Welcome to the New York Times Popcast, you are Misoni Room at the beat-blows of Music,

News and Criticism.

I am your host, John Carmonica.

You, yes, you, you are the sunshine of my life.

Big facts, that's Stevie Wonder.

If you don't know, you should know.

It's been 50 years since Stevie Wonder's talking book.

Nostalgia is not a preferred mode of mine.

It is not a form of coverage that I particularly cotton to.

But the New York Times, and in particular,

Chief Popney's a critic, John Prellis, did a very ambitious package covering Stevie

talking book and its influence edited, of course, by Karen Gans.

Frankly, it's just too damn important to not talk about.

This week, we are going to talk to J.P.

He's going to join us in a minute.

We're going to talk about Stevie's talking book.

We're going to talk about Val and the came before, the out and the came after.

What it was like to make progressive, politically minded soul in the early 70s.

And frankly, we live in the present a lot on pop cast, and that's fine.

We don't spend a lot of time in the past.

So indulge us and maybe learn something about the present.

One of the best parts of hosting pop cast, of course, is talking everybody who comes

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