Stevie Wonder: ‘I’ll Keep Playing As Long As I Breathe’

At the age of 75, Stevie Wonder is still going strong.

His latest UK tour, which wrapped up earlier this month received rapturous reviews, with critics calling the star “fresh and on form,” for “a riotously joyful celebration, ” of his music.

But while contemporaries like Billy Joel and The Eagles are reducing their musical commitments, Wonder says he will never consider retiring.

“For as long as you breathe, for as long as your heart beats, there’s more for you to do,” the Motown legend told the BBC’s Sidetracked podcast. “I’m not gonna stop the gift that keeps pouring through my body.

“I love doing what I’m doing. An artist never stops drawing. As long as you can imagine is as long as you are going to be creative.”

The star also confirmed he was still working on a new album, titled Through The Eyes Of Wonder, which he first discussed in 2008.

The project has previously been described as a performance piece that will reflect his experience as a blind man.

It would be his first studio album since 2005’s A Time To Love; extending a recording career that started in 1962, when he was just 11 years old.

Wonder spoke to Sidetracked presenter Annie Macmanus, the day before he headlined the BST festival in London’s Hyde Park – playing a two-and-a-half hour set that encompassed his biggest hits, from Superstition and Isn’t She Lovely to You Are The Sunshine Of My Life and I Wish.

Most of the set was drawn from the 1970s purple patch when he won the Grammy Award for best album three times in a row, for Innervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Songs In The Key Of Life.

Wonder told Macmanus that he never tired of revisiting those records.

“Songs are like children, they’re with you forever,” he said. “They are statement from the spirit within you.

“And singing those songs is like me taking another breath.”

America ‘going backwards’

Earlier this month, during a concert in Cardiff, the musician addressed a long-standing conspiracy theory that he is not actually blind.

“You know there have been rumours about me seeing and all that?” he told the audience, “But seriously, you know the truth.”

“Truth is, shortly after my birth, I became blind,” he told fans.

Calling his disability a gift, Wonder continued: “Now, that was a blessing because it’s allowed me to see the world in the vision of truth, of sight.”

In his Sidetracked interview, the singer talked about the importance of using music to spread positivity and speak truth to power.

Throughout his life, he has been a vocal civil rights campaigner, and played a key role in the campaign to have the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr recognised as a national holiday in the US.

Wonder, who campaigned for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s US presidential election, told Macmanus that America was currently beleaguered by “people trying to go backwards”.

“It’s not gonna go down like that,” he insisted. “I think that if you look back in history, there’s always been a point when people wake up.

“And I think that, for those who think it is gonna go down like that, remember that God is watching you.”

You can listen to Stevie Wonder’s full interview on the Sidetracked podcast on BBC Sounds.