| "Sir Duke" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Stevie Wonder | ||||
| from the album Songs in the Key of Life | ||||
| B-side | "He's Misstra Know-It-All" | |||
| Released | March 22, 1977 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:52 | |||
| Label | Tamla | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Stevie Wonder | |||
| Producer(s) | Stevie Wonder | |||
| Stevie Wonder singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Sir Duke" is a song composed and performed by Stevie Wonder from his 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life. Released as a single in 1977, the track topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Black Singles charts,[4] and reached number two in the UK Singles Chart, his joint biggest hit there at the time. Billboard ranked it as the No. 18 song of 1977.
The song was written in tribute to Duke Ellington, the influential jazz legend who had died in 1974. The lyrics also refer to Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.
Wonder re-recorded the song for the 1995 live album Natural Wonder.
- ^ McFerrin, John. "Stevie Wonder- Songs In The Key of Life". Archived from the original on 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
- ^ a b Breihan, Tom (October 28, 2019). "The Number Ones: Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke"". Stereogum. Retrieved July 2, 2023.
"Sir Duke" isn't exactly a jazz song, and it isn't exactly a Motown-style R&B song, either. It flips back and forth between the two modes...
- ^ Segretto, Mike (2022). "1976". 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Minute - A Critical Trip Through the Rock LP Era, 1955–1999. Backbeat. p. 328. ISBN 9781493064601.
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 636.