Stevie Wonder Opens the Vault for ‘Songs in the Key of Life’

Stevie Wonder is marking the 50th anniversary of Songs in the Key of Life by releasing four recordings that remained unheard from the landmark album’s original sessions. The songs have been collected in a new four-track EP curated by Wonder.

Four songs emerge from the 1976 sessions

The release includes “It’s Easier,” “My Life Story of Love,” “I Can See the Sun in Late December” and “I’m Into Livin’.” Wonder wrote and produced all four tracks. Former Supremes member Susaye Greene shares a writing credit on “My Life Story of Love,” while Thelma Houston, Deniece Williams and Shirley Brewer can be heard among the backing vocalists on “I’m Into Livin’.”

The material was newly mixed for release by John Fischbach and Gary O Adante, engineers who worked on the original album. Rather than presenting the tracks as a modern reinvention, the EP expands the creative picture of the period in which Wonder built one of his defining records.

That connection is audible across the set. The songs move through soul, jazz, funk and romantic balladry, reflecting the broad musical language that made the 1976 double album so enduring. Their arrival adds fresh context without changing the original sequence listeners have known for five decades.

An anniversary beyond the archive

Songs in the Key of Life won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and produced standards including “Sir Duke,” “As” and “Isn’t She Lovely.” Its anniversary campaign is also extending to the stage: Wonder is scheduled to perform the album in full on a tour beginning October 13 in Birmingham, England.

The itinerary continues through Europe before returning to the United Kingdom, then heads to the United States for dates in New York, Chicago, Washington, Detroit and Los Angeles. The archival release therefore works as both a look back and an introduction to the live celebration.

Wonder’s most recent new song before this project was “Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart,” released in 2024. His last studio album, A Time to Love, arrived in 2005. That long gap makes four fully produced recordings from his celebrated 1970s run especially significant: they are not merely demos, but completed pieces now entering his official catalog.