Watch Stevie Wonder’s Amazing Drum Solo, and See Why He May Be the “Greatest Drummer of Our Time”

When Prince passed away, many a non-Prince fan sud­den­ly found out that the man was not only a bril­liant song­writer, singer, dancer, gui­tarist, pianist, styl­ist, and super­star, but that he was also a vir­tu­al one-man band in the stu­dio, able to play almost any instru­ment, in exact­ly the way he want­ed it played. Prince fans knew this, as do fans of the musi­cian who made Songs in the Key of Life — or what Prince called the great­est album ever record­ed. And if Prince were here, he would agree:  Ste­vie Won­der deserves more appre­ci­a­tion for his mul­ti-musi­cian­ship while he’s still with us.

Yes, of course, we know him for his “stag­ger­ing song­writ­ing and vocal skills,” writes PC Muñoz at Drum! mag­a­zine, for his “prowess as a for­mi­da­ble, inven­tive key­boardist (and pop music syn­the­siz­er pio­neer)” and “his vir­tu­oso-lev­el skills on har­mon­i­ca.”

But do we know Ste­vie Won­der as a drum­mer? Well, “news­flash for those who did­n’t know,” Muñoz announces: “Ste­vie Won­der also hap­pens to be one badass drum­mer.” (In fact, his very first gig, at 8 years old, was on the drums.) Not that he hasn’t received his just due from fel­low musi­cians, far from it.

Eric Clap­ton called Won­der “the great­est drum­mer of our time” in 1974 — “hefty praise” (and maybe a bit of a swipe), wrote music jour­nal­ist Eric San­dler, “com­ing from a man who played with Gin­ger Bak­er.” See a demon­stra­tion of Won­der’s for­mi­da­ble feel and groove behind the kit in the drum solo at the top of the post. But, of course, you’ve already heard his drum­ming — all, or most, of your life per­haps — on his albums, includ­ing most every track on Talk­ing BookSongs in the Key of Life, and Innervi­sions — songs like “Super­sti­tion,” “High­er Ground,” “Liv­ing for the City” … all Ste­vie.

“I grew up prac­tic­ing to Ste­vie Wonder’s music,” drum­mer Eric Carnes tells Muñoz, “but I actu­al­ly didn’t know he was often the drum­mer on his own stuff. Until I was in my twen­ties.” Carnes goes on to describe the hall­marks of Won­der’s style: “very relaxed – not so crisp and not so metro­nom­ic. He’s using dif­fer­ent parts of the stick at dif­fer­ent times, and his hi-hat parts change through­out the song. A lot of times, each cho­rus in a giv­en song is played slight­ly dif­fer­ent­ly, too. He esca­lates a song over a long peri­od of time, real­ly grow­ing the whole piece, instead of top­ping out ear­ly; it gives the music some­where to go.”

Bill Janovitz of the band Buf­fa­lo Tom — in a very thor­ough paean to Songs in the Key of Life – points to the “innate sense of groove in his drum­ming.… There is a musi­cal inven­tive­ness that might stem from being a well-round­ed mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist, as opposed to some­one who strict­ly defines them­selves as a drum­mer.”

In his appre­ci­a­tion of Won­der’s drum­ming at Slate, Seth Steven­son also high­lights Won­der’s “expres­sive­ness.… No two mea­sures sound the same.” He offers a mini best-of roundup of Won­der’s record­ed drum­ming moments:

My favorite Won­der drum track comes on ‘Too High,’ the first song on Innervi­sions. Sub­tle snare rolls, sud­den tom-tom tum­bles, jazzy ride-cym­bal swings – they’re all scrump­tious and all in the greater ser­vice of the song. This is not the approach of a hired drum­mer attempt­ing to carve out his own ter­rain. It’s the work of a mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist com­pos­er who fits his vision for each part into an inter­lock­ing whole.

Steven­son and Janovitz speak to a thread in so many dis­cus­sions of “vir­tu­oso” musi­cians: com­posers who are also musi­cal prodi­gies have ways of play­ing instru­ments in an idiom only they can under­stand. One imag­ines that if we had record­ings of Mozart or Bach – both prodi­gious mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ists from very young ages – we would hear clas­si­cal instru­ments played in ways we’ve nev­er heard them played before. The mag­ic of record­ing — and Ste­vie Won­der’s record­ings espe­cial­ly — means we can hear the drums on his songs exact­ly as he heard, and played, them, and exact­ly as he want­ed them played.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Catch Ste­vie Won­der, Ages 12–16, in His Ear­li­est TV Per­for­mances

Decon­struct­ing Ste­vie Wonder’s Ode to Jazz and His Hero Duke Elling­ton: A Great Break­down of “Sir Duke”

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness


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Comments (15)
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  • glenn says:

    Not even close. Good but not the best of our time sor­ry!

  • Tony says:

    My son showed me footage of Ste­vie Won­der doing a 16 minute drum solo a while back. It was impres­sive for he nev­er missed a beat.

