Stevie Wonder was no longer a teenager when Signed, Sealed & Delivered<\/i> was released on August 7, 1970. It was a commercial success, producing four Top 30 hit singles.<\/p>\n
While he still filled out the album with a number of cover songs, Wonder had more control over the recording process by this time and was able to personally choose songs that would fit his style rather than being saddled with seemingly random choices by his label. He was also becoming an adept songwriter, and here he co-wrote seven of the 12 tracks.<\/p>\n
While the album had some ups and downs, the A-side of the original vinyl release was brilliant and was the equal of anything he would ever release. All four of the hit singles appear in a row. \u201cNever Had A Dream Come True\u201d was a smooth and soulful ballad with prominent keyboards and strings in support. \u201cWe Can Work It Out\u201d is one of the more creative Beatles covers you will ever hear, as he changed the phrasing and turned the song into a soul classic. \u201cHeaven Help Us All\u201d was composed by Ron Miller, who was also responsible for such Stevie Wonder hits as \u201cFor Once In My Life,\u201d \u201cYester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday,\u201d and \u201cA Place In The Sun.\u201d Wonder takes the song in a gospel direction as he interpreted the socially conscious lyrics that advocated change.<\/p>\n
No matter how good the other three singles might have been, the title song was the highlight of the album. It was the first single release produced solely by Wonder. It garnered him his first Grammy nomination as well. He used horns and guitars to accentuate his vocal and then filled in the gaps with female backing singers.<\/p>\n
His other five original compositions run the gamut from average to very good. All found him exploring different styles and sounds that would become finalized during what is considered his 1970s classic period. His use of keyboards moves in new and sometimes experimental directions, and while not always successful, they showed his maturation process was proceeding. The best of the lot was \u201cAnything You Want Me To Do,\u201d which had a memorable melody. On the other hand, songs such as \u201cSomething To Say,\u201d \u201cI Gotta Have A Song,\u201d and \u201cSugar\u201d have an unfinished <\/a>feel, which would not happen on future albums.<\/p>\n Signed, Sealed & Delivered<\/i> completed the second stage of Stevie Wonder\u2019s career. He had learned his lessons well and was ready to move on and create some of the most creative and influential albums in American music history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":30850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6336],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42527","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stevie-wonder","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42527"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}