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Talking Book

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This article is about the 1972 album. For other uses, see Talking Book (disambiguation).
Talking Book
Studio album by
Stevie Wonder
ReleasedOctober 27, 1972 (1972-10-27)
RecordedMay–July 1972[1][2]
Studio
Genre
Length43:29
LabelTamla
Producer
Stevie Wonder chronology
Music of My Mind
(1972) 		Talking Book
(1972) 		Innervisions
(1973)
Singles from Talking Book
  1. "Superstition"
    Released: October 24, 1972
  2. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
    Released: February 1973

Talking Book is the fifteenth studio album by American singer, songwriter, and musician Stevie Wonder, released on October 27, 1972, by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records. This album and Music of My Mind, released earlier the same year, are generally considered to mark the start of Wonder's "classic period".[6] The sound of the album is sharply defined by Wonder's use of keyboards and synthesizers.

The album peaked at number three on the Billboard Top LPs chart and finished at number three on Billboard's year-end chart for 1973. "Superstition" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Soul Singles charts, and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" hit number one on the Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts. Talking Book earned Wonder his first Grammy Award, with "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" winning Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 16th Grammy Awards; "Superstition" also won Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song. Often included in lists of the greatest albums of all time, Talking Book was voted number 322 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000),[7] and Rolling Stone ranked it number 59 on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2020.[8] It was the first album purchased by former US president Barack Obama.[9]

Recording

[edit]
Wonder c. 1972

Much of the material on Talking Book was recorded at the same time as that on Music of My Mind.[10] As the album saw Wonder enjoying more artistic freedom from Motown and relying less on Motown's head Berry Gordy for musical direction and expression, it is often seen as the beginning of his transition from a youthful prodigy into an independent and experimental artist. Speaking of the album in 2000, Wonder said: "It wasn't so much that I wanted to say anything except where I wanted to just express various many things that I felt—the political point of view that I have, the social point of view that I have, the passions, emotion and love that I felt, compassion, the fun of love that I felt, the whole thing in the beginning with a joyful love and then the pain of love."[11]

The sound of the album is sharply defined by Wonder's keyboard work, especially synthesizers. While the synthesizers give a funky edge to tracks like "Maybe Your Baby", the Hohner Clavinet embellishments on "Big Brother" evoke a six-string acoustic guitar, and the note-bending harmonica work on several tracks touches on some folk and blues influences. Wonder's use of the Clavinet Model C on "Superstition" is widely regarded as one of the definitive tracks featuring the instrument.[5] Wonder played the majority of the instruments on the album himself, but he received some support from such guest musicians as Jeff Beck, Ray Parker Jr., David Sanborn, and Buzz Feiten.

Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil collaborated with Wonder on four of his "classic" albums: Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale, as well as several albums by the Isley Brothers and others. Their unusual production technique of using multiple layers of instruments like the Clavinet, Fender Rhodes electric piano, and Arp and Moog synthesizers, rather than the more-typical string orchestra, helped to give Talking Book and these other three albums their distinctive sound.[citation needed]

Packaging

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The album's cover photo, taken by Robert Margouleff in Los Angeles,[2] features Wonder with his hair in cornrows, wearing jewelry and a velvet kaftan.[12]

The packaging of original pressings of the album incorporated both the album's title and Wonder's name embossed in braille (as well as being printed in English), along with a message that was only embossed in braille until the 2000 release of the album.[citation needed] The message reads:[13]

Here is my music. It is all I have to tell you how I feel. Know that your love keeps my love strong.

— Stevie

Reception

[edit]
Retrospective professional reviews
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[14]
The Austin Chronicle[15]
Christgau's Record GuideA[16]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[17]
The Great Rock Discography9/10[18]
Los Angeles Times[19]
MusicHound Rock5/5[20]
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide[21]
Pitchfork10/10[22]
Q[23]

Released after Wonder toured with The Rolling Stones in 1972, Talking Book became a major hit, peaking at number three on the Billboard Pop Albums chart in February 1973,[24] and became the first album by Wonder to reach the top of the Top R&B Albums chart, where it remained for three weeks.[25] The popular appeal of the recording helped destroy the myth that R&B artists were incapable of creating music that could be appreciated by rock audiences, and marked a unique period for R&B artists (especially Motown artists).[citation needed] Wonder won three awards for Talking Book at the 1974 Grammys: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", and both Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song for "Superstition". Incidentally, at the same ceremony, Wonder's next album, Innervisions, won Album of the Year, and Talking Book's associate producers, Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, won the Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical award for their work on that album.[26] Reviewing the album for Rolling Stone at the time of its release, Vince Aletti called Talking Book "ambitious" and "richly-textured", writing that "even at its dreamiest, the music has a glowing vibrancy" and makes for an altogether "exceptional, exciting album, the work of a now quite matured genius".[27] Writing a few years later in The Village Voice about Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life (1976), Robert Christgau said that "Talking Book is closer to a perfect album", as "a more complex and satisfying delight—a delight that combines the freewheeling energy of Dylan and the Stones with the softer accessibility of a Carole King—is provided by an artist with the ambition to ride his own considerable momentum and the talent to do more than just hang on while doing so."[28] In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Christgau said the album found Wonder taking artistic control and breaking through, continuing his "wild multi-voice experiments" and writing better ballads without losing "his endearing natural bathos"; Christgau also highlighted "Superstition" as a translation of Wonder's "way of knowledge into hard-headed, hard-rocking political analysis".[16] J. D. Considine, in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), called the album "a pop tour de force".[21]