  • Jacqueline Vaughan says:

    jacquelinereneevaughan71262@gmail.com.. not at all sur­prised bout the drum thing.. I just want to acknowl­edge he , is my ALL-TIME OVERALL FAVORITE, MUSICIAL GENIUS, INSPIRATIONAL, CLEVER, PEACEFUL, MAN.. out side of my 93 year old father, he is my HERO,

  • Ted Bogan says:

    As a musi­cian myself, and a fan of Ste­vie Wonder’s music I was aware of his abil­i­ty to play mul­ti­ple instru­ments. Ernie Isley and Peatrice Rushin are two oth­er artist that fit the mold, but what ele­vates Ste­vie above all oth­er drum­mers is the fact that this is a man who couldn’t even see his drum kit and still man­aged to not play off beat! For all those who doubt that he’s the great­est ever to play drums, when did you ever see gin­ger bak­er, Neal pert, play blind plus sing with beau­ti­ful octave flow?? Hands down Ste­vie won­der is the over­all great­est per­former ever, Prince is the only one that comes close, but he had eyes to help him, Ste­vie does not! If any­one ever deserves to be in the Rock Hall of Fame he should’ve been the first entry unan­i­mous­ly! Study his music then you’ll see how great he tru­ly is and then you’ll appre­ci­ate him even more.

  • Clarence Bogan III says:

    As a musi­cian myself, and a fan of Ste­vie Wonder’s music I was aware of his abil­i­ty to play mul­ti­ple instru­ments. Ernie Isley and Peatrice Rushin are two oth­er artist that fit the mold, but what ele­vates Ste­vie above all oth­er drum­mers is the fact that this is a man who couldn’t even see his drum kit and still man­aged to not play off beat! For all those who doubt that he’s the great­est ever to play drums, when did you ever see gin­ger bak­er, Neal pert, play blind plus sing with beau­ti­ful octave flow?? Hands down Ste­vie won­der is the over­all great­est per­former ever, Prince is the only one that comes close, but he had eyes to help him, Ste­vie does not! If any­one ever deserves to be in the Rock Hall of Fame he should’ve been the first entry unan­i­mous­ly! Study his music then you’ll see how great he tru­ly is and then you’ll appre­ci­ate him even more.

  • Meat says:

    To even put a head­line up like this is stu­pid . To com­pare him with any pro­fes­sion­al drum­mer is just insult­ing to any­one who plays . His drum­ming is ama­teur at best .

  • Josh Jones says:

    You’ll notice that the head­line is a quo­ta­tion from Eric Clap­ton, so go argue with him.

  • james deans says:

    As fan of a lot of drum­mers, male AND female alike, to be a musi­cian who has NEVER seen the light of day, and can play a kit and not EVEN SEE IT, man you have no choice but to give it up to STEVIE WONDER!!! Both him and PRINCE are my HEROES, and from what I have seen in some of some of these com­ments, is some seri­ous “TALENT BIGOTRY” or what I call the unwill­ing­ness to give cred­it where cred­it is due, but then you don’t have to, because GOD imbued both with the drive,the under­stand­ing to hon­or your craft, to be the ABSOLUTE BEST that you can be. So like I said,say what you want, but I’m sayin, “HE IS THE BEST EVER,TO HELL WHAT YOU HATERS SAY OR THINK!”

  • Kathleen Padden says:

    Ste­vie Won­der is a trail­blaz­ing musi­cal god who walks as man. Any­one who denies his supe­ri­or­i­ty does­n’t know jack about music, espe­cial­ly Ste­vie’s music. Ignore the igno­rant.

  • Suzie says:

    He is good but he is no Ben­ny (Papa Zita) Ben­jamin from the Funk Broth­ers. Ben­ny taught him how to play the drums. But Ben­ny Ben­jamin is con­sid­ered one of if not the best drum­mer ever. Lis­ten to the Detroit era Motown songs like Can’t Help Myself or Uptight. Also watch Stand­ing In the Shad­ows of Motown. They talked about his skills.

  • Mark Kandborg says:

    Good lord, yes. What a dis­as­ter. Any pro (or ama­teur with any tal­ent at all) would recog­nise these solos as exact­ly what you would expect from a blind key­board play­er. it’s insult­ing to drum­mers and, for me, very depress­ing. It’s a bit like some­one who’s nev­er read a physics text­book going up to a black­board and writ­ing E=MC squared to a stand­ing ova­tion of kinder­garten stu­dents. “The great­est physi­cist of all time!” So depress­ing. The art of per­cus­sion is sub­lime and this “per­for­mance” makes me very sad. Sor­ry, Ste­vie, but I think you must have realised that you did­n’t know what you were doing.

  • Timothy Wilson says:

    Some peo­ple are just jeal­ous, & bad spir­it­ed when it comes to oth­er peo­ple being more accom­plished than they are. No mat­ter what it may be,sports, music, or Absolute­ly Any­thing. Some peo­ple will Nev­er under­stand the rhythm of being a decent human being here on earth…

  • William Lane, Jr says:

    Man, I didn’t know Mr. Won­der could play drums! Man, my mind is blown right now!!!

  • Stevie Fan says:

    The idiots say­ing he’s ama­teur at best prob­a­bly don’t even lis­ten to Ste­vie or even soul music… drum­ming fast does­n’t make you the best drum­mer… being in pock­et and impro­vis­ing allow­ing the drums to com­ple­ment the oth­er instru­ments and over­all com­po­si­tion… Rock drum­mers are basic any­way no soul in it

  • Royc Ellis says:

    He’s been play­ing for so long, no one’s so smooth, and quite a nice guy, go Ste­vie, you got it made.

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