Album: Songs in the Key of Life
Year: 1976
. . .
While Songs in the Key of Life is always lumped in with the three (or four) albums that preceded it, it’s actually somewhat different, at least in its execution. While the 1972-1974 albums recorded featured the TONTO synth — and the guys who invented it, Robert Margouleff & Malcolm Cecil as the co-producers — as well as Wonder being responsible for the lion’s share of the instruments and vocals, Songs in the Key of Life was a more inclusive affair.
Like for example, the second single, a jazz-funk tribute to Duke Ellington and other pre-Bop titans, “Sir Duke”, features not just Stevie, but bassist Nathan Watts, drummer (and porn star!) Raymond Pounds, as well as guitarists Ben Bridges and Michael Sembello (yes, the “Maniac” guy), plus the horn section that dominated the song: Hank Redd & Trevor Lawrence on the saxes plus Raymond Maldonado & Steve Madaio on the trumpets.
And so, “Sir Duke” starts with the horn section in full flight, playing a perfectly syncopated line, setting up Wonder’s opening verse about the joys of music.
Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance, and clap their handsBut just because a record has a groove
Don’t make it in the groove
But you can tell right away at letter A
When the people start to move
The cool thing about the verses of “Sir Duke” is how the first half is calm and measured, Stevie lazily singing over a straight beat, and then, out of nowhere, it gets all funky and jazzy and shit, setting up the chorus.
They can feel it all over
They can feel it all over people
They can feel it all over
They can feel it all over people, go
After that is a long unison solo from the horn section, with Stevie exhorting them on with cheers and whoops and laughs and bassist Watts secretly keeping it all together. Obviously j-a-z-z had always been an influence on Wonder — his first album had been called The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie — but it had receded almost completely in the early 1970s, but on Songs in the Key of Life, “Sir Duke” part. of a jazzy triptych of songs, sitting in the middle of the instrumental “Contusion” and “I Wish,” and paying full tribute to his forepeople in the second verse.
Music knows it is and always will
Be one of the things that life just won’t quit
But here are some of music’s pioneers
That time will not allow us to forget, noFor there’s Basie, Miller, Satchmo
And the king of all, Sir Duke
And with a voice like Ella’s ringing out
There’s no way the band can lose
That said, he speeds through that list of influences so quickly, the only one you might even notice is the song’s title, and maybe that’s only because it’s the song’s title. That said, the one thing you don’t miss is the chorus, which pretty much dominates the back half of the song.
You can feel it all over
You can feel it all over people
You can feel it all over
You can feel it all over people
You can feel it all over
You can feel it all over people
You can feel it all over
You can feel it all over people
That said, people really loved the jazzy soul of Stevie Wonder, as after it was released as a single “Sir Duke” followed “I Wish” to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart as well as making it to number two on the U.K. singles charts.
“Sir Duke”
“Sir Duke” live in the studio, 1977(?)
“Sir Duke” Live in London, 2008
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