A clavinet is a keyboard that can be made to snarl like an electric guitar, and on one track from Talking Book, Stevie Wonder pushed it so hard that the riff became one of the most recognizable sounds in funk. The song was "Superstition," and three days before the full album arrived, it was already climbing the American charts. On October 27, 1972, the fifteenth Stevie Wonder studio album was released on Tamla, a Motown subsidiary, and it did not sound like the polite hit machine that had made him a child star.
Keyboards replace the string section
Wonder produced the record himself, with Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil credited as associate producers. Their method was to replace the string orchestras Motown often used with layers of clavinet, Fender Rhodes electric piano, and ARP and Moog synthesizers. A good part of the material had been recorded at the same time as Music of My Mind, another 1972 album, and both are now seen as the start of Wonder's classic period. Talking Book made that break audible: the keyboards and synthesizers dominate, and on "Maybe Your Baby" they give the track a funky, almost liquid pulse.
The cover announced the change before anyone heard a note. Robert Margouleff shot it in Los Angeles: Wonder in braids, jewelry, and African clothing against a desert landscape. The album title and artist name were embossed in Braille on the original gatefold, along with a message in the same raised dots. It read, in effect, that this was his music and all he had to tell you about his feelings. Malcolm Cecil had suggested the title after noticing that the record was not a talking book at all.
Chart runs for the singles
The single "Superstition" came out on October 24, 1972, and by early the next year it had reached number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot Soul Singles chart. It was not the album's only hit. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" also topped the Hot 100 and led the Easy Listening chart. In February 1973, Talking Book itself climbed to number three on the Billboard Pop Albums list and became Wonder's first album to reach the top of the Top R&B Albums chart, holding that position for three weeks.
The Grammy voters caught up with the record the same year. At the 16th Grammy ceremony, "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" gave Wonder his first award, for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. "Superstition" won two more: Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song. For an artist who had spent his entire adult life inside the Motown system, this was proof that writing, producing, and playing most of the instruments himself could work on a commercial scale.
Touring with the Rolling Stones
Wonder had spent 1972 touring with the Rolling Stones before releasing the album, and the rock audience he met on that tour could hear the crossover in the music. The record is usually described as progressive soul, funk, soul, rock, and jazz, and its forty-three minutes and twenty-nine seconds move easily between those styles. A harmonica with bent notes nods to folk and blues on several tracks, while the Hohner Clavinet on "Big Brother" is made to resemble an acoustic guitar. Most of the instruments were played by Wonder alone.
Talking Book also became part of a curious piece of presidential history: it was the first album Barack Obama ever bought. That detail, like the Braille message on the cover, points to the album's double life. It was both a deeply personal statement and a record built to reach millions. In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked it 59th among the 500 greatest albums ever made, and it keeps appearing on similar lists because the sound still feels like a decision, not a compromise.
The title came from a friend's observation that the record was not a talking book, and Wonder made sure that was true. He used synthesizers where others used orchestras, wrote songs that could top both the pop and R&B charts, and put his own face and message on the sleeve in a way that could be read by touch. The album that came out on October 27, 1972 was not the end of his classic period, but it was the moment the new Stevie Wonder became impossible to ignore.