Songs in the Key of Life cover

Songs in the Key of Life

Released

When it comes to R&B, the gold standard is indisputably Stevie Wonder. Maturing out of his teenage years, he started approaching deeper themes beginning on 1971’s Where I’m Coming From. The influence of his in-the-pocket, one-man-band musicianship on Songs in the Key of Life remains inescapable. From the joyous buoyancy of “Isn’t She Lovely” to the deep funk of “Sir Duke” to the melancholy of “Joy Inside My Tears” and the beauty of “Saturn,” the blueprint for so much of the R&B to come sprang from the creativity of Wonder in his mid-20s.

Miles Marshall Lewis

Recommended by

Suggestions
New Directions cover

New Directions

Jack DeJohnette
Afrodisiac cover

Afrodisiac

Africa 70, Fela Kuti
Nightlife cover

Nightlife

Erase Errata
The Wicked Pickett cover

The Wicked Pickett

Wilson Pickett
Innervisions cover

Innervisions

Stevie Wonder
It's Just Begun cover

It's Just Begun

The Jimmy Castor Bunch
The Special cover

The Special

Mitch Marcus Quintet
We Are Not The First cover

We Are Not The First

Hieroglyphic Being, J.I.T.U. Ahn-Sahm-Buhl