20 Years in 27 Days: A Marriage in Music
Day #1: Stevie Wonder “That Girl”
by Mark Anthony Neal
Stevie Wonder has had dozens of songs that have topped the R&B/Soul charts, including “That Girl” which was one of the original recordings that appeared on his 1981 greatest hits collection Original Musiquarium I. Though it’s likely not the 1st (or 2nd) Stevie Wonder song that one might recall if pressed, the song is notable because it topped the R&B charts in the late winter and spring of 1982 for 9 weeks—the longest period that any Stevie Wonder topped the R&B charts. The twenty weeks that the song spent on the R&B charts is also a record for Stevie Wonder songs (tied with his tribute to Bob Marley “Master Blaster (Jammin’).”
“That Girl” was written during what was arguably Wonder’s last great period of creativity—songs that he wrote and recorded during that era like “Lately,” (later covered by Jodeci) “All I Do” (which Tammi Terrell and Brenda Holloway both recorded in the 1960s), “Do I Do” (with the late Dizzy Gillespie), “Ribbon in the Sky” and “Happy Birthday,” his tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. are all thought of as critical components of the Stevie Wonder canon.
Little of this mattered to me 29 years ago, when I first spotted “That Girl” for the 1st time that spring on a northbound D Train. My boys and I were IRT cats—the 4 train out of BK, transferring to the 6 train to head to the Bronx. But we had heard that all the cute girls who went to Brooklyn Tech and lived uptown, were taking the IND line. Despite the fact that taking the D train, straight outta Brooklyn, was a major detour for at least two of us, it was worth the trouble. Little did I know that I would meet my future bride that spring on that D train.
As the story goes--embellishing a bit on my “weak ass” game—once I sported “That girl,” I began a week long stare-down (in retrospect some crazy ish on a New York City Subway even in the early 1980s). When I finally got up the courage to walk over and ask her name—as the D Train was crossing the Manhattan Bridge—she simply blurted out “Peaches,” which threw me a bit for a loop; even then such a name always reminded me of women who go jail for stabbing their husbands with steak knives.
No doubt her decision not to give me her real name—would later find out Peaches was a family nickname—had everything to do with the nerd (and his two nerd friends) who asked the question in the first place. Eschewing the requisite street gear at the time—check Jamel Shabazz’s Back in the Day for the time capsule—for Sperry topsiders, Le Tigre knit shirts and an assortment of Members Only jackets (“I’m a thinker, not a lover.”) But a brotha trudged on.
