Decades pass. Suddenly I'm an adult working in the music business. I meet Syreeta. She is still sweet-voiced and smiling, her head wrapped in a rich-red turban. There is a brief moment to say hello, to tell her of my admiration.

Listening to these tracks today, I hear her voice anew. My love for her artistry grows deeper. I am thankful that her songs are permanently connected to the life of my heart.

- HW


Syreeta Wright did six albums at Motown. “With You I’m Born Again,” her 1980 duet with Billy Preston, was her biggest hit. Yet it’s her first two LPs, written and produced in collaboration with Stevie Wonder, that define her. They are romantic and imaginative – softly funky odes to love and life.

Syreeta and Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta rescued her from the shadow of Diana Ross. Once a Motown secretary, then a candidate to replace Ross in the Supremes in the late Sixties, Syreeta was often on the receiving end of the star’s leftovers.

“I was Diana Ross’s musical garbage can for a few years,” she told John Abbey of Blues & Soul magazine after the release of her debut LP. “The songwriters who couldn’t get through to Diana ended up bringing their songs to me. The company must have [recorded] enough material for ten albums.”

One single was issued, “I Can’t Give Back The Love I Feel For You,” coupled with “Something On My Mind,” both co-written by Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Brian Holland was part of the writing, producing and artist development process: “He felt Syreeta was hard for people to pronounce,” says the Pittsburgh native, “and thought ‘Rita Wright’ would make a good stage name.” The single came and went and, true to form, both songs ended up on Ross solo albums. Syreeta went back to her original name.

“My parents just liked the sound of it,” she says. “A friend of mine met someone from India [who] said ‘Syreeta’ meant ‘sweet singer’ in his native dialect.”

Stevie Wonder, fast developing into a musical genius, entered the picture. They collaborated on “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” Wonder’s first self-produced release that became a huge hit in the summer of 1970. Their partnership led to marriage, in September 1970, during the sessions for his adventurous coming-of-age album, Where I’m Coming From. Syreeta co-wrote with Wonder each of the LP’s nine songs, including “If You Really Love Me,” a Top 10 hit in 1971 that featured her pure yet soulful co-lead vocal. Stevie was 21, Syreeta 25.

They recorded Syreeta’s solo debut album in Los Angeles, co-writing three of the album’s nine tracks: “Keep Him Like He Is,” “Baby Don’t You Let Me Lose This” and “To Know You Is To Love You,” later produced by Stevie for B.B. King. Syreeta wrote “Happiness” while Stevie delivered “How Many Days” and the meditative “Black Maybe,” later covered as a haunting instrumental by Freddie Hubbard. “I Love Every Little Thing About You,” the album’s playful opening cut, ended up re-cut by Stevie for Music Of My Mind. Imaginative covers of The Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home” and Smokey Robinson’s “What Love Has Joined Together” round out the LP.

“That album is my all-time favorite,” Syreeta told SoulMusic.com in 2001. “It had a lot of different flavors and the musicianship was incredible. Since Stevie was sometimes late for the sessions, I got a chance to do a lot of my own vocals.

“When we were doing the record, we were having some problems in our relationship. We got married at a very young age, and no one gave us a manual. For me, the album was about my hope that maybe we could salvage our marriage. A lot of the vocals are coming from that space.”

Struggling to keep their personal union intact, Stevie and Syreeta together wrote songs for his next two, groundbreaking albums: “Girl Blue” and “Evil” for Music Of My Mind and, for Talking Book, the sublime ballads “Blame It On The Sun,” “You’ve Got It Bad Girl,” “Looking For Another Pure Love” and “I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever).” Both albums featured several of the same musicians, singers and engineers who performed on Syreeta’s first LP.

"Working with Stevie is an experience in itself,” Syreeta told Blues & Soul magazine in January 1973, after her solo album and Stevie’s two albums were released. “I trust him in a way that I would never trust anybody else. He works the whole thing out so that all I have to do is come to the studio and sing the song. Then, if I wanted to, I could go away and know that it would turn out the way I would wanted it to. We are lucky that the company leaves Stevie to create the way he thinks best.”

“We write much of the material together,” she continues. “I am more of a lyricist, with Stevie setting it to music. But he is writing his own lyrics, too, now. I only have to hum an iea of a melody to him and he immediately cleans it up and sets it the way I imagine it should sound. He's that creative.”

Yet their marriage was falling apart. They were living on different coasts, not lovers but still close friends. And while Stevie’s albums kick started the illustrious second stage of his career, Syreeta’s record was acclaimed but not commercially successful.

Work still continued. Syreeta began writing her second album, to be produced and co-written by Stevie. His association was more prominently featured in the tracks and on the cover art.

“That whole album was a healing and a balance for both of us,” Syreeta says. “We were going through a divorce at the same time we were making that record so every song has something to do with what we were going through, like ‘Heavy Day’ and ‘Spinnin' And Spinnin.’ That song was about a lady Stevie was dating at the time and I felt he would get emotionally injured by the situation…and he did.”

Stevie Wonder Presents is an emotional song suite with its mischievous moments – listen for Stevie shouting “Your breath stinks!” at the end of “Your Kiss Is Sweet.” Syreeta’s voice has heartbreak in its sweetness, especially in “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers.” Her tour de force, its best known cover is by rocker Jeff Beck, who made his guitar gently cry like Syreeta.

The musicians on the album are from Wonderlove, Stevie’s regular touring band that included Ollie Brown, Reggie McBride and Mike Sembello. They bring the funk on “I’m Goin’ Left,” “Come And Get This Stuff” and “Spinnin’ And Spinnin’.” G.C. Cameron duets with Syreeta on “I Wanna Be By Your Side.” They would later do an album together. Cameron’s voice was a favorite of Stevie’s; he had sung lead on The Spinners’ smash “it’s A Shame,” a Stevie Wonder production custom-built for G.C.

Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta was, like the first album, critically acclaimed and commercially a flop. “Spinnin’ And Spinnin’” and “Your Kiss Is Sweet” hit the U.K charts, but it would be another three years before Motown released a Syreeta album. That record, One To One, signaled a break from Stevie’s productions, yet its one hit, “Harmour Love,” was a Wonder-produced holdover from the previous LP.

Syreeta and Stevie Wonder were once personal and professional partners. They remain friends. These two remarkably intimate albums link them forever.


David Nathan
a/k/a “British Ambassador Of Soul”
www.soulmusic.com