Biography
14. Sharing The Knowledge, Fewer Cared
As far back as 1974, Michael Braun approached Stevie to write
a theme song for a movie he was making called the Secret Life of
Plants. The movie was to be based on a best selling book of the same
name authored by Christopher Tompkins and Peter Bird. However after
Stevie presented the song, the film producers requested that Stevie
do the entire soundtrack to the movie. Having never attempted such a
task, Stevie felt it would be a challenge for a blind person to not
just score a movie but one with a very unusual subject matter.
With three years in the making, Stevie Wonders Journey
Through The Secret Life of Plants was finally released in October of 1979. It did not help that the
movie was not generally released, hence the public never had a
chance to see the movie and appreciate and understand the soundtrack
as intended by Stevie.
As expected the music was a complete evolution
in style, surpassing in scale anything he had since produced. He
incorporated much symphonic musical styles, blending African, Indian
and Japanese music also in the fray, showing the diverse life and
understandings of plants from various cultures worldwide.
However being released in an era where disco was the fad, it was not
surprising that
Secret Life of Plants
failed to garner the public acceptance afforded Stevie's albums
since Music Of
My Mind. As the
lyrics to a song, Same Old Story, on the album declares:
And those who knew that shared
Their knowledge fewer cared
About what plants could do
Nevertheless, it was an album of which Stevie
could be proud. It has to be his most underrated and misunderstood
albums in his repertoire. The stylistic range of the album was
impressive, starting with
Earth's Creation and
The First Garden to
the melodic sitar based
Voyage to India, to the jazzy
Venus Flytrap
right through to the two spectacular closing tracks,
Tree
and
Finale, an astoundingly beautiful climax to the record. In between
Stevie finds space for some standard ballads that would supposedly
avail it to radio station play lists. These were
Send One Your Love,
Black Orchid
and
Outside My Window. Syreeta
performs lead vocals on
Come Back As A Flower,
a song on which she wrote the lyrics.
Stevie felt he was growing and being
innovative. He could have followed the music scene at the time and
brought out a disco album, which I am sure would have been better
accepted, but as he says, If you don't take a chance in life, then
you really cannot move forward.
A tour to promote the album did not fare too
well. Concerts featuring an orchestra and Wonderlove with a large
screen portraying clips from the movie in synch with the live music
were quite a spectacular affair. However they were received with a
lukewarm reception with many venues failing to sell-out. A
disappointed Stevie reflected,
I have to think why it was not
(successful) - were people unable to get into the Secret Life Of
Plants? The true meaning of an artist is to be expressive and
innovative. A lot of things have been afforded me by the people, so
I have to share with them the experiences I have had and am having.
