YouTube Depression Theatre: Wonderful
It's not your 75th birthday, but here's a present: the best musical performance in television history.
Like many millennials, I occasionally have a tendency to let bad emotions get the better of me, and I often numb the anxiety the best way I know how: distracting myself on the Internet. Over the last few decades I've cultivated a bank of videos that often get me out of a spiral; they're inspiring, humorous or just plain interesting. I'm going to share them with you under the heading I call "YouTube Depression Theatre," and you can put them on if you ever need to feel something.
Stevie Wonder is 75 years old today. Do I even need to explain his significance to you? There are places you can find it; I'll spare you the preamble. His hit songs are voluminous and evergreen like few others. His is the sound of modern America, a nation's promises and potential. His omnipresence—not unlike air, water or greenery—is the only thing that may make him seem underrated. (That, and one thing he may only receive in the afterlife: a serious, illuminative series of projects highlighting any material he left in the Motown vaults.)
But I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street.
"Zaaaaa-bu-da-da-ba-bu-da-dah..."
The most common uploads of Wonder's appearance on Episode 0514 of the legendary children's show, which aired on public television on April 12, 1973, are nearly two decades old at this point. So it's possible you're aware of this footage. There's no plot contrivance to speak of: over the course of the episode, Stevie teaches Grover about music dynamics, and he and his band (including legendary drummer Ollie E. Brown and a 19-year-old firecracker guitarist named Ray Parker Jr.) played an original, "1-2-3 Sesame Street," and Wonder's "Superstition," a No. 1 hit months earlier. There are no funny lyrical amendments about learning letters. It's just the groove.
I was never a big Sesame Street watcher as a child; I kind of went from Muppet Babies to the actual Muppet Show, and in some ways never left. But that version of "Superstition"? Saturday Night Live could never. Those horns! The long-haired kid going absolutely berserk!! The FALSE ENDING!!! Is this the greatest musical performance in television history? All signs point to "uhhhh, yeah."
For posterity, the members of Wonderlove are: Ollie Brown (drums), Scott Edwards Jr. (bass), Ralph E. Hammer and Ray Parker Jr. (rhythm and lead guitars), Steven P. Madaio (trumpet), Denny Morouse (saxophone) and Keith Stevens (congas). Shirley Brewer, Lani Groves and Delores Harvin contribute backing vocals to "1-2-3 Sesame Street."
Parenthood has convinced me, even more than I already believed, that children deserve the world. It doesn't get much more worldly than this. It's Wonder's birthday today, but you deserve the present.