Maps of Music

Someday at Christmas (1967)

Where the lyrics of Someday at Christmas take you, and where it was really made.

Stevie Wonder's first Christmas album failed to chart in the United States on release, yet it reappeared on a US holiday chart in 2020.

Place unknown

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Someday at Christmas is the eighth studio album by Stevie Wonder
First released on 27 November 1967 by Motown Records under its Tamla imprint
Produced by Henry Cosby
Marks Wonder's first Christmas album
Twelve tracks: four covers of Christmas standards and carols, eight originals
Originals chiefly written by Ron Miller with his wife Aurora, and by Bryan and Deborah Wells
Includes the title track and "What Christmas Means to Me"

Reissued in 1978 with a different cover and catalogue number
Reissued several times since release
Most recent reissue in 2003 as part of Universal Music's Christmas edition of the 20th Century Masters series, with additional tracks
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Me" had already appeared on The Supremes' Christmas album Merry Christmas two years earlier

Most songs recorded in Detroit in summer 1967, with arrangements by Wade Marcus and David Van De Pitte
Stevie Wonder plays vocals, harmonica, keyboards and drums
The Funk Brothers provide the instrumentation
The Andantes and The Originals sing backing vocals

Stevland Hardaway Morris, known as Stevie Wonder, was born May 13, 1950 in Saginaw, Michigan, and became blind shortly after birth.
He signed with Motown's Tamla label at age 11 in 1961, receiving the name Little Stevie Wonder.
His single "Fingertips" topped the Billboard Hot 100 when he was 13, the youngest solo artist ever to do so.

Music of My Mind and Talking Book (1972) marked the start of his classic period, moving away from the Motown sound toward synthesizer- and keyboard-driven music.
Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life (1973–1976) won three consecutive Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, and he is the only artist to have done so.
In the 1980s he campaigned to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday and scored several number-one hits, including "Ebony and Ivory" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You".
He has sold more than 100 million records and won 25 Grammy Awards, the most by a male solo artist.

AllMusic retrospective review by editor Rovi Staff
Rovi Staff wrote that Wonder applies his inimitable vocal technique to yuletide songs, some familiar and some not, with predictably successful results
The title song was described as having a plaintive tone not usually found on Christmas albums
Although the title song hopes that such a day will come, it suggests that it may not happen any time soon
Rovi Staff said the title song seems eerily prescient given the chaotic year that followed Christmas 1967, when the record was released

The title track was released as a single in 1966, a year before the album itself came out.
Rovi Staff's AllMusic review said the title song's pessimism about the near future seemed prophetic in light of the chaotic year that followed.
The 1978 reissue used a different cover and a different catalogue number.
The 2003 reissue added tracks to the album's original twelve-song lineup.