My ears hurt - thank you, Grammys

I hate to say this, but I don't think I can stomach sitting through the rest of this year's Grammy Awards to see Paul McCartney with Dave Grohl, even though that's the one performance I want to see the most. Stevie Wonder was predictably awesome with the Jonas Brothers, who I hadn't ever made an effort to listen to until now. It was also very gratifying to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss win the best pop vocal by a duo or group award for "Rich Woman," and better still, record of the year for "Please Read THE Letter" (that's right, Natalie Cole, you got your definite articles mixed up) [EDIT: Raising Sand also won album of the year! This is truly the best news of all]. But as much as Chris Martin seems like a really cool, down to earth guy, I still haven't softened to his voice, nor do I ever enjoy hearing Jay Z appear with anybody (though he did make Martin sound comparatively amazing on their duet).

Worst of all was Katy Perry's overblown "I Kissed a Girl." The song wasn't subversive when it came out, and it's even sillier now that it's been given a Vegas-style send-up live on national TV. No subtlety in her vocal delivery either -- it's like being hit over the head with a hammer, and that's exactly how I feel right now.

Fortunately, there are bigger talents out there who have the class to take the good with the bad, which is exactly what New York indie Max Vernon did when he covered "I Kissed a Girl" last year as a piano-based semi-doo-wop number. Given the fact that lesbians seem to be somewhat less maligned in American society than gay men, Max's gender-bending cover achieves the subversion that Katy's rendition never had a chance to touch. Plus its execution is just way, way better in general. Somebody sign this guy!

Stevie Wonder, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, 7/5/08

Stevie’s back on the road, and I was there last Saturday, at the Shoreline, this time with four others. As he did last year, he’s billing these shows as “A Wonder Summer’s Night” and he’s playing straight through the evening with no opening act. Huge band, lots of percussion, and this time he even brought his 6 year old son Kailand to play a little bit of drums towards the end of the evening. The kid was probably the only person in the entire venue who didn’t have a huge grin on his face. Did he not want to be there? Does he take drumming that seriously? Does he not like Stevie’s music? Was he mad at his dad? Who knows… the rest of us were very happy to be there.

Casually strolling out in the early evening light with daughter and backing vocalist Asiha Morris guiding him to his perch, Stevie opened the show with some positive remarks about Barack Obama and, when he got the band started, four songs in a row off Hotter Than July. Talk about digging deep! “As If You Read My Mind” and “Did I Hear You Say You Love Me?” were two of the songs I least expected to hear, and like most of the night’s performances, they were note perfect. Even with this four pack, Innervisions was still the best represented album of the night, with five songs (“Visions,” “Living For the City,” “Golden Lady,” “Higher Ground” and “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”).

The talk box came out again, as it did last year, after some fun call and response with the audience. This time he only used it for one fun cover tune – the Stylistics’ “People Make the World Go Round,” and it was a pretty complete version too.

Biggest surprise of the evening: a full performance, with band member solo spots, of Chick Corea’s “Spain” (as heard on the second Return to Forever album, Light as a Feather). [Though Lee Hildebrand's piece for the San Francisco Chronicle identified this tune as Joaquin Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez," in reality, Hildebrand only identified the intro to "Spain," which Corea lifted from Rodrigo's piece. The rest of the tune is Corea's].

Songs missed: would have been nice to hear something off A Time 2 Love. He actually announced “So What the Fuss” at the end of the night, but played “Superstition” instead and called it an evening. Not a bad trade-off, but still.

Most polite audience moment: the crowd actually hushed to listen to Aisha sing a jazzy rendition of “I’m Gonna Laugh You Out of My Life,” and good thing – she wasn’t always easy to hear. Good singing voice, definitely has her dad’s genes.

Most welcome diversion from the hits: we were treated to a new song called “Keep Fooling Yourself Baby Girl,” from the forthcoming album Through the Eyes of Wonder. There’s nothing like hearing a legend who refuses to rest on his laurels. Even though it wasn’t the most memorable tune (can’t remember the melody for the life of me), it certainly sounded catchy at the time and was modeled in classic Stevie fashion. Can’t wait to hear the rest of the album!

