Stevie Wonder
Abbey Road Studios
London, UK
November 9, 2005

BBC Radio 2 In Concert FM broadcast

First broadcast on December 10, 2005

Setlist:
01 rebroadcast announce
02 intro
03 Love’s In Need Of Love Today
04 Master Blaster (Jammin’)
05 Higher Ground
06 Living For The City **
07 Golden Lady
08 Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)
09 Ribbon In The Sky
10 You And I **
11 Joy Inside My Tears
12 My Love Is On Fire
13 Sir Duke
14 I Wish
15 Positivity
16 Isn’t She Lovely
17 All I Do **
01 Tuesday Heartbreak
02 Maybe Your Baby
03 You Are The Sunshine Of My Life
04 I Just Called To Say I Love You
05 What The Fuss
06 Superstition
07 You Haven’t Done Nothin’
08 song intro talk
09 Shelter In The Rain
10 As
11 outro

** station ID over applause at end of track

Stage announcements by Paul Gambuccini

Source 1: NewWildWest
Unknown > CD-R > Audacity (tracking, fades) > WAV > xACT (SBE’s fixed)
> FLAC

Source 2: UncleBoko
2010-04-22 rebroadcast > Akai AT-A301L FM Receiver > MZ-RH1 MD set for
PCM > Sonic Stage to WAV via USB > Adobe Audition (tracking, fades) >
FLAC

Both versions downloaded from Dime, and I thank both of the uploaders for
their generosity in sharing their filesets.

Lineage: DL’s > WaveLab 5 (DC offset correction, all micro-gaps between
tracks fixed with new edit points throughout) > FLAC (level 8, align to
sector boundaries, all tracks fully tagged)

This new fileset contains everything broadcast (as far as I know) by BBC
Radio 2 and seamlessly reassembled into a fileset close (hopefully) to
the correct running order. Unless a pre-FM surfaces, this is the most
complete version of this show anyone is likely to find.

Review by Pierre Perrone, November 2005

Playing live in the UK for the first time in 11 years to an audience of
Radio 2 competition winners and assorted media and celebrities, the man
who was born Steveland Judkins 55 years ago makes everything seem
effortless. In a formidable 150-minute, 26-song set majoring on his
Seventies heyday but also taking in tracks from his current release,
‘A Time To Love’, Stevie Wonder revives a career that has been on the
slide since the mighty ‘Hotter Than July’ album in 1980. Backed by a
seven-piece band and three vocalists, Wonder eases his way in to the
performance with “Love’s In Need of Love Today”, the opening track from
his ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’ 1976 opus. The message remains more
pertinent than ever but, for now, Stevie wants to “get the party started”
and launches into “Master Blaster (Jammin’)”, his Bob Marley-inspired
track, and then plays one of his trademark keyboard riffs into the
gospel-infused “Higher Ground” (apparently one of the 2 missing songs
performed). “Living For The City” and “You And I” follow, Wonder digging
deep at the grand piano. He switches to smoochie quiet storm mode with
“Ribbon In The Sky”, a slow song dedicated to “all the lovers in the
house”. At last, he touches on the new album with the mid-tempo “My Love
Is On Fire”, which suffers from the odd lyrical cliché and would have
been recorded with Luther Vandross if the soul balladeer hadn’t died
earlier this year. A musical genius who took on Ray Charles’s legacy and
reinvented soul in the Seventies, Wonder is an emotional performer who
runs the gamut of human emotions, from deep, heartfelt sorrow to
exuberance and childish impishness. He produces a harmonica and teases us
with the intro to “Fingertips Pt 2″, his 1963 US chart-topper, but
instead opts to play the infectious “Sir Duke”, his tribute to Duke
Ellington. Daughter Aisha Morris joins him for the staccato funk of
“Positivity”, which has so many lyrics that her father briefly loses his
way and laughs out loud. “Isn’t She Lovely” predictably follows, along
with a gushing appearance by the current Motown president, Sylvia Rhone.
Earlier in the day, Wonder had been adlibbing Beatles lyrics while
recording an interview with Steve Wright, but the man who covered the Fab
Four’s “We Can Work It Out” doesn’t play any Beatles songs. After all,
he’s occasionally recorded at Abbey Road, and Paul McCartney plays guitar
on the title track to ‘A Time To Love’. Thankfully, Wonder avoids the
ghastly “Ebony And Ivory”, though he can’t help playing “I Just Called To
Say I Love You”, which marked the nadir of his career in 1984, and “You
Are The Sunshine Of My Life”, just to prove that the ingredients in his
Motown melting pot include easy listening as well as jazz, rhythm ‘n’
blues and funk. “What The Fuss”, the dancefloor filler that heralded the
arrival of ‘A Time to Love’, proves irresistible, as does “Superstition”,
which segues into “You Haven’t Done Nothin” and an extended “Do I Do”
(apparently one of the 2 missing songs performed). Trumpeter Nolan Smith
Jr beautifully covers the parts Dizzy Gillespie played on the original
recording, and Wonder is truly in his element, scat-singing and
adlibbing. He forgets all about curfews and the poor BBC engineers who
will have to edit this supreme performance for broadcast, and finishes
with “Shelter In The Rain” and “As”, another track from ‘Songs In The Key
Of Life’. On this showing, the tour that is rumoured for next year can’t
come soon enough. The genius is back.
The headline concert in the new BBC Radio 2 In Concert series, Stevie
Wonder, recorded exclusively for BBC Radio 2 at the Abbey Road studios in
London on November 9, 2005. On the 2010-04-22 rebroadcast, the programme
is introduced by Jo Whiley.