Stevie Wonder's Superstition clavinet, dissected

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I love love love Big Brother from the same album that introduced me to Superstition: Talking Book. That whole album is really special.

Thanks for the reminder.

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Just because a bunch of kids like myself had their brain forever changed and itā€™s too great not to link again: Stevie doing Superstition on Sesame Street.

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All hail FUNK!

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The contentID system and abuse of copyright claims has once again shut down public participation in criticism and instruction : http://i.imgur.com/Ugksspx.jpg

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I could swear Iā€™ve seen Stevie Wonder breaking this song down himself. Does anyone have better google-fu than I do?

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If no one had done so, I would be linking this. Youā€™re dead right on this being a brain-changing moment.

My favorite bit of this clip is the kid in the red shirt at the top of the stairs at about the 4:10 mark.

Kid is definitely feelinā€™ the rhythm.

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The video is working for me.

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TIL about ā€˜Track separation and instrument recognitionā€™

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Itā€™s obvious that the ā€œlive videoā€ is bogus. Stevie is not playing the main clavinet riff. If itā€™s live, someone else is playing it off-camera. There seem to be a lot of left-handed guitar players on the session. That might be possible (thereā€™s one shot with two guitar players, one left-handed and one right-handed). But the bass player is right-handed in some shots and left-handed in others.

The analysis is interesting, but it would have been more interesting if he had isolated and played the different parts.

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Is that sax player Lou Marini, who was in the Blues Brothers as well as about a thousand other awesome bands? Looks a lot like him.

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Yup!!

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Say what? I agree that Stevie doesnā€™t appear to be playing the clavinet riff. But I see only right-handed guitar and bass players through the whole thing. Youā€™re talking about the Sesame Street video, right?

Also, holy speedup, Batman! Starts around 95 bpm, finishes around 115.

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I too was totally gonna post the Sesame Street jam. 70s gold.

ā€¦Hereā€™s a thought; I reckon this song could totally use re-writing to be a bit more topicalā€¦

With lines like,

Very superstitious, scumbags in control
Very superstitious, justice has devolved
NSA motherfuckers, spying on your ass
Everyone on Earth, in their looking glass

And so on. Any takers?

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