Stevie Wonder brings new life to Songs in the Key of Life at Verizon Center concert

On paper, it seems like Stevie Wonder should be older. He’s been in the public eye since getting his first Motown deal more than a half-century ago, when he was an 11-year-old billed as Little Stevie. But Wonder is, in fact, just 64. (For perspective: Bruce Springsteen is a year older.)

But in the flesh, as he was at Verizon Center on Sunday, it’s blatantly obvious he’s still got a whole lot of mischievous Little Stevie in him. Before singing a note, Wonder told the audience that he considered faking having lost his voice, and to prove he could get away with it broke into a Louis Armstrong-like rasp while asserting that nobody was going to get a refund because he’d met his contractual duty to show up and he wanted the money. The smile he wore while confessing his unfulfilled prank plan lit up the big, packed-to-the-roof arena all by itself.

In concert, Wonder has always been a play-the-hits guy, and Lord knows he's sent enough singles up the charts through the years to fill lots of set lists. But his current tour is a little different. In it, he fronts a mighty music ensemble with horn and string sections and more than one backup singing troupe, and he mostly eschews the radio-friendly material. Instead, he's honoring the most ambitious recording of his career, "Songs in the Key of Life." (Wonder, it was announced Monday night, will be honored himself, returning to Washington in two weeks to pick up the Presidential Medal of Freedom.) He offered all the songs from the revered and expansive 1976 collection, which contained two LPs and a four-cut EP filled with pop-soul masterpieces.

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Not that the reliance on this set meant the three-hour performance was devoid of familiar notes. The first portion of the two-set night contained reprises of the album’s radio mainstays, “Sir Duke” and “I Wish,” the latter a wistful piece even back in the day, with its lines about all the childish behaviors (“Smokin’ cigarettes and writing something nasty on the wall” among them) that didn’t translate to adulthood. “I wish those days could come back once more!” he sang, and the overwhelmingly middle-aged audience sang with him as if it seconded that emotion.

But this was more a night for deep cuts. He quietly sang “If It’s Magic,” accompanied only by a recording of the original harp track from the record. The notes came from jazz harpist Dorothy Ashby, who died of cancer in 1986. “Saturn” featured the guest vocals of India Arie, who made charismatic and infrequent cameos throughout the night, dressed in different but dependably showy outfits.

Wonder, because of his serene aura and in some ways also because of his ignoring his disabilities on the way to superstardom, is looked upon as more than a mere entertainer, and he broke into his philosopher role as he took the stage after an intermission. “I don’t understand why in 2014 we still have racism in America,” he said, asking all in attendance to do what they can to make it go away. He also challenged the United States to become the first country to be completely accessible to the disabled. It’s easy to forget that Wonder became famous in an era when blind singers regularly topped the charts: Ray Charles in R&B, José Feliciano in pop and Ronnie Milsap in country.

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A highlight of the second set was “Isn’t She Lovely,” a tune from the album that he wrote for his then-baby girl Aisha Morris. She’s grown now and is on the road as a backup singer in her dad’s band. The big screens inside the arena showed Morris, 39, smiling and swaying at the back of the stage as her father crooned. Wonder is expecting a child with girlfriend Tomeeka Robyn Bracy, and he was so annoyed by tabloid reports that called Bracy a youngster herself that he gave away her age to the crowd: “She’s 41!” he said.

After running through the record, Wonder assembled members of his huge musical cast at the front of the stage to take huzzahs, then said it was time to go. But when the crowd roared for more, he decided he’d launch into an oddball character, which he christened DJ Tick Tick Boom, who relished playing “just a teeny bit” of a recognizable Wonder song before “blowing it up” and moving on to another “teeny bit.” His “Master Blaster” blurb was the meanest tease of all, judging by the crowd’s disappointed reaction when he, well, blew it up.

But Wonder left little time for letdown, launching into the iconic opening from “Superstition” on his vintage Hohner keyboard, and when the band followed him, he kept the party going. Along with having perhaps the most famous funk riff in pop history, the 1972 chart-topper, which Wonder wrote with British guitar hero Jeff Beck, has Wonder ruminating on the silliness of letting fear of the supernatural guide one’s decisions. Wonder had the crowd repeating, “Superstition ain’t the way!” again and again. It should be noted, however, that Wonder ends every show with “Superstition.” Just sayin’.

McKenna is a freelance writer.

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