Stevie Wonder delivers a thrilling show in A.C.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the late Lula Mae Hardaway, not only for giving birth to Stevie Wonder, but also for speaking to her son from beyond the grave last year and telling him it was time to take his music to his people.

Standing at the lip of the stage with his daughter and backup singer Aisha Morris, at the Event Center at the Borgata Hotel and Casino - at the start of what would turn out to be an extraordinary 2½-hour show Sunday night - Wonder said his mother "allowed me to be free. She told me 'Your being blind doesn't mean you have to be blind.' "

Hardaway died May 31, 2006, which her son called "the saddest day of my life." But when the 57-year-old polymath was feeling too down to play music in the weeks after her death, he heard a familiar voice rousting him from his depression, he told his adoring audience on Sunday, at the second of his two Atlantic City shows.

"She said to me, 'Boy, you better get off your ass.' "

Taking that instruction to heart, Wonder set out on his first concert tour in 12 years, which will bring him and his crack eight-piece band to the Wachovia Center on Nov. 8.

And setting the stage with that story, he and Morris sat down at the piano for "Love's in Need of Love Today" for an achingly beautiful duet that set a tone of positivity for the generous, spirited evening that would follow.

"The force of evil plans to make you its possession," Wonder sang, in the keening, melismatic voice that can still hit the high notes. "And it will if we let it."

As long as Wonder held the stage, evil didn't stand a chance. Switching between an electronic keyboard and a grand piano, Wonder sat stage center in flowing braids and sunglasses, and took his middle-age, interracial audience through a masterful tour of his 4 1/2-decade career.

He reached back as far as "My Cherie Amour," a song he recalled writing to impress an older woman - she was 16, he was 15 - but "I didn't even get a kiss." The set list was heavy with luminous ballads like "Golden Lady" and "Visions," during which he decried anyone "who would allow us to kill. . . in the name of God, in the name of Allah." Each was delivered with an infectiously elegant melody that rendered futile any resistance to its hopeful, romantic sentiment.

The set also included a surfeit of funk-driven hits from Wonder's socially conscious '70s heyday, including powerhouses such as "I Wish," "Superstition" and "Living For the City," as well as the celebratory "Sir Duke." The only nit to pick about those numbers (or the whole evening, for that matter), is that the horns were synthesized on Victoria Theodore's keyboard, rather than played on real brass.

Wonder was in a playful mood all night long. After a particularly pretty duet with Morris, he joked, "Sounds good, get away," so he could have center stage back to himself. After "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours," he reprised the tune as a country song, and when the crowd didn't seem crazy about that idea said: "I love country music. Too bad for you, good for me." He followed that with a cover of Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors."

The idea that Stevie Wonder is a musical genius is a widely held truism. He's up there with Einstein in the popular imagination, and for sheer musicality among living pop performers, Prince is the only one I can think of to put in his league. Even though even his most recent albums, such as A Time To Love (2005) are well worth hearing, his genius is mostly appreciated on recordings that are over 20 years old.

That stunning musicality that was so abundant on albums such as Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale is still alive and well in Wonder, and it was thrilling to see him explore it before an audience that he seemed to appreciate as much as it did him. And the lucky thing for Philadelphians is that he's coming to town to do it again next week. So thanks again, Lula, for making that happen.