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Innervisions
''Innervisions'' is the sixteenth studio album by American singer, songwriter, and musician Stevie Wonder, released on August 3, 1973, by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records. A landmark recording of Wonder's "classic period", the album has been regarded as his transition from the "Little Stevie Wonder" known for romantic ballads into a more musically mature, conscious, and grown-up artist. On the album, Wonder continued to experiment with the ARP synthesizer and the revolutionary T.O.N.T.O. (The Original New Timbral Orchestra) synth developed by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, and ''Innervisions'' became hugely influential on the future sound of commercial soul and black music. The album peaked at number four on the ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tapes chart and number one on the ''Billboard'' Soul LPs chart, eventually finishing at number four on the magazine's ''Top Pop Albums'' chart for 1974. At the 16th Grammy Awards, it won Album of the Year and Best Engineered Non-C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. Wonder's single " Fingertips" was a No. 1 hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in 1963, at the age of 13, making him the youngest artist ever to top the chart. Wonder's critical success was at its peak in the 1970s. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malcolm Cecil
Malcolm Cecil (9 January 193728 March 2021) was a British jazz bassist, record producer, engineer and electronic musician. He was a founding member of a leading UK jazz quintet of the late 1950s, the Jazz Couriers,The Jazz Couriers at David Taylor's British jazz web site before going on to join a number of British jazz combos led by Dick Morrissey, Tony Crombie and in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He later joined |
Grammy Award For Album Of The Year
The Grammy Award for Album of the Year is presented by the The Recording Academy, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales, chart position, or critical reception." Album of the Year is the most prestigious award category at the Grammys, and it is one of the general field awards alongside Grammy Award for Best New Artist, Best New Artist, Grammy Award for Record of the Year, Record of the Year and Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Song of the Year, presented annually since the 1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959. Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon and Taylor Swift have each won this award three times, more than any other artists. Credit rules Over the years, the rules on who was presented with an award have changed: *1959–1965: Artist only. *1966–1998: Artist and producer. *1999–2002: Artist, producer, and rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonto's Expanding Head Band
Tonto's Expanding Head Band was a British-American electronic music duo consisting of Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff. Despite releasing only two albums in the early 1970s, the duo were influential in the development of electronic music and helped bring the synthesizer to the mainstream through session and production work for other musicians (most notably Stevie Wonder) and extensive commercial advertising work. The TONTO synthesizer TONTO is an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra", the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world, designed and constructed over several years by Malcolm Cecil. TONTO started as a Moog modular synthesizer Series III owned by record producer Robert Margouleff. Later a second Moog III was added, then four Oberheim SEMs, two ARP 2600s, modules from Serge with Moog-like panels, EMS, Roland, Yamaha, etc. plus several custom modules designed by Serge Tcherepnin and Cecil himself - who has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don't You Worry 'bout A Thing
"Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" is a song by American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, released as the third single from his sixteenth studio album, ''Innervisions'' (1973). It reached number 16 on the US ''Billboard'' Pop Singles chart, number 10 on the '' Cash Box'' Top 100, and number two on the R&B chart. The song's lyrics convey a positive message, focusing on taking things in one's stride and accentuating the positive. In 1992, British band Incognito had a European hit with their cover of the song. Music and lyrics The tune is in E minor, starting with a Latin piano intro. The opening melody is reminiscent of Horace Silver's "Song for My Father", over which Stevie engages in an English-speaking dialogue with a woman, trying to impress her with talk of worldliness of having been to "Iraq, Iran, Eurasia" before changing to Spanish, using the phrase "''Todo 'stá bien chévere''", which loosely translates as "Everything's really great," continuing with an attempt to impres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living For The City
"Living for the City" is a 1973 single by Stevie Wonder from his ''Innervisions'' album. It reached number 8 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart and number 1 on the R&B chart. ''Rolling Stone'' ranked the song number 104 on their 2004 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Story and production Born into a poor family in Mississippi, a young black man experiences discrimination in looking for work and eventually seeks to escape to New York City (alluding to the Second Great Migration) in hopes of finding a new life. Through a series of background noises and spoken dialogue, the man reaches New York by bus, but is then promptly framed for a crime, arrested, convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. Wonder played all the instruments on the song and was assisted by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff for recording engineering and synthesizer programming. Tenley Williams, writing in ''Stevie Wonder'' (2002), feels it was ''"one of the first soul hits to include both a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder Song)
