The late '60s found many of Motown's old guard beginning to stumble on the charts. James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone were redefining the ground under black music, the white rock establishment was turning into something far different from Motown's clean, lean, mean three-minute bursts, and Holland-Dozier-Holland's departure from the company by the end of 1967 deprived the label of its usual retinue of reliable hits. Aside from the Jackson 5, whose late-1969 Motown debut didn't fully impact till 1970, the two consistent exceptions to the label's slide were Norman Whitfield, who funked up the Temptations and cut Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and Stevie Wonder, who continued to come into his own as a writer and producer as well as being the most idiosyncratic of the classic Motown vocalists.

For Once in My Life, from 1968, collected four recent Stevie singles — the title track and "You Met Your Match" were both No. 2 R&B hits ("For Once" went No. 2 pop as well), the propulsive "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day" an R&B No. 1 that went Top 10 pop, and the smaller hit "I Don't Know Why I Love You" — as well as… read more »