You’d probably be able to teach a semester-long class on the black popular music of the 1970s only using Stevie Wonder’s 1976 masterpiece “Songs in the Key of Life,” the best-selling and most highly acclaimed album of his storied career.
There’s supreme, righteous funk (“Sir Duke,” “I Wish,” “All Day Sucker”), politically conscious screeds (“Village Ghetto Land,” “Pastime Paradise,” “Black Man,” “Saturn”), prog-jazz fusion (“Contusion”), stirring R&B and proto-disco (“Love’s in Need of Love Today,” “As,” “Isn’t She Lovely”), Motown-esque girl-group harmonies (“Ordinary Pain”) and more than a few soft-rock ballads (“Knocks Me Off My Feet,” “Summer Soft,” “If It’s Magic”). If it was in the air, Wonder picked up on it and took it for a spin.
Wonder revisits the sprawling collection (it didn’t even fit on two LPs at the time) on the final leg of his Songs in the Key of Life Tour, which arrives at Hartford’s XL Center on Sunday, Oct. 11. The tour has been an emotional one for Wonder, who turned 65 earlier this year, lasting three hours and packing the stage with more than two dozen musicians. Doors open at 7 p.m., with the show starting at 8 p.m. Tickets are $29.50 to $129.50. Information: xlcenter.com.
