It’s A Shame
The Spinners
7″ Single, 1970

It all comes back to the Wonderlove. Stevie crops up so many (good) places. Click on the 45 label for a larger view and check the songwriting credit. As previously touched on (while discussing this other hot song that he co-wrote from that period), 1968-71 was a transitional period for Stevie as he went from being a teenage star to becoming a 20-something one-man show - establishing full creative control with Motown, took over his publishing rights and his production, and playing most of the instruments on most of his songs.

Although this song isn’t that much like his material that would come out a short time later, I like to imagine him sitting around, writing these instantly memorable melodies, instrumental lines and horn harmonies, gaining confidence and psyching himself up to take the giant leap forward that was soon to come.

The behind-the-scenes element to this song, that also fun to imagine is that he and Syreeta Wright, his fellow Motown artist and co-writer on this song, got married about 6 months after it was recorded. Was (Lee) Garrett feeling left out of the love-fest…or pre-marital squabbles?

I just found a whole page dedicated to Stevie Wonder songs for other artists but it looks like a long read, so I’ll publish this post first and read second.

>> songs are available for two weeks [4.2 MB]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Music Appreciation, Sampled. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.