Recent additions

January 2006: Updated info about The Isley Brothers' version of 'My Love Is Your Love (Forever)' plus ordering links for the "single mix" of that recording (see Sixties section).

----------------------------------------------------------------

In a recording career that spans more than four decades, Stevie Wonder's status as one of the foremost artists in modern popular music was secured a long time ago. From his days as a young performer in Motown's hit factory, over his many classic albums from the 1970s and beyond, to his present-day status as a living legend, the records released under his own name would be enough to justify his reputation.

Yet, parallel with this success story runs a tale of endless collaborations and contributions to other artists' records. Indeed, songs such as the Paul McCartney duet, 'Ebony And Ivory', and 'That's What Friends Are For', performed together with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight and Elton John, rank among his biggest hits, although he had no hand in their writing.

Less well-known, perhaps, but all the more intriguing, are the more than 100 songs that Stevie Wonder has written or co-written for other artists since the 1960s. Although many of those songs were major hits at the time of their release, this is largely an untold story.

In some respects, discovering these recordings is like finding a parallel Stevie Wonder universe. In the years 1972—1974, for instance, he was so prolific that had he released these songs himself, there would have been two or three albums worth of Stevie Wonder songs in addition to Music Of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions and Fullfillingness First Finale, the masterpieces he did release during those years. It is of course well-known that Stevie's archives holds hundreds of unreleased songs from his album sessions, and some of the songs he has given to other artists have been confirmed as being outtakes from his own recordings.

My friend Thomas Winberg has spent countless hours researching the hows, whys and wherefores of Stevie Wonder's recording career. In the mid-1990s he began exploring the songs that Stevie Wonder has written for other artists and came up with quite a comprehensive list. When the Stevie Wonder career retrospective box set, At The Close Of A Century, was put together, Thomas' work formed the basis for a similar list of songs included in the box set booklet.

On these pages we will take an even closer look at all those songs, many of which are true, stand-alone classics. The information here mainly comes from the exhaustive research conducted by Thomas over the years, and it's a privilege for me to host this list on my site.


The ground rule for inclusion in the list is that the song was written by Stevie Wonder - alone, or together with other composers - and that it was not originally released on his own singles or albums.

The recordings are listed in chronological order, based on release dates, and have been divided into four separate sections according to decade. Songs that were only released decades after they were committed to tape have been listed according to their recording date.

On some of the featured titles, Stevie may also have made a contribution as instrumentalist, lead vocalist, backing vocalist or producer. We have tried to pin down and list such contributions.

The catalogue numbers mentioned in this list have been taken from US releases when available. If the album is not a US release, this has been noted. For reasons of consistency we have primarily considered albums as the "original release" of a song, even if some of the titles were issued on singles before they ended up on an album. However, where applicable we have included information about single releases in the "Further info" section for each track.

From 1990 onwards, all release information applies to CDs only. The reason is that this was roughly when CDs became the dominant format in the recording industry. A question mark indicates that we lack information or are uncertain about a particular album title, catalogue number or release date.

There are one or two songs in the list that violate the above rules slightly. However, we're not going to split hairs about that!


If the song is currently available on CD, we have provided the title, the catalogue number (mostly US releases) and a picture of that CD. These CDs are not necessarily reissues of an original album, since many of the songs can only be found on compilation CDs. In the hope that you will want to hear this music, we have also provided easy links for ordering the CD. (Please note that these links are only meant to be helpful recommendations, so we can't guarantee that the CDs will still be available from the web shop in question, nor can we can accept any responsibility for your dealings with those shops.)

In some cases, we have linked to an alternate CD than the one pictured: the links lead to web shops in different countries, and the CD in question may not be available everywhere. In those cases, we have written "OTHER CD" next to the link. Furthermore, we have prepared a separate list of compilation CDs that collect two or more of the recordings mentioned on these pages (see link to the right).

Stevie Wonder's Songs For Other Artists is very much a work in progress. Additional information and corrections are greatly appreciated.