very funny. And then he did an impression of him as a child, breathlessly sobbing himself to sleep.
Halfway through the interview, he stopped and asked me who the most boring person I ever interviewed was. At the end, he asked me, "What do I think about living in the world right now?” And I told him that I found it really hard, especially when I watched the news. He talked about how we all had to do our bit in speaking out and acting out for human rights. And then at the very end, he asked me, what was my favourite song in the world right now?
And could I, in that moment, think of one song in the entirety of music? I could not. Not one song.
But the conversation carried on and I asked him had he ever heard of the album Astral Weeks by Van Morrison? I told him that I really wanted him to hear it and I wished that I'd brought it for him. He said no, but was this song on it and he started playing Van Morrison's Moondance and I said no, but I really like that song and he carried on playing and then he said.…SING. You know the sort of gruff Stevie wonder utterance.. all grit? Sing but pronounced sang.
SANG.
When Stevie Wonder orders you to sing you have to sing. So I start to sing. And as he plays along, he encourages me, “yeah. come on. get it girl.” I think I leave my body at some point. Then I collapse into laughter. It’s all too much. Stevie says
“We're going on tour. Book us!”
I thank him profusely and we say our goodbyes and he is guided out of the room.
That was last Friday night. All week I've been thinking about it and trying to relive it.
I've been so lucky to have the opportunity to interview a lot of globally renowned musicians in my career, from Paul McCartney to Kendrick Lamar to Elton John to Bjork.. You go into these things with the knowledge that your impression of this person will not always match up with the reality of who they are in the moment. Rarely does the reality surpass the impression.
In one way Stevie was exactly who I hoped he would be; curious, engaged, mischievous. But the way he humoured me, with such compassion and grace, was beyond anything I could have imagined. The man is funny. He made it fun.
I should say that I told Stevie the story of eleven year old me, humiliated in front of my school, whilst trying to sing Ebony and Ivory. He asked me do I still know the guy who shouted at me? and then said, you tell that guy I said be quiet.
The interview is coming out on a bonus episode of Sidetracked this Monday 21st July. You can subscribe to Sidetracked here and get it in your inbox as soon as it drops.
And for those behind the paywall.. here is a playlist of my most beloved Stevie songs.. Wishing you many hours of joy listening to them…