Stevie Wonder Marks 50 Years of Songs in the Key of Life With Four Unreleased Tracks

At 4:54 in the morning, as the last session for Songs in the Key of Life wrapped, Stevie Wonder's longtime bassist Nathan Watts called out "Fo'FiftyFo'!" — a joke that stuck around Wonder's studio for decades afterward, shorthand for a session finally, mercifully, done. Fifty years on, that exact hour has become something else entirely: the title of a new chapter in one of the most celebrated albums ever made.

To mark the album's 50th anniversary, Wonder has personally curated a four-song EP built from recordings left over from the original sessions — "It's Easier," "My Life Story of Love," "I Can See the Sun In Late December" and "I'm Into Livin'." None of it made the original 1976 double album. All of it was recorded during the same sessions that produced "Sir Duke," "Isn't She Lovely" and "As."

"We've lived with Songs in the Key of Life for fifty years, but there's still more to hear," Wonder said. "We didn't add these songs to the album, but they were part of what I was feeling and discovering as we made it. They bring me back to that time in my life, and now they get to become part of yours."

The tracks were freshly mixed for the EP by the same two engineers who worked the original sessions, John Fischbach and Gary O Adante (credited on the 1976 LP as Gary Olazabal) — mixing rather than remixing, keeping the recordings tied to the room they were made in rather than modernising them.

The musician credits alone are a small piece of music history. A young Gregory Phillinganes, near the very start of his career, plays Fender Rhodes on "My Life Story of Love." Guitarist Michael Sembello, who'd go on to co-write "Saturn" with Wonder, plays electric guitar. Bassist Nathan Watts — whose partnership with Wonder began around these very sessions — anchors three of the four tracks. And "I'm Into Livin'" carries background vocals from Shirley Brewer, Thelma Houston (about to score her own No. 1 with "Don't Leave Me This Way") and a young Deniece Williams, still years from her own solo stardom.

Lyrically, "My Life Story of Love" carries a co-write from Susaye Greene, the former Supreme who also co-wrote Michael Jackson's "I Can't Help It" with Wonder — one more thread connecting this EP back into the wider Motown-era web Wonder helped weave.

Songs in the Key of Life itself remains one of the defining achievements in American music: Diamond-certified, inducted into the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry, and the winner of Wonder's third Album of the Year GRAMMY. Wonder will perform it in full on a run of 50th anniversary shows this year, opening October 13 in Birmingham before crossing Europe and the US, closing December 19 in Los Angeles.

Fifty years after the tape stopped rolling at 4:54am, it turns out there was more tape.

Songs in the Key of Life – The EP is out now.