Most annoying abbreviation of a song: Stevie performed acceptably abbreviated versions of “Isn’t She Lovely” (I wonder if Aisha ever gets sick of hearing this song?) and “I Just Called to Say I Love You” (1 verse and two choruses do just fine), but when he stopped the band after his harmonica solo during “For Once in My Life” and declared “that’s enough of that,” man, that was nothing short of mean!

Bottom line: the man is still 100% dynamite, a national treasure. Go see him! If everybody could experience Stevie Wonder live, the makers of Prozac would surely go out of business.

Set list:

As If You Read My Mind
Master Blaster (Jammin’)
Did I Hear You Say You Love Me?
All I Do
Knocks Me Off My Feet
Audience jam/People Make The World Go Round
Higher Ground
Spain
Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing
Visions
Living For The City
Golden Lady
Creepin’
Keep Fooling Yourself Baby Girl
I’m Gonna Laugh You Out Of My Life (Aisha Morris)
Isn’t She Lovely (2 verses)
Ribbon In The Sky
Overjoyed
My Cherie Amour
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours
Sir Duke
I Wish
Do I Do
I Just Called To Say I Love You (1 verse, two choruses)
For Once In My Life (stopped after harmonica solo)
Uptight (Everything’s Alright)
Superstition

Stevie on Sunday

Another 13 days gone by… I’d rather forget they even happened. Except for last Sunday – Stevie Wonder was up in Concord, stopping by on his first full tour in 17 years. I was there, with my good friend and co-worker Julie. And as anyone who knows Stevie’s music can tell you, it’s full of good vibes. The man himself is just overflowing with genuine positivity. And he gave us loads of it, all directly to us, with us, and for us.

Stevie had his daughter Aisha Morris at his side as he walked out to center stage. Before he began the actual concert, he told us about the effect his mother’s death had on him last year, and how he nearly canceled all appearances he had lined up. But he went ahead with an appearance he had at a wedding in Hawaii, and carrying on in his strong, bull-headed fashion, he’s out there now telling all of us ‘thank you’ for listening and for essentially giving his mother a much better life than she would have had otherwise. It was a personal, heartfelt introduction, in which he concluded by saying we’ll remember the night as a night we all spent together. And he was serious – he’d really involve us in the performance.

And then, he solemnly and softly began the show, after making it through some sound problems on his microphone during his opening talk to us, with “Love’s In Need Of Love Today.” Starting off accompanied only by his piano, Stevie was joined by Aisha on backing vocals in the first chorus, and then gradually the rest of the band joined in – one drummer, two percussionists (one on either side of the drummer), two guitarists, a bassist, another keyboard player, and a total of three backing vocalists (including Aisha).

From here, we got three songs in a row – the first three in order, in fact – from Innervisions, which is my personal favorite of Stevie’s albums. “Too High” was especially well done, sounding almost exactly like the recording, right down to the tempo and keyboard tones. “Visions” was arranged a little differently – electric piano was prominent along with acoustic guitar, and Stevie nearly doubled it in length as he extended the coda into a full-on preach against the violence we’re inflicting upon each other across the globe. He had us join him in chanting “stop it!” And then, “Living For The City” came next and got the biggest response from the crowd up to that point, being that it was the first big hit of the night that he played.

From here, the mood lightened considerably as “Master Blaster” came next. There’s no better way to get people moving than with a pure party song paying homage to Bob Marley. But it got even better – before returning to Innervions again for that album’s biggest hit, “Higher Ground,” Stevie proceeded to lead the band through a lengthy jam in which he played some funky clavinet, and then… the talk box came out. Stevie had been using it well before Peter Frampton made it famous, and I think we had all forgotten about Pete after Stevie jammed on “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” into almost all of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine.” And then, he vocalized the rhythm for the band and gave us a verse and chorus of “Billie Jean” in which he faked the words. But even fake words sound cool on the talk box.

