Editing Stevie Wonder (section)

=== 1980s: Commercial albums period ===
The mainly instrumental soundtrack album ''[[Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants"]]'' (1979), was composed using an early music sampler called a [[Computer Music Melodian]].<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/sep/28/whats-that-sound-sampler| first=David |last= McNamee | date = September 28, 2009 | title =Hey, what's that sound: Sampler | newspaper =The Guardian }}</ref> It was also his first [[digital recording]], and one of the earliest popular albums to use the technology, which Wonder used for all subsequent recordings. Wonder toured briefly with an orchestra in support of the album, and used a [[Fairlight CMI]] sampler onstage.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Andy |last=Stewart|title=The Name Behind the Name: Bruce Jackson – Apogee, Jands, Lake Technology|url=http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/AT40_NBN_Bruce_Jackson.pdf |journal=Audio Technology |issue=40|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314212533/http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/AT40_NBN_Bruce_Jackson.pdf |archive-date=March 14, 2012 }}</ref> In this year Wonder also wrote and produced the dance hit "[[Let's Get Serious (song)|Let's Get Serious]]", performed by [[Jermaine Jackson]] and ranked by ''Billboard'' as the No.&nbsp;1 R&B single of 1980.

''[[Hotter than July]]'' (1980) became Wonder's first platinum-selling single album, and its single "[[Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder song)|Happy Birthday]]" was a successful vehicle for his campaign to establish [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s birthday as a [[Martin Luther King, Jr. Day|national holiday]]. The album also included "[[Master Blaster (Jammin')]]", "[[I Ain't Gonna Stand for It]]", and the sentimental ballad, "[[Lately (Stevie Wonder song)|Lately]]".

In 1982, Wonder released a retrospective of his 1970s work with ''[[Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I|Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium]]'', which included four new songs: the ten-minute [[funk]] classic "[[Do I Do]]" (which featured [[Dizzy Gillespie]]), "[[That Girl (Stevie Wonder song)|That Girl]]" (one of the year's biggest singles to chart on the [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]] side), "[[Front Line (song)|Front Line]]", a narrative about a soldier in the [[Vietnam War]] that Wonder wrote and sang in the first person, and "[[Ribbon in the Sky]]", one of his many classic compositions. He also gained a No. 1 hit that year in collaboration with [[Paul McCartney]] in their paean to racial harmony, "[[Ebony and Ivory]]".

Also in 1982, Wonder invited Raymond Kurzweil to his Los Angeles recording studio, Wonderland,<ref name="TheSynth">{{Cite book|title=The Synthesizer|last=Vail|first=Mark|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2014|isbn=978-0195394894|page=76}}</ref> and asked if "we could use the extraordinarily flexible computer control methods on the beautiful sounds of acoustic instruments?" In response, and with Wonder as musical advisor, Kurzweil founded [[Kurzweil Music Systems]], which unveiled the [[Kurzweil K250]] in 1984.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kurzweil|first=Ray|title=The Age of Spiritual Machines|publisher=Penguin Books|isbn=978-0140282023|date=2000|page=127}}</ref><ref name=raybio08/>

In 1983, Wonder performed the song "Stay Gold", the theme to [[Francis Ford Coppola]]'s film adaptation of [[S. E. Hinton]]'s novel ''[[The Outsiders (film)|The Outsiders]]''. Wonder wrote the lyrics. In 1983, he scheduled an album to be entitled ''People Work, Human Play''. The album never surfaced and instead 1984 saw the release of Wonder's soundtrack album for ''[[The Woman in Red (1984 film)|The Woman in Red]]''. The lead single, "[[I Just Called to Say I Love You]]", was a No. 1 pop and R&B hit in both the United States and the United Kingdom, where it was placed 13th in the list of best-selling singles in the UK published in 2002. It went on to win an [[Academy award for best song]] in 1985. Wonder accepted the award in the name of [[Nelson Mandela]] and was subsequently banned from all South African radio by the [[Government of South Africa]].<ref>{{Cite news|title = Stevie Wonder Music Banned in South Africa|url = https://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/27/arts/stevie-wonder-music-banned-in-south-africa.html|newspaper = The New York Times|date = March 27, 1985|access-date = October 5, 2015|issn = 0362-4331}}</ref>

Incidentally, on the occasion of his 35th birthday, Stevie Wonder was honored by the [[United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1761|United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid]] for his stance against racism in South Africa that same year (1985).<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abADAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA13 |title=Wonder honored at U.N.|magazine=Jet|date=May 27, 1985|language=en}}</ref> The album also featured a guest appearance by [[Dionne Warwick]], singing the duet "It's You" with Stevie and a few songs of her own. Following the success of the album and its lead single, Wonder made an appearance on ''[[The Cosby Show]]'', in the episode "A Touch of Wonder", where he demonstrated his ability to sample.

The following year's ''[[In Square Circle]]'' featured the No. 1 pop hit "[[Part-Time Lover]]". The album also has a Top 10 Hit with "Go Home". It also featured the ballad "[[Overjoyed (Stevie Wonder song)|Overjoyed]]", which was originally written for ''Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants"'', but did not make the album. He performed "Overjoyed" on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' when he was the host. He was also featured in [[Chaka Khan]]'s cover of [[Prince (musician)|Prince]]'s "[[I Feel For You]]", alongside [[Melle Mel]], playing his signature harmonica. In roughly the same period he was also featured on harmonica on [[Eurythmics]]' single "[[There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)]]" and [[Elton John]]'s "[[I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues]]".

Wonder was in a featured duet with [[Bruce Springsteen]] on the all-star charity single for African Famine Relief, "[[We Are the World]]", and he was part of another charity single the following year (1986), the [[AIDS]]-inspired "[[That's What Friends Are For]]". He played harmonica on the album ''[[Dreamland Express]]'' by [[John Denver]] in the song "If Ever", a song Wonder co-wrote with Stephanie Andrews; wrote the track "I Do Love You" for [[the Beach Boys]]' 1985 [[The Beach Boys (album)|self-titled album]]; and played harmonica on "[[Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man|Can't Help Lovin' That Man]]" on ''[[The Broadway Album]]'' by [[Barbra Streisand]].

In 1987, Wonder appeared on [[Michael Jackson]]'s ''[[Bad (album)|Bad]]'' album, on the duet "Just Good Friends". Jackson also sang a duet with him entitled "Get It" on Wonder's 1987 album ''[[Characters (Stevie Wonder album)|Characters]]''. This was a minor hit single, as were "Skeletons" and "You Will Know". Wonder played harmonica on a remake of his own song, "Have a Talk with God" (from ''[[Songs in the Key of Life]]'' in 1976), on [[Jon Gibson (Christian musician)|Jon Gibson]]'s album ''Body & Soul'' (1989).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/body-soul-mw0000921534|title = Body & Soul – Jon Gibson &#124; Songs, Reviews, Credits |website = [[AllMusic]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://archive.org/details/podcast_frontline-records_rewind-44-jon-gibson-talks-ab_1000336528628 | title=REWIND 44: Jon Gibson talks about songs from his latest album "Storyteller" and plays a few of them live for us. Jon tells of his father's near death conversion experience and is joined by his two boys for a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Have a Ta | date=February 27, 2015 |author=Frontline Records}}</ref>