Life-changing recordings: Mica Millar chooses ‘Steve Wonder’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2’

There are so many albums that influence you in different ways; and I was thinking that I should pick something really, you know, cool! But the truth of the matter is – and not that this album is not cool, because it really is, but in a different way – I‘ve chosen it because it was given to me as a child: Stevie Wonder’s Greatest Hits, Volume 2.

My mum gave me that LP when I was eight, when my auntie had given me her old record player. We’d always had music playing in the house, but it was the first music player that was mine that was in my bedroom. My mum had worked for a short period of time in A&R with a bit of PR, so she had all these sample discs, a huge record collection. She was a big soul fan; and my dad had a big record collection as well, which was a bit more prog rock, and folk music, Tracey Chapman, that sort of thing. So when I said, ‘I need some music for this record player!’, they sat down together and decided what to select. What they came up with was a Beach Boys compilation; a Jackson 5 record; a Beatles record - Abbey Road, I think – and this.

I loved all of those records, and played them loads. But I think the Stevie has stayed with me more than the other records. It was the very beginning of my journey into exploring soul music. There’s something very specific in the tonality of his vocal that has always resonated in me. Later, I discovered Aretha Franklin, and she has something similar. A friend of my dad’s said to me, ‘When a baby cries, it’s honest – and that’s what connects to people.’ And with Stevie, every word that’s being communicated has such sincerity – each syllable carried the message.

The ones that I loved on the album were ‘If You Really Love Me’, ‘For Once In My Life’, ‘Yester-me, Yester-you, Yesterday’. I can remember putting all those on over and over. And also ‘Never Had A Dream Come True’, ‘Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer’ – I remember thinking how beautiful that was. And ‘Heaven Help Us All’ ends it. That is one of my favourite Stevie Wonder tracks, though a lot of people don’t know it. So pretty much all of the record, actually! The only ones I would have skipped were probably ‘You’ve Met Your Match’ and ‘Travellin’ Man’. The rest of it still does it for me to this day. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of ‘For Once In My Life’ – it never grows old.

That record has had a deep influence on me – but insofar as it’s been internalised, rather than me taking things from it directly. I try to avoid doing that anyway, I don’t really want to do an imitation or pastiche of someone else. It becomes not you. They’re in there, they come out naturally. There might be things when you’re mixing or mastering a record, and you’re thinking of a specific sonic aspect of an instrument, you’re trying to figure out what makes a drum part sound great or whatever – I might reference that from a particular record. Old recordings are often not brilliant quality, anyway – I love the old sound, but you wouldn’t want to do it like that now. Personally, I don’t like that retro thing! I want to make a record that sounds classic and timeless, but not derivative.

My dad was a musician, so he was always playing music; and people would come over and play guitars round the kitchen table. There was a little makeshift studio in the cellar, so writing and playing was always present in my environment, which meant I knew that sort of thing could be done.

Then through soul music, having that sound at such an early age, I started to find what it was that resonated with me. It was fundamental. And it’s funny – I just found a notebook from that era, my first songbook! I was eight, the same year. So that record was involved in me deciding to start writing songs as well!

Mica Millar plays Love Supreme Jazz Festival on Sunday 2 July. Find out more: lovesupremefestival.com

This article originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of Jazzwise magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today