The intensity level came down a bit after “Higher Ground,” with the beautiful, mid-tempo piano-based ballad “Golden Lady,” again from Innervisions. This segued into a solo piano and vocal medley of “Can’t Imagine Love Without You,” “Too Shy To Say” and “You And I.” It was the mushy moment of the show, the one that was for the lovers who were already smitten by the appearance of the rising moon up above us. The rest of the band rejoined Stevie for “Overjoyed,” and then Stevie had to take a quick break to refresh his throat. He sounded a little hoarse during his introductory speech, but his voice was clear as ever when he sang. He explained to us, and had us cracking up as he did, that the “nasty” tasting stuff he was drinking to coat his throat (or “th’oat” as he told us, reminiscing along the way about his mother and father used to say it) consisted of cider vinegar and honey. He gulped it down, the percussionists jammed on for a bit, and then, on into…

“Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” would be the last of the six tunes he pulled from Innervisions. The only other album so heavily represented was Songs In The Key Of Life, and at this point I actually expected to hear that album’s “Another Star” based on the percussion rhythms I was hearing. But that would actually come later.

It was back to party time again with “Boogie On Reggae Woman” and “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours.” At the conclusion of the latter, Stevie joked about how it could have been a country song and proceeded to mess around with country-sounding arrangements that came off almost like Ray Charles. And then he even played and sang, quite beautifully, a little bit of Charlie Rich’s big early ‘70s pop-country crossover hit “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World.”

From here out, the order of the songs is a little fuzzy to me. But I know we got to hear a flawless “All I Do,” and got another funny story about a girl Stevie was dating who barely registered a reaction to a song he wrote for her. They broke up, but he got “My Cherie Amour” out of it. We were led through some call and response, which actually might have preceded “My Cherie Amour.” And there was a super funky jam on “Superstition” which folded in Parliament’s “Tear The Roof Off The Sucker” at the end, which again, had the audience singing along. We got “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.” And we got the three big hits off Songs In the Key Of Life – “I Wish,” “Sir Duke” and “Isn’t She Lovely.” Aisha was standing by her father’s side on the latter, and gave him a big hig – this is her song, the one Stevie wrote for her when she was just a baby, and in fact she is the baby you hear at the beginning of the recording.

“Do I Do” showed up towards the end, which if I’m remembering correctly, was the song where Stevie got behind a drum kit towards the end for a little duet with the band’s regular drummer. He’s more known for his harmonica and piano playing, but Stevie is actually a fine drummer, and sounds better now than he ever did.

As the show wound up, we all helped Stevie on a stripped down arrangement of “Part Time Lover” in which the guys sang Stevie’s rhythmic vocal part, the girls sang the synth hook, and Stevie sang the leads and played piano. And we all shouted along the title throughout. It’s kind of a corny song, but this group participatory arrangement was pretty awesome. “I Just Called To Say I Love You” was played in a truncated version, and then I believe this was the point where we finally got to hear another new-ish song, “So What The Fuss,” from 2005’s A Time 2 Love. He had us all clapping along on it, before the song I was expecting to hear earlier in the set – “Another Star” – finally closed us out.

I probably speak for more than just myself when I say that I left the show feeling a lot better than when I went in, and not just because I heard so many of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs. The guy really knows how to engage an audience and make them feel like joyful participants. And though he preaches love a lot, he means it, and it comes across as completely genuine and meaningful. He chose the right time to get back out there and show us some love, and truly, there are few pop performers who can do it as well as he can, with as many amazing songs as he has. Thank you, Stevie. You got me smilin’ again!

Songs performed (not necessarily in order):

Love’s In Need Of Love Today
Too High
Visions
Living For The City
Master Blaster (Jammin’)
Clavinet/Talk Box Jam (with Mary Had A Little Lamb, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Billie Jean)
Higher Ground
Golden Lady
Ribbon In The Sky
Can’t Imagine Love Without You
Too Shy To Say
You And I
Overjoyed
(voice tip – cider vinegar & honey)
Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing
Boogie On Reggae Woman
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Country renditions/The Most Beautiful Girl In The World
All I Do
My Cherie Amour
Sir Duke
I Wish
Superstition/Tear The Roof Off
You Are The Sunshine Of My Life
Isn’t She Lovely
Do I Do
Part Time Lover
I Just Called To Say I Love You
So What The Fuss
Another Star