By all accounts Prince was/is a big Stevie Wonder fan, but of all the people who influenced prince, I find Stevie to be the least evident in Prince's music. Which songs seem to be heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder?

Have you actually LISTENED to much Stevie Wonder? I am thinking, no.

Chasing said:

Is this a joke? Stevie's influence is all over Prince's music.

Like what?

bigbrother said:

By all accounts Prince was/is a big Stevie Wonder fan, but of all the people who influenced prince, I find Stevie to be the least evident in Prince's music. Which songs seem to be heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder?

Hey Bigbrother,

Seriously, if you're looking for an interesting discussion about Prince's music, you need to go elsewhere. You're getting attacked by these dorks for no reason.

As far as Prince's music being influenced by Stevie, you can hear a lot of Stevie's influence in Prince's use of synths.

Pink Cashmere's drums in particular are absolutely influenced by Stevie Wonder. Prince's earlier 80s material owes a lot to Sly Stone but a song like She Loves Me 4 Me could easily be included on a Stevie album.

Hope this helps...

J

Chasing said:

No one is attacking anyone at all, just surprised that Stevie's heavy influence cannot be heard throughout many of Prince's tunes, as you say mainly twins, but also drum sounds, percussive techniques, and occasionally vocal coding, that was all. the term 'dorks' was completely unnecessary.

but is quite funny

I admit I'm not heavily into Stevie's music but from the little I do know, I can't see the obvious influence that I can with say, JB, Santana or Sly Stone. Do you think Prince's vocals reveal any influence from Stevie?

Stevie was a huge influence on Prince and it can be heard on his first two albums. The reason why you don't tend to hear it in his 80's work is when Prince first was introduced, they(music execs.) billed him as the next Stevie Wonder. Prince didn't want to be the next Stevie Wonder, he wanted to be the first Prince, so he steered away from making music that sounded like Stevie Wonder.

So basically every one who came before Prince influenced Prince?

Money Don't Matter 2Night (one of my favourite Prince songs) is influenced by Stevie's vocals. Prince sings it a lot like Stevie to my ears.

Seek out songs such as: "You Haven't Done Nothing", "Living For the City", "Frontline", "Boogie On Reggae Woman", "Sir Duke", and also there is the way he likes to ask the audience if it's ok if he plays his guitar for a while is very reminicsient of Stevie and his "Can I play?" type outbursts. Less dorky now?

jayARDAHB said:

bigbrother said:

By all accounts Prince was/is a big Stevie Wonder fan, but of all the people who influenced prince, I find Stevie to be the least evident in Prince's music. Which songs seem to be heavily influenced by Stevie Wonder?

Hey Bigbrother,

Seriously, if you're looking for an interesting discussion about Prince's music, you need to go elsewhere. You're getting attacked by these dorks for no reason.

As far as Prince's music being influenced by Stevie, you can hear a lot of Stevie's influence in Prince's use of synths.

Pink Cashmere's drums in particular are absolutely influenced by Stevie Wonder. Prince's earlier 80s material owes a lot to Sly Stone but a song like She Loves Me 4 Me could easily be included on a Stevie album.

Hope this helps...

J

Pink Cashmere's drums were influenced by Stevie? How are you hearing that? I just don't hear this one. Can you explain this one a little more or give a Stevie song to compare it to?

u know Stevie has a jam called 'Big Brother' right? Is that where u got ur name?

that's my jam!!!!

I feel like Stevie's influence can be heard and felt. Heard in songs like "For You" where the cascade of vocals is similar to those of Stevie's on "Love's in Need of Love Today". Felt in the sense that he strived to have one singular element: himself. Prince wasn't the first to "Produced, Written, Recorded, blah, blah" by ...

Stevie crafts songs in ways that a large percentage of artists can only strive to attain. I think Prince seeing Stevie sweep the Grammys during his "Classic" period showed Prnce that one could drive the entire train.

I also think Javi was dead on about "Money Don't Matter 2Night". Prince's vocal shape is similar to that on "Village Ghetto Land". Both achieve poignant velocity with each verse (vocally speaking).

alexnvrmnd777 said:

jayARDAHB said:

Hey Bigbrother,

Seriously, if you're looking for an interesting discussion about Prince's music, you need to go elsewhere. You're getting attacked by these dorks for no reason.

