(Part III of III)
By Daniel J. Levitin
In Parts One and Two of this interview, Stevie Wonder talked about record production, drumming influences, song arrangements, sequencing and more. In this final installment, pop music's Renaissance man considers the spiritual aspects of his musical career.

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Daniel Levitin: So how does an artist try to stay innovative for thirty years?

Stevie Wonder: The only way that you can really stay innovative in music is to be in love with life.You have to live life to be innovative in music.

DL: How do you do that? What do you do to stay...

SW: You just have to live. You just have to go through different experiences. I'm not sayingyou know, go and hang out at some place where you can see somebody get shot in adrive-by. I'm saying you have to, you have to look at yourself over and over again. Youhave to look back and reflect on how you were, and look at yourself...

DL: Like a novelist does...

SW: ...and say do I feel this way still? Like I was telling you, I can listen to "You And I"[from the 1972 album "Talking Book"] and ask myself, how do I feel when I hear that now? Do I still feel that same way? When I hear "Tuesday Heartbreak" [also from "TalkingBook"], do I feel that same way? Do I feel this little thing, the fun? I listen to stuff and Irecapture that feeling that I had then. And from that feeling, I go to where I am now. Let's talk about "Cold Chill" [from "Conversation Peace"] for instance. I wrote thatsong in Ghana. I remember that it was a night in February, and that it was real warmoutside. I started thinking about Detroit, and I flashed back to Motown, and thesummertime, and in my mind I was in a summertime mood. I was feeling good andthinking of a Holland-Dozier-Holland sound [sings], and then I was thinking of the RollingStones [sings, imitating Mick Jagger]. And so basically, I used the element of the warmweather that I was in, but I was reflecting back to when I was growing up in Detroit andthe feelings of summertime. When I got to the room where I had all my stuff set up, Ibegan to play those chords and work on it and sequence it, and there was that mood. So Ithink that you kind of have to really live and revisit something and be there...

DL: That's interesting because you're talking so much about the place in your heart and inyour life experience where the song needs to come from. You're not talking much aboutthe technical aspect of putting chords together and making chords and melodies, workingit. Yet you have so much expertise at the technical.

SW: Because basically what happens for me is that it has to come from something thatyou're feeling inside. And so obviously as technical as it can get, if it's coming from thespirit, you know, you can go to the deepest of everything and it can seem so technical orso unique because you're discovering that picture, that color that's in your mind. Are youfollowing me?

DL: Mm-hmm.

SW: And so like when I wrote "I'm New," which I wrote also when I was in Ghana, I wasthere with a feeling of it all. I could imagine the feeling of it and I felt that emotion was init; I could imagine where it would be on the CD as I was working with it. And as it is lotsof times when I write things, I know what I want to write about - meaning the feeling of itall - but I don't have the words. I don't have the lyric. I know what I want it to be aboutusually. I know what I want the feeling to be like.

DL: I have a question about creativity. When you think of somebody who's a real creativegenius - someone like Miles Davis, Yo-Yo Ma, Duke Ellington, musical geniuses. Do youthink that people like that - whether you're an expert musician or chess player or an expertathlete or whatever - you think that people who are experts just have more of whateverybody else has or do you think they have some completely different thing in theirbrains, in their bodies?

SW: I think that we're all put here to do the thing that we do. It gets to us just discoveringwhat that is. And believing in what that is, and holding on to what that is and nurturingwhat that is. I don't know if I'm answering the question - I hope I am.

DL: Well it's a different idea. Suppose that somebody had great musical talent but grewup in an environment where they never were able to get a musical instrument and neverdiscovered they had that talent. There could be a James Brown or a Stevie Ray Vaughanwho's a brick layer because they never got their hands on an instrument, but they weremade by God to have that talent.

SW: Well, I think that if they were made by God to have that talent, they've got to get tothat guitar like Stevie, they got to do that, I don't care what it takes, they got to...

DL: They may not know it, they may never know that that's their talent in life.

