Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Stevie Wonder

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 31, 2000)
• Original Release Date: March 25, 1968
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Motown
• ASIN: B000009QLX
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #135,708 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording
Motown had little idea what to do with the young Stevie Wonder, as this remaster of his first Greatest Hits album makes plain. A (great) novelty instrumental, "Fingertips, Part 2," provided Wonder's first hit in 1963, so the company's production line ran the concept into the ground with campy pieces like "Hey Harmonica Man" and "Work Out Stevie, Work Out." Fortunately, the selections here also include the killer singles that appeared after his work righted itself: "Uptight (Everything's Alright)," "I Was Made to Love Her," and Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." A mixed bag, but an intriguing look at how this eventual great artist survived the marketplace in his early years. --Rickey Wright

Product Description
Japanese only paper sleeve SHM pressing. SHM-CDs (Super High Material CD) can be played on any audio player and deliver unbelievably high-quality sound. You won't believe it's the same CD! Universal. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Early Wonder, February 14, 2001

By	Thomas Magnum (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This greatest hits album collects Stevie Wonder's first hits from 1963 to 1967. The only song that really standouts from when he was known as Little Stevie Wonder is the explosive live performance of "Fingertips" which went to number one. The other songs from that time like "Workout Stevie, Workout" try to capture that explosiveness, but don't manage to find it. As he got older and matured, so did his music and the songs started to show off his immense talents. "Uptight" is a pure classic as is "I Was Made To Love Her". He also started to develop and show a social conscious side with the brilliant "A Place In The Sun" and he takes Bob Dylan's folk anthem "Blowin' In The Wind" and turns it into a call and response, gospel flavored number.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars His Early Hits Obviously Aren't What Made Him Great, March 7, 1999

By	Yarby "yarby" (Medina, OH United States) - See all my reviews

I just purchased this CD at the local Border's outlet....and I still think I spent too much. Outside of "Uptight" and "I Was Made To Love Her" there isn't much here to recommend. Do as I should and get his later compilations

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest Hits, yes, but things were only beginning, March 14, 2004

By	D.V. Lindner "D.V. Lindner" (King George, VA, USA) - See all my reviews

In its original vinyl incarnation (as Tamla LP 282) this appeared in April 1968. It carried a good overview of Wonder's singles output from "Contract On Love" (12/26/62) through "I'm Wondering" (9/14/67). Everything that's here is great, and shows Stevie's child voice maturing into the assured masculine adult one we've come to know since. And the hits are solid, a heaping helping of the kind Motown turned out on all its' artists in the production line days. By the time of "Uptight" and especially "I Was Made To Love Her" Wonder was another full-fledged confident star, the same one he is today.

Not everything, however, from this maturation period was included in these 12 tracks. There were some commercially failed but interesting singles that didn't make the cut: "I Call It Pretty Music But The Old People Call It The Blues," a two-part single (Tamla 54061) from May 1962, "Happy Street" (Tamla 54103, September 1964), "Kiss Me Baby" (Tamla 54114, May 1965) and "High Heel Sneakers" (Tamla 54119, 7/23/65). Hard-core Wonder fans have their work cut out for them seeking these even on vinyl, let alone CD. One could carp too, that "Fingertips" isn't in its full seven-minute length here; after all, Part 1 was no slouch, either. ("Someday At Christmas" was a 45 too, Tamla 54142, in time for the '66 season.) And by the by, the last Wonder single to feature "Little" in front of his name was "Castles In The Sand" (Tamla 54090, 1/16/64); "Hey Harmonica Man" (Tamla 54096, 5/21/64) was the first without it.

What's to be hoped for is that Stevie and Motown would consider re-issuing, in CD form, his 3-LP set from 1977, "Looking Back." It was essentially Stevie's entry in Motown's superb (and first) Anthology series on all the company's major artists. Ideally, a CD version would carry all 40 tracks that the three records did plus the missing nuggets mentioned above. (And, please, don't forget "Purple Rains Drops" this time around, either.) I'm glad I grabbed the vinyl version when I did; I've read elsewhere that Wonder had it quickly withdrawn. We'll see.