Syreeta Wright Stevie Wonder presents Syreeta

I Wanna Be By Your Side – Syreeta

Not content with merely creating some of the greatest albums ever made (and winning a bucket-load of Grammy Awards) during the 1970s, Stevie Wonder also produced a couple of albums for his ex-wife Syreeta Wright. He wrote most of the material and played many of the instruments on the two albums. Both are comprised of lighter material than the socially conscious songs that Wonder was placing on his own records at the time, but in particular, 1974’s Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta is an excellent record that stands proudly alongside Wonder’s own work from the period.

My favourite song from Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta is her duet with The Spinners’ G.C. Cameron, ‘I Wanna Be By Your Side’. It’s nothing profound, just a fluffy, strident, tuneful piece of pop, donated by a master pop craftsman who was at the top of his game in the mid 1970s.

7 Comments

Jim S.

September 3, 2017 / 3:56 pm Reply

Let us not forget that this album introduced “Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers,” which Jeff Beck played on his masterful Blow by Blow album a couple years later. I blogged about the album just a short while ago.
- Aphoristical
  
  September 3, 2017 / 7:14 pm Reply
  
  The Yardbirds and Jeff Beck are a pretty big blind spot in my pop music knowledge – I guess I should become acquainted with them one day.
  
  ‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers would probably be the canonical choice, but I like the fluffy breeze of ‘I Wanna Be By Your Side’.
stephen1001

September 4, 2017 / 1:11 am Reply

I thought Stevie was prolific before – and someone he was even busier in the mid 70s than I realized!
Hackskeptic

September 5, 2017 / 1:37 am Reply

I’m a huge, huge fan of Stevie’s music from “Music Of My Mind” up until “Songs In The Key Of Life”. He couldn’t put a foot wrong, and it’s remiss of me not to invest some time in Syreeta’s work, particularly given that she contributed a lot to his records. Thanks for the reminder.
catchgroove

September 6, 2017 / 4:13 pm Reply

Never knew about this album. I will check it out.
David

February 20, 2021 / 10:45 am Reply

I absolutely love this song. The interplay between them both is great and the vocals between them both are sublime. One of my my favourite soul tunes.
- Aphoristical
  
  February 20, 2021 / 3:00 pm Reply
  
  Thanks for writing in – it’s a lovely overlooked song. I don’t know anything else by GC Cameron – do you?