SW: Well if they don't know it then it probably is not true! [laughs] You understand whatI'm saying? It's like when they say a gift from God, the gifted artist is able to just, the kid isable to draw on a piece of paper and you say wow, that is incredible. Or that person isable to do a riff or sing, and you say wow that is amazing.

DL: Now do you think these people have a completely different part of their brain thatnobody else has, or they just have whatever it is - memory and coordination with theirhands - and just more of that stuff that the ordinary musician has?

SW: I just think that it is an instinctive thing. That's what I think it is. I think thatinstinctively you just know and you're just drawn to that and you know. That's what Ithink. And I think that if you do it, like I said, or you nurture it, and if you do it with care - if you treat it as if it is a child that you want to grow up and do something wonderful - then it will nurture, it will manifest itself more and more in you. I think that it is as big asyour ability to imagine and to create and nurture these. I really feel that as much as I'vedone, all the things that I've done in music, I have yet to do all the things that God wantsme to do.

DL: What is it that you want to do most next in your life?

SW: I really want to write a musical. I want to do a jazz album. I want to do a gospelalbum.

DL: What do you think has been your greatest achievement so far in music?

SW: Umm...You know, it's funny. I can say that as far as a body of work, "Songs In TheKey Of Life" is probably great for what that was, and so there's a part of me that wants todo something like that again. But not that because that can not be done again. Butdefinitely equivalent to that or greater or whatever it's all about. Just because I'm a Taurusso, you know, there's a challenge part within myself. I don't know, because all thedifferent songs for different reasons have a great feeling for me.

DL: You were talking to one interviewer who was sort of calling you to account forsentimentality in love songs and you were saying to him, well, you know, love is asentimental thing, it's hard to strike the balance.

SW: It's that deep part of yourself. When you read something in the paper, or seesomething on television about an infant being crushed by a train, or something like that,you don't see any color, you don't see anything, you see that child, you hurt. Because, forme, immediately I go to the home of the parent of that child, I go to the brother and sisterof that child...

DL: In your mind?

SW: In my mind, all the way there. When I hear about a plane crash I'm there in the plane.I'm there. I'm imagining how it felt going down, I'm imagining what was going through themind, I'm imagining all the different tears, I'm imagining what it's going to mean. And soyou know there's a whole process that happens. An interesting thing happened to me when Donny Hathaway died because I was agreat fan of Donny Hathaway, and I kept asking God these questions: God, why did youtake his life? Why couldn't you have taken mine? And that's a really rough thing to say. Ireally meant it and so what happened was...

DL: This was a long time ago, this was 15 years ago...

SW: Yeah, and, so I was asking that question ...

DL: Did you feel guilty like 'why am I here? Why did Donny have to go and I got to stay?'

SW: I think that was part of it, but it was a selfishness really when I thought about it. I hada dream around that time, and I asked the question and I saw what I thought was God. Itscared the life out of me! His voice said I don't know why you questioned me. I neverquestion what I gave you. I never chose someone else to this versus you, so you don't havethe right to ask me why. That was something between me and Donny...

DL: God's saying this to you?

SW: I promise you, I'm telling you, I was so scared. And it was just like people think, [in adeep voice] 'there was fire and there was a light.' There was this light and I could feel it,and there was this question. And I wanted to know the answer. And so from that day on,I'm not going to tell you that I don't say "Why?" but I never will say "Why not me?" Because it was very true. It's a fact that only by the grace of God am I here, so I really gotthe message and I felt that I really, I hadn't had the right to ask to die versus someone elseto die.

DL: That must have been like a kick in the butt for you.

SW: Oh man, it was rough.

DL: The next song you wrote must have felt really different from the rest. It must havebeen like...

SW: I don't even know if it affected just one song. [laughs] I think it may have affected allthe songs since!

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Copyright © 1996, Daniel J. Levitin.

interesting... Thanks, Harlepolis!

I remember reading this Grammy Magazine interview back in the day. Stevie shows a tremendous amount of Empathy and respect for Donny Hathaway here.

Thanks for posting this. It makes me love Stevie even more.

Do you have a link for the other two parts? I'm dyin ova here

Slave2daGroove said:

Guess not