Stevie Wonder stops off in Philly on a three-city, one-day barnstorm

Before Wonder performed, Mayor Michael Nutter, whom Wonder later referred to as "Mayor Nutley," talked to him backstage.
"He said he loves Philly," the Mayor said. Asked who was cooler, Wonder, Pope Francis, or Jay Z (whose Made in America festival is due Sept. 5-6), Nutter gave a noncommittal response. "They're all unique," he said. "we've got Stevie Wonder now, then Jay Z, then the Pope then, the Dalai Lama in October. It's not bad for Philadelphia."
When asked about the relevance of the 1976 album and the response it has gathered from fans some nearly four decades after its release, Wonder spoke of the joy of recording "Isn't She Lovely?" for the album, and how much he enjoys singing about being a "nappy-headed boy" on "I Wish."
That masterpiece of gritty 1970s urban funk was one of two other Key Of Life songs he sang in its entirety, along with "As," for which he was joined by a melismatic Jazmine Sullivan, with the Strawberry Mansion-reared singer reading the song's lyrics on her phone.
Before Sullivan could leave the stage, Wonder made her promise she would "come jam with us" at the Wells Fargo center. And then — when she again started to exit — he again pulled her back by starting up "Superstition," the climactic workout he normally closes shows with from 1972's Talking Book. That  closed the show for real. "I love you!," he said, and got up to go.
Wonder had reason to be in a hurry. Wonder had done a similar mini-performance/press conference at 10 in the morning in Washington, D.C. to announce the tour, which he said would be the last times the album is played in its entirety in the United States. He'll perform in Washington on Oct. 3.
And after flying to Philadelphia — whose influence on his music he celebrated by name-dropping Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, remembering American Bandstand, and singing a snippet of McFadden and Whitehead's "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now," he was off to New York to repeat the ritual in Central Park. There'll he'll announce the tour's final performance at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 24. He'll thus end what's become a yearlong tour in the same town where it began.
Asked if he had ever performed in two cities on the same day before, let alone three, Wonder genially answered — in song — that he had not, "never in my life."
Tickets for Wonder's Songs In the Key of Life show at the Wells Fargo Center go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday on LiveNation.com.