12. Stevie WonderInnervisions
I think that Innervisions is probably Stevie Wonder’s greatest work. A lot of people don’t know this about me, but during my early grade school days my mom was heavily influential in introducing me to black music. I think one of the reasons for this is because when we were living in Wisconsin she was dating an African-American dude, who was a jazz horn played who lived with us. This guy was awesome. He’d practice around the house in the day and at nighttime he’d playing gigs in the clubs. Sometimes my mum would let me tag along when she went to pick him up from his gigs. During that era I was introduced to a lot of soul music from people who were icons in these communities. But Innervisions was particularly interesting to me because it was written and produced and performed by Stevie Wonder – all of it. And this is what I loved about Todd Rundgren, too, that he’d be able to master all of these roles. But I think an album from the period when I was becoming exposed to black soul music deserves a place on the list.
