Maps of Music

Innervisions (1973)

Where the lyrics of Innervisions take you, and where it was really made.

Three days after this album came out, Wonder was hit by a log in a car crash and lay in a coma for ten days.

Key places

Record Plant, Los Angeles (1973)

Recording site Record Plant (Los Angeles) — The source lists the Record Plant in Los Angeles as a recording location for the album. The point is placed at the studio building's coordinates. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Mediasound, New York City (1973)

Recording site Mediasound Studios — The source lists Mediasound in New York City as a recording location for the album. The point is placed at the studio coordinates. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Innervisions: the 16th studio album by Stevie Wonder
• Released August 3, 1973, by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records
• Nine tracks; Wonder wrote the lyrics, composed, and produced nearly all of it
• On many tracks he played all or virtually all of the instruments
• Synthesizers are used prominently throughout the album
• Widely regarded by fans, critics, and colleagues as one of his finest works

Background

• Follows Music of My Mind and Talking Book from 1972, which raised Wonder's standing in the industry
• Those albums moved him from a reliable hitmaker to a 'master' of the new album format
• Continued experiments with the T.O.N.T.O. synthesizer system developed by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff
• Cecil and Margouleff pushed Wonder to shift his lyrical themes toward political and metaphysical issues
• Often seen as completing his transition from the 'Little Stevie Wonder' of romantic ballads to a more mature, conscious artist

Recording

• Themes run from drug abuse in 'Too High' to systemic racism in 'Living for the City'
• Love ballads include 'All in Love Is Fair' and 'Golden Lady'
• The closer 'He's Misstra Know-It-All' is thought by some to be an attack on then-US President Richard Nixon
• 'Living for the City' was one of the first soul songs to deal explicitly with systemic racism
• For the final verse of that song, Margouleff and Cecil deliberately provoked Wonder to get a gruff, angry vocal
• Margouleff later said Wonder grew hoarse and upset with them, but the tactic produced the take they wanted

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Stevland Hardaway Morris, known as Stevie Wonder, was born May 13, 1950 in Saginaw, Michigan, and became blind shortly after birth.
• He signed with Motown's Tamla label at age 11 in 1961, receiving the name Little Stevie Wonder.
• His single "Fingertips" topped the Billboard Hot 100 when he was 13, the youngest solo artist ever to do so.

Career

• Music of My Mind and Talking Book (1972) marked the start of his classic period, moving away from the Motown sound toward synthesizer- and keyboard-driven music.
• Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life (1973–1976) won three consecutive Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, and he is the only artist to have done so.
• In the 1980s he campaigned to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday and scored several number-one hits, including "Ebony and Ivory" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You".
• He has sold more than 100 million records and won 25 Grammy Awards, the most by a male solo artist.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Billboard: praised his skill on drums, piano, bass, and ARP synthesizers, calling the one-man band approach a success
• The New York Times: described Wonder as producing, composing, arranging, and singing, with the sum of the components being an awesome knowledge
• Playboy: called the album a beautiful fusion of the lyric and the didactic, with a basically optimistic view
• Circus (Jon Tiven): found no memorable low spots but no truly outstanding songs either
• Roberta Flack told Newsweek it was the most sensitive album of the decade

Reappraisal

• Rolling Stone ranked it 31st in VH1's 2001 list of greatest albums, and 34th on the 2020 Rolling Stone list
• Rolling Stone also ranked it 23rd in 2003 and 24th in 2012
• Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (third edition, 2000) ranked it 143rd
• Inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999
• Influential on the future sound of commercial soul and black music

Records

• Peaked at number four on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart
• Number one on the Billboard Soul LPs chart
• Number one on the Billboard Black Albums chart for two weeks, his second consecutive album to do so
• Reached number one on the Cashbox chart near the end of 1973
• Became his first album to reach the UK top 10, peaking at number eight
• Won Album of the Year and Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording at the 16th Grammy Awards; 'Living for the City' won Best R&B Song

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Three days after release, Wonder's car collided with a truck near Durham, North Carolina; a log smashed the windshield and he lay in a coma for ten days.
• His friend Ira Tucker sang 'Higher Ground' into his ear, and after a while his fingers started moving in time with the song.
• After the crash he lost his sense of smell, which he later largely recovered.
• 'All in Love Is Fair' was a 1974 hit for Barbra Streisand, who recorded it and released it as a single.
• The single 'Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing' reached number two on the Soul Singles chart.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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