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When I saw the cover of “A Tribute To Stevie Wonder“ by Vernon Neilly I was a little worried but then I noticed a couple of the guitarists who join Vernon on this album, Greg Howe and Kiko Loureiro and suddenly it piqued my interest!

The opening track, an instrumental version of ‘Boogie on Reggae Woman‘ features the amazing Greg Howe, and from the moment he starts playing you can tell instantly that its him from his middly sounding guitar to his incredible phrasing and that slidey vibrato! Greg always amazes me when I hear him play, you can tell instantly that it is him but he doesn’t have signature licks in fact he never seems to repeat himself and flies all over the fretboard with tasteful yet jaw dropping skill. As a Greg Howe fan this track is hard to beat, shame it is track 1 in a way because I will always judge everything that follows by this incredibly high benchmark.

Following such an explosive opener was always going to be a challenge but it is well met by Vernon’s cover of “I Wish“ which is taken on a fusion ride by the awesome Kiko Loureiro. Unfortunately everytime I hear this track I hear Will Smith’s ‘Wild Wild West’ in my head, damn him for poisoning my mind! That aside this is a great track, I would be happy to drop the electric piano solo which sounds a bit plinky plonky for such a rocked up track but Kiko’s incredible playing is enough to make this my 2nd fave track on the album next to “Boogie…“

So 2 strong openers what could they follow that with, well how about a metal version of ‘Superstition‘? I hadn’t heard of guitarist Bill Hudson but a quick poke around Wikipedia gave me the following info:

Bill Hudson, born in January 13 in Sao Paulo, Brazil, moved to the United States during the year of 2005 in order to join the Nebraskan power metal band Cellador, playing on their debut album Enter Deception and remaining in their line-up until early 2008. Since leaving Cellador Hudson has formed his own band called Coldera, and also joined Power Quest.

I really don’t know what to say about this, the vocalist would fit Yngwie Malmsteen’s band very well, but singing Stevie Wonder? It just sounds a bit wrong with all that wailing, double bass drum fills and chugging guitars. I think Stevie Ray Vaughan is the only cover version I’ve heard that does this track justice. Having said all that, the guitar playing is very impressive, Bill is a very talented metal guitarist.

‘Sir Duke‘ features Miguel Mega, a Portugese guitarist based in Sao Paulo, Brazil and features some funky guitar playing as you would expect and Cristopher Clark’s vocals are pretty true to the original. I personally have always disliked this song so it is hard to give this track a fair review, what I can tell you is that the guitar playing is good, fusion playing but not in the same league as Greg Howe.

Track 5, “Isn’t She Lovely“ - I hate this song with a passion, its just so cheesy and uninteresting and a strange choice for the album. Fabyan Irving on vocals does a good Stevie Wonder impression and Vernon’s playing is good but I can’t get past my hate for this cheery love song sorry!

“I Was Made To Love You“ has some nice Jazz soloing by U-NAM and is one of the few tracks on the album that actually has a clean guitar tone on it which makes a nice change. I’d never heard of U-NAM before but his playing is clean and funky with lots of nice runs and plenty of octaves a la Wes Montgomery!

“Don’t You Worry Bout A Thing“ once again features Brazillian Kiko Loureiro, which is good choice for him with his latin american background turning this tune into something you could quite easily mistake for a Santana tune, well at first anyway, the last minute descends into a shred frenzy with crazy drumming and fast picking galore! I’m not sure what Stevie would say about this but it is certainly impressive from a guitarists’ point of view.

“For Once In My Life“ is another one of those cheese-meister tracks that I just think would have been best left to Stevie to sing at pensioner’s parties. It reminds me of 80’s Royal Variety shows on TV when I was a kid where the cast of Eastenders all come out on stage for a knees up! I think I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that I’m not much of a Stevie Wonder fan? Miguel Mega once again takes center stage on guitar and again plays very nicely but not enough for me to listen to this track again.

The penultimate track is a Vocal (if you can call someone singing using a vocoder vocals) version of ‘Boogie on Reggae Woman‘ again featuring Greg Howe, but it was all said and done on the opening track which is the best track on the album, I don’t understand the point of this track?

The album finishes with an instrumental version of “Isn’t She Lovely“ and well it really is not much better than the vocal version. Not sure why there are 2 vocal and instrumental versions of tracks on this album seems like a waste of time to me, just pick one or the other.

Ok so I’ve been a little negative about this CD which isn’t like me but I have put that down to my general dislike of Stevie Wonder songs, I suggest you check out the streaming tracks on iTunes or similar because there is some really great guitar playing on this album and a few tracks that I would buy separately rather than buying the entire album. If you are a die-hard Stevie Wonder fan then chances are you will think this album is sacrilege but if you are a fan of funky fusion based guitar playing this could be just the thing to pop on your Christmas wishlist!