Archives for November 2022

Certain Songs #2497: Stevie Wonder – “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours”

November 30, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Signed Sealed & Delivered
Year: 1970

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As he approached his 21st birthday, Stevie Wonder was getting restless, aching to have more control over his music. And as it turned out, the first instance of that control, the awesome “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” certainly helped him make that case.

No only was Stevie a co-writer (along with his mom — who apparently came up with the title — future wife Syreeta Wright, and a friend of his, Lee Garrett), “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” was also his first producer credit, as well. Oh, and he also played the drums. The future wasn’t here yet, but it was definitely peeking around the corner.

Certain Songs #2496: Stevie Wonder – “I Was Made To Love Her”

November 29, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: I Was Made To Love Her
Year: 1967

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Unlike “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” which was an uptempo rush from the start, Stevie’s next great single, “I Was Made To Love Her,” was slower, more measured, and funkier on every level.

Once again written & produced by Sylvia Moy, Hank Cosby and of course Stevie — who got his mother a partial songwriting credit because why not — “I Was Made to Love Her” featured a sitarish guitar hook from Eddie Willis which led into a short harmonica solo from Stevie before he got down to business with a bit of misdirection about his life story.

Certain Songs #2495: Stevie Wonder – “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”

November 28, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Up-Tight
Year: 1965

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It was clear that Motown had no idea what to do with Stevie Wonder for the first few years of his career. Sure they got an early #1 single by weaponizing the thing they hated about him — his disinclination to leave any stage he was on — but after the fluke of “Fingertips Pt. 2”, just one misstep after another. And whether or not the tribute album to Ray Charles — you see, he was also blind and Black! — or Stevie at the Beach, an album of surf music, was more misguided is not for me to ever figure out.

Certain Songs #2494: Stevie Nicks – “Edge of Seventeen”

November 25, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bella Donna
Year: 1981

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This is probably my favorite Stevie Nicks song all up, and that includes Fleetwood Mac heavy hitters like “Landslide,” “Gold Dust Woman” and even the hallowed “Dreams.” “Edge of Seventeen” takes all of the spacey, trancey aspects of her music and rolls them into a single ball of hooky weirdness.

We talked a bit yesterday about Stevie Nicks’s friendship with Tom Petty, and that’s kinda sorta the springboard for “Edge of Seventeen,” as Nicks had befriended Petty’s then wife, Jane, and at some point Jane told Stevie that she and Tom met at the “the age of seventeen,” which Nicks heard as “the edge of seventeen,” and there we go.

Certain Songs #2493: Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”

November 24, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bella Donna
Year: 1981

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I’m pretty sure everybody knows the story of this song, but just in case, it goes like this: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were recording Hard Promises with producer Jimmy Iovine — who had helmed their breakthrough Damn The Torpedoes — and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” was one of the songs they recorded but decided on to put on the album.

By this time, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty were already really close friends — a friendship that started in the late 1970s and lasted until Petty’s death (which still fucking sucks, by the way) — and in fact, Petty wrote “Insider” for her album, but it ended up on Hard Promises. Meanwhile, the story goes that Nicks wanted Petty to produce her solo debut, but he recommended Iovine, and Nicks and Iovine hit it off so well that they were living together after a couple of weeks. Cocaine is a helluva drug.

Certain Songs #2492: Steve Wynn – “Annie & Me”

November 23, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Crossing Dragon Bridge
Year: 2008

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After his “desert trilogy” — three albums full of his trademark noisy rock — Steve Wynn took a hard left turn at Albuquerque and ended up in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he spent three weeks making a record with producer Chris Eckman. After decades of recording with a band, the basic tracks were all Wynn, who played guitars, bass, whatever he thought made sense.

Certain Songs #2491: Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 – “No Tomorrow”

November 22, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album:… Tick… Tick…Tick
Year: 2006

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The final album in what Steve Wynn called his “Desert Trilogy” once again featured the Miracle 3, this time actually pared down to the threesome of drummer Linda Pitmon, bassist Bob DeCastro and guitarist Jason Victor, and while I didn’t like it quite as much, it still had “No Tomorrow,” one of the weirder songs in Wynn’s solo canon.

Certain Songs #2490: Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3 – “Amphetamine”

November 21, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Static Transmission
Year: 2003

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The hot streak initiated by Here Comes The Miracles continued on Steve Wynn’s next album, 2003’s Static Transmission, which was credited to Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3. Naturally, the Miracle 3 had four people: long-time accomplices Linda Pitmon on drums, Bob DeCastro on bass, hot shot guitarist Jason Victor — who would eventually join Wynn in The Dream Syndicate 3.0 — and Chris Cacavas on keyboards (though the album does say “with” in his credit, so I guess technically, he wasn’t a Miracle 3, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of a cheap joke).

Certain Songs #2489: Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3 – “What Comes After”

November 19, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Static Transmission
Year: 2003

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If the last song on the 2001’s Here Comes The Miracles was called “There Will Come a Day,” the opening track of the next album, 2003’s Static Transmission felt like it was an answer song, even if it really wasn’t. Instead, “What Comes After” was more about having the maturity — the grace — to accept change in all of its myriad forms.

Certain Songs #2488: Steve Wynn – “There Will Come A Day”

November 18, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Here Come The Miracles
Year: 2001

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Of course, it’s possible that I kept playing Here Come The Miracles in order to get to its last song, the joyful singalong “There Will Come a Day,” which just might be my favorite song of his entire solo career.

Kicking off with a classic chord progression and featuring Chris Cacavas — who’d been playing with Wynn since the Danny & Dusty days — doubling both organ and piano, “There Will Come a Day” features a bluesy garage-folk sound over which Wynn decides he’s had enough.