Wonder offers Europe some Sunshine

Motown icon Stevie Wonder is set to tour Europe for the first time in more than a decade.

The soul performer will open the trek on September 8 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

He said the the tour will come ahead of two album releases - his first since 2005.

One of those albums, Gospel Inspired by Lula, is a tribute to his mother, Lula May Hardaway, who died two years ago.

The other, Through the Eyes of Wonder, he describes as his take on what other people see.

Although Wonder has penned and performed some of the best known soul and funk tunes of all time - including Superstition, You are the Sunshine of My Life, and Higher Ground - he hopes that his best work is still ahead of him.

"I always answer this question, when people ask me what is my most favourite song, with a quote that Duke Ellington always used to say when they asked him what was his most favourite composition. And I have to say, I haven't written it yet," he said.

The 25 time Grammy winner recently took the stage at rallies for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"The spirit I see in Senator Obama is a combination really of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr - and so I think with those two spirits in with what he already has himself you just can't lose," Wonder said.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.