Fulfillingness' First Finale

When, in the early '80s, my musical tastes were beginning to take their initial shape, my perception of Stevie Wonder was coloured by some of his most successful but, to my mind, least appealing songs: the likes of 'Ebony and Ivory' and 'I Just Called to Say I Love You'. I mentally labelled his music as earnest and sentimental, qualities that, in typical teenage fashion, I affected to disdain. I had at least a passing acquaintance with several of his earlier & better songs, but, with prejudices in place, I gave them scant attention.

Over the last decade, I have slowly and belatedly come to realise the error of those misapprehensions, and to recognise at least some of my prior dullardry. I'm now the proud owner of four Stevie Wonder LPs, two of them '70s originals & the others recent re-issues, my copy of Fulfillingness' First Finale being one of the former. And what a cover! If it didn't say ℗1974 on the back, one could readily guess as much from the lettering used on the front.

Fulfillingness' First Finale may have fewer admirers than Innervisions or Songs in the Key of Life, but there's something in its relatively sombre, downbeat tone that resonates with me. I love the way, for example, that the first two tracks both blossom out so naturally from their subdued beginnings. The melancholy here, in any case, is always counterbalanced by Mr. Wonder's sheer & evident joy in music-making.

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