Talking Book has appeared in professional rankings of the greatest albums of all time. It was voted number 322 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).[7] In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number 90 on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time;[citation needed] it maintained that ranking on the 2012 version of the list,[29] and was number 59 on the 2020 edition.[30]

Track listing

[edit]

All tracks are written by Stevie Wonder, unless otherwise noted

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."You Are the Sunshine of My Life" 2:58
2."Maybe Your Baby" 6:45
3."You and I (We Can Conquer the World)" 4:39
4."Tuesday Heartbreak" 3:09
5."You've Got It Bad Girl"
4:55
Total length:22:13
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Superstition" 4:26
2."Big Brother" 3:35
3."Blame It on the Sun"
3:28
4."Lookin' for Another Pure Love"
  • Wonder
  • Syreeta Wright
4:45
5."I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)"
  • Wonder
  • Yvonne Wright
4:48
Total length:21:16

Personnel

[edit]

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, Fender Rhodes, drums
  • Jim Gilstrap – first lead vocal, background vocal
  • Lani Groves – second lead vocal, background vocal
  • Gloria Barley – background vocal
  • Scott Edwards – electric bass
  • Daniel Ben Zebulon – congas

"Maybe Your Baby"

"You and I (We Can Conquer the World)"

"Tuesday Heartbreak"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, Fender Rhodes, Hohner Clavinet, drums, Moog bass
  • Deniece Williams – background vocal
  • Shirley Brewer – background vocal
  • David Sanborn – alto saxophone

"You've Got It Bad Girl"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, Fender Rhodes, drums, Moog bass, T.O.N.T.O. synthesizer
  • Jim Gilstrap – background vocal
  • Lani Groves – background vocal
  • Daniel Ben Zebulon – congas

"Superstition"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, Hohner Clavinet, drums, Moog bass
  • Trevor Lawrence – tenor saxophone
  • Steve Madaio – trumpet

"Big Brother"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocals, Hohner Clavinet, drums/percussion, harmonica, Moog bass

"Blame It on the Sun"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, piano, harpsichord, drums, Moog bass, T.O.N.T.O. synthesizer
  • Jim Gilstrap – background vocal
  • Lani Groves – background vocal

"Lookin' for Another Pure Love"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, Fender Rhodes, drums, Moog bass
  • Debra Wilson – background vocal
  • Shirley Brewer – background vocal
  • Loris Harvin (Delores Harvin) – background vocal
  • Jeff Beck – electric guitar
  • Buzz Feiten (Howard "Buzz" Feiten) – electric guitar

"I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)"

  • Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, piano, Hohner Clavinet, drums, Moog bass

Additional personnel

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  • Malcolm Cecil – associate producer, engineering, Moog programming[5]
  • Robert Margouleff – associate producer, engineering, Moog programming, photography
  • Austin Godsey – engineer, recording
  • Joan Decola – recording
  • George Marino – mastering

Charts

[edit]

