Stevie Marvel’s dominant Seventies inventive run yielded a number of the best music, common or in any other case, of the twentieth Century. It was transcendent not just for Marvel’s compositional prowess, however for his humanism, whether or not celebratory (“I Wish”; “Isn’t She Lovely”) or sobering (“Superstition”; “Living For the City”). By decade’s finish, nonetheless, his artistry’s viability had curiously come into query. Arriving three years after his 1976 opus, Songs Within the Key of Life, the expansive, largely instrumental documentary movie soundtrack Journey Via the Secret Lifetime of Crops was a industrial dud that left many followers perplexed. Amidst a musical panorama seismically fractured by disco and its reactionary aftermath, and rapidly being redefined by youthful voices each acquainted (Michael Jackson) and radically new (Prince), one couldn’t assist however wonder if Stevie wasn’t misplaced inside the introspection of his personal genius?
His response, 1980’s Hotter Than July, quelled any doubts so resoundingly they appeared silly in hindsight. That exultant shout that commences its opening observe, “Did I Hear You Say You Love Me?” – a four-on-the-floor quantity that by no means abandons its soul on the dance flooring – all however embodies this joyous return to type. After consecutive double LP huge statements, Hotter Than July clocks in at a good 10-songs with nary a wasted notice. And although Stevie’s diminished the operating time, his attain stays unbounded. “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” represents one thrilling new foray: an explosive reggae-fied tribute to Bob Marley that finds him incorporating a depraved steppers beat into his already prodigious bag of tips. “I Ain’t Gonna Stand For It” represents one other: a breezy little bit of nation funk that includes a barely recognizable Stevie singing in an intermittent twang (with Hole Bandsmen Charlie and Ronnie Wilson on backup vocals) that might have slid comfortably onto that 12 months’s C&W smash City Cowboy soundtrack.
“All I Do” is a examine in each Stevie’s enduring songwriting talents and knack for reinvention. Composed in 1966 throughout his early Motown tenure and recorded the identical 12 months by Tammi Terrell with a seductive lilt and longing, it’s rearranged and modernized right here as an exuberant electrical piano-fueled R&B masterpiece – with an all-star refrain of backing vocalists led by MJ, Betty Wright, and the O’Jays’ Eddie Levert and Walter Williams accentuating its fervor. Stevie enjoys extra invaluable personnel help elsewhere – veteran Motown arranger Paul Riser’s darting strings on a melodramatic “Rocket Love”; longtime collaborator (and ex-wife) Syreeta’s distinctively excessive, candy vocals on the playful “As If You Read My Mind.” However finally it’s his purely solo materials that makes the biggest influence.
Accompanying himself on piano and synth bass, the heartbreaking “Lately” has him considering the telltale clues of an untrue companion in certainly one of his best ballad vocal readings. “Happy Birthday,” the album’s jubilant finale that includes Stevie on all devices, channels his activism in the direction of making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a nationwide vacation into a number of the most transferring lyrics of his profession: “I just never understood / How a man who died for good / Could not have a day that would / Be set aside for his recognition.” Three years on and fifteen years after King’s assassination, that effort, catalyzed by Marvel, would lastly be signed into legislation – the singular significance of which alone makes Hotter Than July an indispensable work.
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