"Higher Ground" is a funk song written by Stevie Wonder which first appeared on his 1973 album '' Innervisions''. The song reached number 4 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and number 1 on the US Hot R&B Singles chart. Wonder wrote and recorded the song in a three-hour burst of creativity in May 1973. The album version of the song contains an extra verse and runs 30 seconds longer than the single version. The unique wah-wah clavinet sound in the song was achieved with a Mu-Tron III envelope filter pedal. The bass line is provided by a Moog synthesizer and using overdubs, Wonder played all instruments on the track, including drums and percussion. The song was released in the UK but achieved only modest success, reaching number 29 in the UK Singles Chart. Subject The song lyrics address the issue of reincarnation. Wonder commented, when interviewed by ''The New York Times'': I would like to believe in reincarnation. I would like to believe that there is another life. I think that s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fulfillingness' First Finale
''Fulfillingness' First Finale'' is the seventeenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, released on July 22, 1974 by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records. It is the fourth of five albums from what is considered Wonder's "classic period". The album was Wonder's second to top the ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tapes chart, where it remained for two weeks, and also reached number one on the ''Billboard'' Soul LPs chart, where it spent nine non-consecutive weeks. At the 17th Annual Grammy Awards, it won in three categories, including Wonder's second consecutive win for Album of the Year. Retrospectively, the album was voted number 413 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' (2000) and included in the book ''1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die''. Recording Following the epic sweep and social consciousness of ''Innervisions'', ''Fulfillingness' First Finale'', in contrast, projected a more reflective, personal, and decidedly somber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
He's Misstra Know-It-All
"He's Misstra Know-It-All" is a single by Stevie Wonder for the Tamla ( Motown) label, from his ''Innervisions'' album, which reached number 10 on the UK Singles Chart in May 1974. The song takes the form of a mellow ballad with a steady beat, principally a solo performance with Wonder providing lead vocal, background vocal, piano, drums, handclaps and congas. Ethereal flute-like sounds are provided by his TONTO modular synthesiser. Willie Weeks, on electric bass, is the only other musician. Towards the end of the song the mood changes to a stronger feel, more strident singing and with hand-claps emphasising the beat, half-beat and quarter-beat. The song was released again in 1977 in both the UK and US as the B-side to "Sir Duke". The song is essentially a long description of a know-it-all confidence trickster character who is a "man with a plan", who has a slick answer to all his critics and who has "a counterfeit dollar in his hand." It has been alleged that this is a refere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Margouleff
Robert Margouleff is an American record producer, recording engineer, electronic music pioneer, audio expert, and film producer. Career The Birth of TONTO Margouleff was an early customer, friend and collaborator of fellow New Yorker and music instrument pioneer Robert Moog, contributing early insight toward Moog's musical instrument development for artists to routinely program and use synthesizers. He also was an early creative resource at Andy Warhol's "factory", eventually co-producing ''Ciao! Manhattan'' (1972), a semi-biographical cult film tale of 1960s counterculture film actress and socialite Edie Sedgwick, one of Warhol's "superstars". In 1968, Robert Margouleff purchased a Moog Series IIIc, which was intended to be the "first orchestra of synthesizers". He soon went on to meet well-known bassist Malcolm Cecil, who approached him to learn more about this synthesizer. In exchange for Cecil teaching Margouleff how to use the recording console, Margouleff taught Cecil how ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Progressive Soul
Progressive soul (often shortened to prog-soul; also called black prog, black rock, and progressive R&B) is a type of African-American music that uses a progressive approach, particularly in the context of the soul and funk genres. It developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s through the recordings of innovative black musicians who pushed the structural and stylistic boundaries of those genres. Among their influences were musical forms that arose from rhythm and blues music's transformation into rock, such as Motown, progressive rock, psychedelic soul, and jazz fusion. Progressive soul music can feature an eclectic range of influences, from both African and European sources. Musical characteristics commonly found in works of the genre are traditional R&B melodies, complex vocal patterns, rhythmically-unified extended composition, ambitious rock guitar, and instrumental techniques borrowed from jazz. Prog-soul artists often write songs around album-oriented concepts and soci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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