So while Wonder might have taken an old pop standard like “Hello Young Lovers,” once sung by crooners like Frank Sinatra and Perry Como, and felt the need to turn it into a groovy up-tempo R&B tune, that wasn’t not always the case. That comes from Wonder’s 1969 album My Cherie Amour, an eclectic mix of jazz standards and newer material, recorded in a variety of styles. Stevie Wonder in 1969 with the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein song “Hello Young Lovers,” originally from the musical The King And I.
It’s Stevie Wonder in the 1960s, coming up next on Afterglow. It’s a journey of hits and misses through pop, soul, jazz, and the Great American Songbook. The 1960s for Stevie Wonder is an interesting chapter in pop music history, as Motown Records tried to figure out how to market the young phenom, while Stevie tried to develop his own sound. There was a period of time in the mid 1970s when Stevie Wonder could seemingly do wrong-his so-called “classic period.” But before this, he was known as “Little” Stevie Wonder, a multi-talented teenager signed to Motown Records still discovering his voice. Welcome to Afterglow, I’m your host, Mark Chilla.
