OLDIES BUT GOODIES: STEVIE WONDER & BONNIE DOBSON CONTINUE TO CAST SPELLS
VETERAN SINGERS MAKE LONDON’S SUMMER SWEETER
The master at work - Stevie Wonder in Hyde Park on July 12.
Both Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Dobson were making glorious music before I was born. In 2025 they continue doing so.
Dobson, aged 84, launched her new album Dreams (Loose) on July 8th in an upstairs room at the Betsy Trotwood, a pub on the Farringdon Road that regularly hosts folk/acoustic music events.
Here she was joined by the Hanging Stars, a noted London country-rock band who back Dobson on Dreams. They squeezed onto the tiny stage, literally sitting at Bonnie’s feet – as you should when in the presence of one of the last of the Greenwich Village folk singers. It was one of those impossibly humid nights that now make London’s summer so often uncomfortable, although Bonnie showed no exasperation at singing in a sauna, instead performing with the joy she always brings to public occasions.
The brightest smile in town - Bonnie Dobson sings from the heart.
The room was jammed with Bon fans who yelled with delight as she told the stories behind her songs and sang them in her crystal clear voice. When she finished we all piled downstairs and tried to cool off outside. Not much chance of that, but at least we could breathe.
Stevie Wonder, 75, performed at Hyde Park on July 12 in front of an audience of around 50,000. It was a bright, sunny day but – thankfully – a breeze took the edge off the heat. He led a band featuring around a dozen musicians + 5 backing vocalists. Stevie was led on stage by a son and a daughter: he introduced them (his son looked to be around 30, his daughter mid-50s) in a mock Cockney accent (I’d read he was a gifted mimic and so it appears) then made us pay attention to his white jacket, which featured sequinned outlines of Marvin Gaye and John Lennon on either side.
Stevie spoke of the suffering engulfing our world then, seated at a piano, launched into a brooding version of Love’s In Need Of Love Today (opening track of Songs In The Key Of Life), segueing into Lennon’s Imagine (a song I find execrable but understand Stevie was wanting to convey its message of universal peace).
Bonnie and Stevie both began their careers as professional musicians around the same time – her debut album was released in 1961, his debut 45 in 1962 – and they grew up not too far from one another (she in Toronto, he in Detroit). That said, their paths didn’t cross – Bonnie was a white folk singer whose audience were similarly pale while Stevie was (back then) promoted as a Negro child singing rhythm and blues and, initially, aimed towards a Black audience. This noted, Bonnie did share the bill with Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Lee Hooker and toured with Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee.
When Wonder scored a US R&B and Pop No 1 in 1963 with Fingertips (Pt 1) it ensured they would never find themselves playing on the same bill – Bonnie’s always been a folkie, while Stevie commands a vast audience, one of popular music’s true superstars.
Which isn’t to suggest they are so different - both are distinctive singers and songwriters: Bonnie’s most popular song, Morning Dew (sung by many famous rock and folk singers), is an ominous meditation on the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, while Stevie’s also written moody, socially conscious songs – few pop hits have hammered harder the message about racial and economic discrimination than Living For The City.
Stevie’s ladies (well, 3 of them - daughter Aisha out of shot). They were great.
Neither Bonnie nor Stevie record regularly these days: Dreams is Bonnie’s first new album in 12 years, while Stevie hasn’t released a new album since 2005’s A Time To Love. This noted, he has released a series of ‘singles’ digitally in recent years – the most recent being 2024’s Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart (the answer to which, following Trump’s re-election, is “no”).
Dreams makes for a perfect soundtrack to the British summer, the songs having a lush shimmer to them, the Hanging Stars adding a California-style psych country flavour to songs, while Bonnie’s angelic voice floats over proceedings. Seven of the eight songs are Dobson originals – the one cover is Chet Powers’ Get Together (a hit for The Youngbloods in 1967). This song, which calls for peace and brotherhood, fits Bonnie well; its also a song Stevie could sing, he often having sung of unity.
At Hyde Park Wonder had a remarkable array of opening acts: I skipped the earlier artists but, prior to his arrival, caught LA’s low-rider soul outfit Thee Sacred Souls (very summer soul) and London’s Ezra Collective (high energy jazz-funk with afro-beats: drummer Femi Koleoso possessing a preacher’s skills at getting the audience up and dancing).