It’s hard to imagine a world without music. We run to it for too many reasons not to recognize its influence in and on our lives. No matter how it’s arranged or played, whether its new, old, classical, contemporary or comes to us in any of its myriad iterations, the legions around the world who crave its magic understand its tireless appeal. Given our collective reliance on this timeless art form, we should never take the wonder of music or those who create it for granted.
If Signed, Sealed, Delivered, A Stevie Wonder Experience with John-Mark McGaha is any indication of how they do things, Artists Lounge Live specializes in keeping those flames of appreciation burning like an inferno. Now in performance at the Mercury Theater in Lakeview, the Chicago based production company’s highly creative tribute to one of the world’s most prolific and respected singer-songwriters acts as a highly original reintroduction to greatness.
Most of the world knows at least the outlines of Wonder’s exceptional career. A protégée composing and performing exemplary music before he was even a teenager, much of the music he’s created over the past five decades has melded and become one with the culture. Because of its natural brilliance, even a merely competent covering of his work shines. In the hands of Mr. McGaha and the seven-man band backing him up in this splendid Stevie Wonder homage, it blazes.
Masterfully constructed by the production house’s co-creator, Angela Ingersoll, and McGaha himself, Signed, Sealed, Delivered is much more than a gorgeous musical stroll down memory lane. Deeply revealing context has been added that takes you into the circumstances and emotions that inspired songs like Isn’t She Lovely and For Once in My Life. Isn’t She Lovely stands as one of the most beautiful portraits of love a father could compose for and dedicate to a daughter; while For Once in My Life reflects the sentiments of a 16-year-old musical genius in the throes of a crush. Each written at different stages of his life, both songs reveal a rarely paralleled understanding of humankind’s hearts and minds.
In McGaha’s opinion, jubilation defines Stevie Wonders music. It certainly fills every corner and crevice of the show in Lakeview. And the characterization couldn’t be more accurate. But there’s also much more. Dancing in their seats for much of the performance, the audience was particularly energized when McGaha and his crew rolled out Living for the City. Written in 1973 at the end of the Vietnam War and as the country was still in the grips of civil rights activism, the song’s beat is almost rabidly joyous. It doesn’t take long though to hear how the tempo seems out of step with the gravity of the song’s lyrics. Lyrics that expose and deride the hardships Black Americans endure to survive in a stifling caste defined society. Living for the City, like so many of his compositions, highlights how well Stevland Hardaway Judkins can distill the complex and make it infinitely comprehensible through music.
Affable, gifted with a pristine tenor and interestingly weaving his own back story into the performance, McGaha, hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, proved an ingratiating host and a delightful Stevie Wonder proxy. Blissfully married and with five kids, he can claim the life experience to comfortably inhabit the Stevie Wonder canon. Hearing him insert bits of himself into the program’s music lifted the experience and made it noticeably more rewarding. Arrangements may have remained true to the songs’ original scores, but that detectable essence of fresh insight McGaha brings to the performance fills the concert with intensity and warmth.
Cherise Coaches and Jessica Brooke Seals supporting vocals loaded the program with a delightfully lush soulfulness. Conducted by William Kurk, the band kept it tight and rarely ventured into bursts of individual virtuosity. When it did, more treasures were disclosed in the form of the trumpet and saxophone wizardry of Josh Rzepka and Jesse Montijo. An accomplished instrumentalist himself, McGaha displayed beautiful musicianship on both piano and guitar. The ensemble’s combined contributions in this glowing show prove why Stevie Wonder’s place on his pinnacle of greatness will always endure.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: A Stevie Wonder Experience with John-Mark McGaha
Through March 12, 2023
Mercury Theater
3745 N. Southport Avenue
Chicago, IL 60613
773-360-7365
https://www.mercurytheaterchicago.com/signed-sealed-delivered-2
