Innervisions

Over the summer I picked up Stevie Wonder's Innervisions but failed to write about it, instead focusing on the other Motown/Tamla recordings I bought in the same trip (an early Marvin Gaye compilation and, um, Thriller). Whenever I play Innervisions, I move right away to "Living for the City". This is a powerful, dramatic song. From a boy being "born in hard time Mississippi" but then not being about to find a job in the city because "they don't use colored people," Stevie is writing about the struggle and disappointment in Black urban life, and that reference to Mississippi brings to mind the change in experience from rural South to urban North that came about as a result of the Great Migration. Oh yeah, and that's Stevie's brother near the end of the track who finally makes it to New York City ("New York, just like I pictured it!") before promptly getting arrested for being Black.

Stevie played all the instruments on this song for the album, as well for "Higher Ground" and "Jesus Children of America". That's impressive, I know, but watching the performance below makes me kind of wish he had reconsidered and gone for a backing band as tight as this one.