Stevie Wonder Releases Four Unheard ‘Songs in the Key of Life’

Stevie Wonder surprise-released Songs in the Key of Life 50: The EP, which contains four previously unreleased studio recordings. He recorded “It’s Easier,” “My Life Story of Love,” “I Can See the Sun in Late December,” and “I’m Into Livin'” during the sessions for his celebrated 1976 album but held onto them for the past half century. Now that he’s planning a tour commemorating the 50th anniversary of that album, he decided to finally issue them. “We’ve lived with Songs in the Key of Life for 50 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 recording engineers who mixed the original album, John Fischbach and Gary O. Adante (credited as Gary Olazabal), mixed the songs for the new EP. The songs further extend the legacy of the original album, which included another four-song EP, A Something’s Extra The tracks were timed to the 50th anniversary of the release of the diamond-certified album, which came out on Sept. 28, 1976. The EP arrived on streaming services at 4:54 a.m. PDT, the time the original Songs in the Key of Life sessions wrapped, at which time bassist Nathan Watts remarked, “Fo’FiftyFo’,” which became an in-joke Wonder and his musicians have used to mark the end of sessions ever since.

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