We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago….
Maybe listeners first discovering this today will not be as blown away as we were back in 1972 when Stevie Wonder dropped his fifteenth studio LP, “Talking Book”…the first in a stretch of four albums as good as any artist in music history.
It’s the soundscapes of this record that set it apart from anything we had really heard before from a pop music LP. The production team of Malcolm Cecil & Robert Margouleff progamming the synths and layering them over Wonder’s Fender Rhodes and clavinet.
The clavinet especially stands out nowhere better than the smash hit ‘Superstition” but also funky triumphs like “Maybe Your Baby” which also features an excellent Ray Parker Jr guitar solo, and the politically charged “Big Brother”.
Although Stevie plays almost all the instruments on this, he does get some help from folks like David Sanborn, Jeff Beck and Buzzy Feiten.
There really isn’t a bad song on this. Ranging from the smooth love songs like “You are The Sunshine of My Life (great Fender Rhodes), Looking For Another Pure Love” & “I Believe” to the more funky stuff like “Maybe Your Baby”.
Wonder had spent 1972 touring with the Rolling Stones and this LP appealed to both soul & rock audiences. This won three Grammys”’best pop vocal” for “You Are The Sunshine of My Life”, “Best R&B vocal & song for “Superstiton”.
The critics lapped it up. Even noted curmudgeon Robert Christgau called it a “complex and satisfying delight”. Rolling Stone writer Vince Aletti said the music “has a glowing vibrancy” and calls it “the work of a now quite matured genius”.
For those of you who only remember the schlocky stuff that Wonder gave us in the 80’s and going forward, check out his mid 70’s output including “Innervisions”, Fullfillingness First Finale” and “Songs In The Key of Life” but start with this one. An artist coming into his peak years and delivering magic.
Comments