Stevie Wonder: Signed, Sealed And Delivered
Album Featuring You Can Work It Out and Heaven Help Us All
Sep 2, 2008
My Cherie Amour had proved somewhat of a damp squib in the musical development of Stevie Wonder, who had little to do with a great number of its tracks. Signed, Sealed and Delivered redressed the balance, with the artist co-writing seven of the twelve tracks and taking a production role on five of them. As a result, a sound unlike that of traditional Motown begins to formulate.
Heaven Help Us All
The album however opens with a more expected offering, the lead single 'Never Had A Dream Come True'. It's a medium-paced plea for love, which despite a rousing vocal hook fails to inject too much excitement. It's fellow single, 'Heaven Help Us All', despite its pointedly anti-war lyrics (written by Ron Miller) is again a standard big band, big voice vehicle.
What is most notable about these tracks, which are exceptionally produced, is the emotional investment from Stevie. Several of the songs on this album are full of mature lyrics, although they were written by older hands such as Miller.
However, Wonder displays an understanding of the topics he is singing about. In 'Heaven Help Us All' his fears for the success of peace are obvious, and having recently married Syreeta Wright he engages with the complexities inherent in a 'grown-up' love song such as 'Don't Wonder Why'.
We Can Work It Out
A neat crossroads is afforded by Stevie's cover of The Beatles' 'We Can Work It Out'. Following the established pattern of filling albums with cover material, Wonder took the non-traditional route of producing the song himself. The result was nothing like the original. Unlike 'Hello Young Lovers', this was a resoundingly positive thing.
Flying out of the blocks on a wave of hearty drums and frantic keys, thoughts of the original, now seemingly tame offering are blown away. Stevie's choice to back his lead vocal with a copycat falsetto added excitement and offered an extra level to the track, which becomes a hearty, full on plea for resolution.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)
The tracks here with the most Wonder input break from the Motown sound. In fact, they seem to, in the case of songs such as 'You Can't Judge A Book By It's Cover' and 'Sugar', be referencing label rivals Stax. There is the same sense of energy and a slight lack of polish which contrasted with the super-professional slickness of Motown.
Stevie's friend Lee Garrett suggested that 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours) would be better off with Stax, but Wonder took the song for himself. As a result, he scored another major hit, hitting number 1 on the R&B chart and a pop high of number 3.
A scream heralds the song, and from there the pace rarely lets up for the next three minutes. Short and sharp horn notes appear, something that would soon become a Wonder staple, and the whole song is heavy on percussion and rhythm.
The fact that Stevie's two sole productions on the album: 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered' and 'We Can Work It Out' were both top 3 R&B hits added fuel to his creative fire. When let loose of the Motown parameters, he was still capable of producing best-selling songs, and it was becoming unreasonable to not allow him to take control of his albums in their entirety.