Certifications

[edit]
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada)[40] Gold 50,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[41] Gold 100,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Power, Martin (2014). Hot Wired Guitar: The Life of Jeff Beck. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9781783233861.
  2. ^ a b "Stevie Wonder's Masterpiece". The New York Times. November 6, 2022. p. L20. Retrieved September 23, 2024. (Published online, under a different title, on October 27, 2022).
  3. ^ Martin, Bill (1998), Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, Chicago: Open Court, p. 41, ISBN 0-8126-9368-X
  4. ^ Perone, James E. (2012). The Album: A Guide to Pop Music's Most Provocative, Influential, and Important Creations, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. x. ISBN 978-0313379062. Wonder integrated soul, funk, rock, torch song, and jazz on his 1972 album Talking Book and his 1973 album Innervisions.
  5. ^ a b c Chesterton, George (October 5, 2012). "In praise of the clavinet". New Statesman. Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  6. ^ Some observers count six classic albums, some count five, and others count four.
    Bogdanov, Vladimir; Woodstra, Chris & Erlewine, Stephen Thomas, eds. (2001). All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music (4th ed.). San Francisco: Backbeat Books. pp. 447–448. ISBN 0879306270. Stevie Wonder came into his own with Music of My Mind, but Talking Book is where he hit his stride...
    Cramer, Alfred William (2009). Musicians and composers of the 20th century. Vol. 5. Salem Press. p. 1645. ISBN 978-1587655173.
    Brown, Jeremy K. (2010). Stevie Wonder: Musician. Black Americans of Achievement. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. p. 57. ISBN 978-1604136852.
  7. ^ a b Colin Larkin, ed. (2006). All Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd ed.). Virgin Books. p. 131. ISBN 0-7535-0493-6.
  8. ^ "Talking Book ranked 59th greatest album by Rolling Stone magazine". Rolling Stone. September 22, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  9. ^ Obama, Barack & Springsteen, Bruce (2021). Renegades: Born in the USA. London: Viking. p. 76. ISBN 978-0241561249.
  10. ^ Haskins, Jim & Benson, Kathleen (1978). The Stevie Wonder Scrapbook. New York: Grosser & Dunlop. p. 89. ISBN 0448144646.
  11. ^ Williams, Deborah (December 30, 2000). "The Story Of Stevie Wonder's 'Talking Book'". All Things Considered. NPR. Archived from the original on October 27, 2022. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  12. ^ "#90: Stevie Wonder, "Talking Book" (1972)". September 17, 2018. Retrieved November 8, 2018.
  13. ^ Davis, Sharon (2006). Stevie Wonder: Rhythms of Wonder. London: Robson Books. p. 89. ISBN 1861059655.
  14. ^ AllMusic review
  15. ^ Moser, Margaret (May 19, 2000). "Review: Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved September 26, 2015.
  16. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: W". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 9, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  17. ^ Larkin, Colin, ed. (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus. p. 1522. OL 11913831M.
  18. ^ Strong, Martin C. (2004). The Great Rock Discography (7th ed.). New York: Canongate. p. 1688. OL 18807297M.
  19. ^ Hilburn, Robert (April 1, 2000). "Motown Releases Remind Us of Stevie Wonder's Impact". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  20. ^ Graff, Gary, ed. (1996). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Detroit: Visible Ink. p. 741. OL 8145585M.
  21. ^ a b Considine, J. D. (2004). "Stevie Wonder". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon & Schuster. pp. 885–87. ISBN 0743201698. Retrieved September 25, 2015.
  22. ^ Cooper, Carol (February 27, 2022). "Stevie Wonder: Talking Book Album Review | Pitchfork". Pitchfork. Retrieved March 27, 2022.
  23. ^ Q. London: 123. August 2000.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  24. ^ "1973 Albums - Month By Month". Super Seventies Rocksite!. Retrieved May 5, 2014.[permanent dead link]
  25. ^ "Talking Book - Stevie Wonder". AllMusic. October 27, 1972. Retrieved January 12, 2012.
  26. ^ LeDonne, Rob (August 3, 2023). "'Innervisions' At 50: Revisiting Stevie Wonder's Trailblazing, GRAMMY-Winning Album". Grammy Awards. Retrieved May 13, 2024.
  27. ^ Aletti, Vince (January 4, 1973). Talking Book by Stevie Wonder | Rolling Stone Music | Music Reviews. Rolling Stone. Wenner Media. Retrieved on April 19, 2011.
  28. ^ Christgau, Robert (November 8, 1976). "Stevie Wonder Is a Masterpiece". The Village Voice. Retrieved December 18, 2020 – via robertchristgau.com.
  29. ^ "500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time". Rolling Stone. 2012. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
  30. ^ "Talking Book ranked 59th greatest album by Rolling Stone magazine". Rolling Stone. September 22, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2020.
  31. ^ "Top Albums/CDs - Volume 19, No. 16" (PHP). RPM. June 2, 1973. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  32. ^ a b "Hit Parade Italia - Gli album più venduti del 1973" (in Italian). hitparadeitalia.it. Retrieved April 29, 2014.
  33. ^ Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970-2005. Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4871310779.
  34. ^ "norwegiancharts.com Stevie Wonder - Talking Book". Archived from the original (ASP) on May 7, 2014. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
  35. ^ "Stevie Wonder > Artists > Official Charts". UK Albums Chart. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  36. ^ a b "Allmusic: Talking Book: Charts & Awards: Billboard Albums". allmusic.com. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  37. ^ "Les Albums (CD) de 1973 par InfoDisc" (in French). infodisc.fr. Archived from the original (PHP) on October 27, 2012. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  38. ^ "Billboard.BIZ Top Pop Albums of 1973". billboard.biz. Archived from the original on December 4, 2012. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  39. ^ "Billboard.BIZ Top Pop Albums of 1974". billboard.biz. Archived from the original on December 31, 2012. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  40. ^ "Canadian album certifications – Stevie Wonder – Talking Book". Music Canada. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
  41. ^ "British album certifications – Stevie Wonder – Talking Book". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
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