The Enduring Legacy of 'Innervisions' by Stevie Wonder
An in-depth analysis of 'Innervisions,' one of Stevie's magnum opus, and its profound effect on music, politics, and society.
Stevie Wonder found himself in a state of turmoil. His marital union with Syreeta Wright, musically and romantically, had dissolved. Furthermore, he had just concluded his role as the supporting act for the Rolling Stones during their infamous American segment of the Exile on Main St. tour, notorious for its incidents of substance abuse, violence, and legal issues. By the onset of 1973, Wonder was consumed by a fixation on mortality.
The societal backdrop of this period was fertile ground for such unease. Economic uncertainty prevailed as stock values plummeted and oil prices surged, all against the continuous drip of news regarding the scandal encompassing President Nixon’s re-election. New York City witnessed a harrowing incident: a 10-year-old African American boy named Clifford Glover was fatally shot by an undercover police officer while walking with his stepfather. The buoyancy of the ‘60s had been entirely eroded, replaced by the harsh reality of the deaths of Black leaders, revolutionaries, and innocent individuals like Glover. Following Glover’s funeral, at which he performed, Wonder expressed his grave concern to Jet magazine, emphasizing the urgency for Black people to recognize the severity of the situation and take decisive action.
In 1971, Wonder began almost daily composition sessions with artists and engineers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff. This unlikely yet fruitful collaboration gave rise to the Music of My Mind and Talking Book albums in 1972. These works defied genre boundaries, offering innovative classics that benefitted from the fresh perspective of the two musicians.
Cecil and Margouleff encouraged Wonder to break away from Motown traditions, allowing him to experiment with synthesizers and overdubs rather than rush through the process with a team of writers and session players. These albums propelled Stevie, who had already proven himself as a successful hitmaker, into a new stratosphere, cementing his reputation as a master of the album format. His hit songs “Superstition” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” led the charts one after the other. The Rolling Stones tour introduced him to rock audiences, while Cecil and Margouleff encouraged him to confront political and metaphysical themes in his music.
This culminated in the release of the single “Higher Ground” in the summer, which echoed the spiritual themes and synth-infused funk of “Superstition” as Wonder envisioned a better life beyond the struggles of the present. The tragic death of Clifford Glover heavily influenced the second single, “Living for the City,” which became the heart of Wonder's classic 1973 album, Innervisions.
“Living for the City” is a pivotal track in understanding Innervisions, encapsulating the various tensions at play: the dynamic between the engineers and the artist, the innovative technical elements, the grand conceptual narrative, the integration of man and machine, and the simmering sociopolitical indignation. The song follows the journey of a Black man from the South, whose life is marred by the harsh reality of systemic racism in the North. The tale mirrors the experiences of Black American workers following the Great Migration, reflecting the second-class citizenship enforced by redlining, biased policing, and an unjust judicial system. Wonder sings with a driving insistence over a funky rhythm, and the atmosphere is amplified by the sounds from an array of keyboards and synthesizers, primarily Cecil and Margouleff’s room-sized polyphonic synth, known as “The Original New Timbral Orchestra.”
When Wonder debuted in the ‘60s, he amazed audiences as a young, unsighted singer-songwriter. His performance of a surprising and impressive drum solo at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, recently brought back to the limelight by Questlove’s Summer of Soul, left audiences stunned. He further demonstrated his proficiency with technology during a memorable 1972 appearance on The David Frost Show, where he showcased the ARP 2600 synthesizer and his talkbox in a captivating medley of the Carpenters’ “Close to You” and the Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye.” Wonder’s wide-ranging talents and interests are fully displayed in Innervisions as an autodidact without sight.
Innervisions is a challenging album with a clear connection to its Motown lineage, such as Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. However, it also ventures beyond Motown, as seen in the anti-drug anthem “Too High,” which nods to the complex grooves of jazz fusion, and “Living for the City,” which stands as an art-rock epic and a funk/soul masterpiece. Innervisions effectively bridges the gaps between the avant-garde and the mainstream, rock and soul, and jazz and pop music.
Like What’s Going On, Innervisions identifies a problem and proposes solutions. The modern age presents numerous stressors, but we can dispel the darkness with truth, goodness, love, and faithfulness. Stevie’s albums had never been this concise or cohesive in their message before. Innervisions was his first full-length album without co-writers or covers, representing a monumental endeavor for both Motown and Stevie. The album does not judge or provide easy answers. Instead, it gently nudges the listener towards more mindful stewardship of our world while also acknowledging the difficulty of this task.
Just three days after the release of Innervisions, Stevie Wonder was involved in a serious accident in North Carolina while en route to a benefit concert for an independent Black radio station. A log from a flatbed truck came crashing through the windshield, striking Wonder on the forehead and causing a brain contusion. Perhaps his fear in 1973 was justified. He correctly predicted that America was in a precarious state. Nixon resigned in 1974, with Stevie’s “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” still echoing as his latest single.
The album’s strides in exploring a broader array of instruments for Black funk music were matched and even surpassed by the brilliance of Parliament-Funkadelic and Prince in later years. Innervisions continues to serve as a touchstone for young auteurs creating expansive, orchestral music and songwriters addressing large issues without overwhelming listeners.
In any context, genius shines through. This is exemplified in the various interpretations of Stevie's music, such as Barbra Streisand’s 1974 hit recasting of Wonder’s conciliatory breakup tune “All Is Fair in Love” as an orchestral ballad, Madlib’s side project Yesterday’s New Quintet’s reinterpretation of “Visions” as a Brazilian jazz workout in their 2004 covers album Stevie, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ rendition of “Higher Ground” in their 1989 album Mother’s Milk, which added screaming guitars and gang vocals.
The timeless relevance of Innervisions is further highlighted by the sobering fact that New York City’s destruction of young Black men, as sung about by Stevie almost two decades earlier, is still a grim reality today. Innervisions addressed the musical tastes and political anxieties of 1973, but its enduring relevance encourages us to strive for improvement continually.