Jeff Beck was an admirer of Stevie Wonder’s music, and Wonder was informed of this prior to the Talking Book album sessions. Though at this point he was virtually playing all of the instruments on his songs by himself, Wonder still preferred to let other guitarists play on his records, and thus he liked the idea of a collaboration with Beck, a star guitarist. An agreement was quickly made for Beck to become involved in the sessions that became the Talking Book album, in return for Wonder writing him a song. In between sessions, Beck came up with the opening drum beat, which eventually led to Wonder’s creation of “Superstition”. In addition to the opening drum beat, Beck, together with Wonder, created the first demo for the song. Originally, the plan was for Beck to release his version of this song first, with his newly-formed power trio Beck, Bogert & Appice. However, due to a combination of the delayed release of that trio’s debut album and Motown CEO Berry Gordy’s prediction that “Superstition” would be a huge hit (which would subsequently greatly increase the sales of Talking Book), Wonder ended up releasing the song as the lead single off Talking Book ahead of Beck’s version.
VOCAL (Stevie Wonder):
CLAVINET (Stevie Wonder):
HORNS (TENOR SAX: Trevor Laurence, TRUMPET: Steve Madaio):
SYNTH BASS (Stevie Wonder):
DRUMS (Stevie Wonder):
CLAV ECHO TRACK:
