Hotter Than July (Remastered) Stevie Wonder

• 1 Did I Hear You Say You Love Me 04:09
• 2 All I Do 05:07
• 3 Rocket Love 04:39
• 4 I Ain't Gonna Stand For It 04:39
• 5 As If You Read My Mind 03:39
• 6 Master Blaster (Jammin') 05:08
• 7 Do Like You 04:25
• 8 Cash In Your Face 03:59
• 9 Lately 04:05
• 10 Happy Birthday 05:56
• Total Runtime 45:46

Info for Hotter Than July (Remastered)

Jam until the break of dawn! Released in 1980, Stevie Wonder’s brilliant Hotter Than July followed up with a bang a film soundtrack that witnessed the end of the legendary artist’s “Classic Period.” And how. Excited after meeting Bob Marley, Wonder embraced reggae’s sunnier feel and colorful look on the album, which yielded four Top Ten singles in the U.K. and three charting singles in the U.S. Hotter Than July remains the peerless composer’s last true masterpiece.

Possessing a slightly faster and jam-oriented direction that Wonder’s other trademark efforts, the record finds the singer doing what he does best: Crafting memorable arrangements and addictive grooves, all the while ignoring the musical trends that surrounded him at the time. Wonder flirts with a disco pulse on “All I Do,” yet the main attractions relate to his irrepressible soulfulness. Rather than play everything himself, he switches up his prior methods by employing all-star backing choirs and abundant rhythm sections that grace songs with insouciant tunefulness and buoyant hooks. More than a dozen backing vocalists (including Michael Jackson, Eddie Levert, and Angela Winbush) as well as multiple handclap percussionists are involved in the process.

Historically, Hotter Than July not only marks a return to form, but a launching pad for the now-observed Martin Luther King holiday. With the anthemic “Happy Birthday,” Wonder issued a call to action and ultimately, got it. The song is line with the mood of the majority of the album: celebratory, positive, and lively. Wonder, however, doesn’t abandon his penchant for social critique, as “Cash In Your Face” stands as a protest against housing discrimination. Simply put, Hotter Than July has it all, and more than 30 years after its original release, continues to burn brightly.

Stevie Wonder, vocals, harmonica, keyboards
Alexandra Brown, vocals
Jamil Raheem, vocals
Walter Williams, vocals
Eddie Levert, vocals
Marva Holcolm, vocals
Mary Lee Whitney, vocals
Kimberley Jackson, vocals
Melody McCully, vocals
Delores Barnes, vocals
Susaye Greene Brown, vocals
Dennis Morrison, vocals
Michael Jackson, vocals
Angela Winbush, vocals
Stephanie Andrews, vocals
Syreeta Wright, vocals
Betty Wright, vocals
Bill Wolfer, vocals
Nathan Watts, vocals
Earl DeRouen, vocals
Shirley Brewer, vocals
Charles Collins, vocals
Charlie Wilson, vocals
Ben Bridges, guitar, sitar
Rick Zunigar, guitar
Hank DeVito, steel guitar
Paul Riser, strings
Hank Redd, saxophone
Trevor Lawrence, saxophone
Bob Malach, saxophone
Nolan Andrew Smith, trumpet
Larry Gittens, trumpet
Isaiah Sanders, keyboards
Dennis Davis, drums
Eddie 'Bongo' Brown, percussion

Recorded at Crystal Sound Studios, Holllywood, I.A.M. Studios, Irvine, Wonderland Studios, Los Angeles
Engineered by Gary Olazabal
Produced by Stevie Wonder

Digitally remastered

Stevie Wonder
Dubbed “Little Stevie Wonder” by Motown’s Berry Gordy, he was signed to the label when he was only 12 years old and was just 13 when the live recording “Fingertips (Part 2)” hit no. 1 pop and R&B. Playing harmonica, drums and keyboards, as well as singing, the boy who had been blind from infancy proved aptly named. While still a teenager--dropping the “Little” from his stage name--he earned seven top 10 pop singles, including “For Once In My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday,” “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” and “I Was Made To Love Her.”

By age 20, he was self-sufficient in the studio, writing, playing every instrument and serving as his own producer, including for such hits as “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and “If You Really Love Me.” He broadened his vision from pure pop to the socially conscious. He began exploring exotic musical ideas incorporating gospel, rock, jazz, reggae, and African and Latin American rhythms, and pioneered the use of synthesizers.

Turning 21 in 1971, Stevie holed up in a New York studio and refused to sign with Motown until he was given autonomy to record as he please. Motown agreed and the groundbreaking Music Of My Mind was released followed the next year. Later that year came Talking Book, which boasted the no. 1 pop and R&B hits “Superstition” and “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.” Innervisions, featuring the Top 10 hit “Higher Ground,” “Don’t You Worry ’Bout A Thing” and the epic “Living For The City,” was a landmark LP that became the his first of three consecutive Grammy® Albums of the Year.

While the record was riding high, Wonder was in a near-fatal accident. He recovered to record another deeply felt album, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, in 1974, that featured the no. 1 pop “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” (with the Jackson 5 on background vocals) and no. 1 R&B “Boogie On Reggae Woman.”

Songs In The Key Of Life was an instant no. 1 album, the first by an American artist to debut at the top spot, where it remained for an incredible 14 weeks. It was highlighted by the no. 1 pop and R&B hits “I Wish” and “Sir Duke.” By the late seventies, Wonder was also leading the way in New Age instrumental music with the soundtrack album Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants, which featured the ballad hit “Send One Your Love.” He won 15 Grammys in just four years.

Wonder kicked off the eighties with his funk classic “Master Blaster (Jammin’),” a tribute to Bob Marley, and “Happy Birthday,” the theme song for the successful campaign to establish the birthday of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a national holiday. Both were included on the album Hotter Than July. Balancing public causes and private emotion, he scored with the no. 1 R&B “That Girl” in 1982. A champion of racial harmony, he joined Paul McCartney on the no. 1 pop “Ebony And Ivory” later that year.

Wonder contributed songs to the Gene Wilder film The Woman In Red in 1984, when the theme song, “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” hit no. 1 pop, R&B and adult contemporary. It also became Wonder’s first no. 1 in the U.K. With Elton John and Gladys Knight, he also appeared on Dionne Warwick’s 1985 no. 1 pop “That’s What Friends Are For,” which benefited AIDS research. That same year, he won the Oscar® for Best Song for “I Just Called To Say I Love You”; was spotlighted in “We Are The World,” the landmark charity effort for African famine relief; and “Part-Time Lover,” from the album In Square Circle, became the first single to simultaneously top the pop, R&B, adult contemporary and dance/disco charts.

The nineties and the new millennium were marked by collaborations with artists as diverse as Prince and Sting, Babyface and Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg and Andrea Bocelli, Sting and Tony Bennett, and projects as varied as the Broadway musical Rent and Spike Lee’s film Jungle Fever.

Wonder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. As of mid-2008, Wonder has earned 25 solo Top 10 pop hits, among them seven no. 1’s, and won 22 Grammy Awards--plus a prestigious Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1996. His 2005 Motown album A Time 2 Love garnered six Grammy nominations and won two, including one for “So Amazing,” Wonder’s duet with Beyonce.

For Rolling Stone magazine’s 2004 article “The Immortals – The Greatest Artists Of All Time,” Elton John wrote about Stevie Wonder: “When he comes into a room, people adore him. And there aren’t many artists like that. People admire you and they like your records, but they don’t want to stand up and hug you. But this man is a good man. He tries to use his music to do good. His message, I think, is about love, and in the world we live in today, that message does shine through.”

This album contains no booklet.