As far as Prince's music being influenced by Stevie, you can hear a lot of Stevie's influence in Prince's use of synths.

Pink Cashmere's drums in particular are absolutely influenced by Stevie Wonder. Prince's earlier 80s material owes a lot to Sly Stone but a song like She Loves Me 4 Me could easily be included on a Stevie album.

Hope this helps...

J

Pink Cashmere's drums were influenced by Stevie? How are you hearing that? I just don't hear this one. Can you explain this one a little more or give a Stevie song to compare it to?

I was thinking the same! How is the drums (of all instruments) influenced by Stevie? Its a pretty straight forward drumbeat with Linn!! sounds. I actually dont hear much Stevie influence in Prince's music. Maybe when he uses clav sounds in his first album. I love Stevie though, hes the best. if u can hear influence in prince's production and beats i would say JB (rhythm guitar) and George Clinton (synthezisers). His guitarplaying obviously Santana and JH.

I don't hear Stevie much either. I'm sure Stevie was an influence in some way - like being a multi-instrumentalist and producing albums for female artists (much like Stevie did in the '70s) but other than that?

You can hear a lot of Steve on Prince's first two albums. After than, Prince started to not only drift towards, but also surpass musical extremes (which is something Stevie hardly ever did - he was always brilliant and quite innovative, but still "safe").

I could be wrong,but I think 'Emancipation' was at least partly inspired by 'Songs In The Key Of Life'.

The musical turn around in 'Mountains' from 3:08 is so Stevie it's unreal. It's like Prince's 'Living For The City' turn around. But then that part of Mountains changes at 3:29 and that change is so 'Prince'.

Anyone hear that?

As someone already stated, Stevie Wonder's major influence on Prince was the desire and ablility to write and play most of the songs. Also, For You and Prince are musically inspired by Wonder's use of harmony, layering of songs, and keyboard arrangments. Of course, as Prince becomes more of his own person, he amalgamates his Wonder influence with the other influences to create his own sound and vision. In fact, in the same way that Richard Pryor attempted to kill the Bill Cosby in him with the album That N---'s Crazy, one could say that Prince does the same with Dirty Mind. After Dirty Mind, one finds flourishes or flavoring of Wonder like one finds of Hendrix, Brown, Parliament, and others, which may be more prevelant or profound in the others than Wonder's flavoring or influence. In later albums, it can be heard more in Emancipation.

Money Dont matter 2night?

Stevies influence on Prince? Something next 2 NOTHING.

Truthfully, Stevie Wonder's use of electronic noises and keyboards that can go out of tune, or push the key, seems to be a huge influence on the 80's Prince music.

For example "The Beautiful Ones" or "Annie Christian" is kind of like the electronic vibe of a song like "Have a Talk With God" off of a Wonder album Prince worships... "Songs in the Key of Life" which also seems to be an influence on Prince combining computer/digital textures with soul searching/spiritual/sexual subjects.

And in general, the range and sprawling epic range of subjects on "songs in the key of life" would seem to have influenced Prince on how he structures albums with varied songs that have a message or meaning. But that's getting very general!

But no doubt Prince listened to a lot of Stevie.

Based on the opinions of the org, it seems every artist known 2 man influenced Prince.

Graycap23 said:

Stevies influence on Prince? Something next 2 NOTHING.

Stevie Wonder type was how Prince marketed himself initially, a one man studio master that could play every instrument.

And the creative influence on Prince seems real, both in production approach, and song concept approach. A song like "Superstition" lyrically seems like a song like "There's Other's Here With Us".

Graycap23 said:

Based on the opinions of the org, it seems every artist known 2 man influenced Prince.

lol I have to add to my last post, although I mentioned the turn-around in Mountains to be extremely Stevie-esque (and it is) I don't really see/hear much else in Prince that points to a huge Stevie influence.

I'm sure Prince listened/listens to loads of Stevie, everyone does but that's not the same as hearing influences in the music.

"Here" is as close you get to a Stevie track that's not a Stevie track.

Great track though.

Stevies plants album has had a great influence on organic sounding Prince gems such as MPLSound, Elixer, etc.