“I’m still experimenting.” -Stevie Wonder
Stevie showed Motown just what he was capable of in less than a year. This marks where his music is beginning to take more of his personality. He was experimenting with himself.
Electric Lady Studios
Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village was Stevie Wonder’s new home in 1971. Motown needed to keep up with the technological advances of the day, and Stevie recognized this. He was searching for a unique sound, and Motown was holding him back. In his book, Signed, Sealed, and Delivered, he quotes,
“I had gone about as far as I could go. I wasn’t growing. I just kept repeating ‘The Stevie Wonder Sound,’ and it didn’t express how I felt about what was happening in the world. I wanted to see what could happen if I changed.”
With his wife at the time, Syreeta Wright, he moved to New York.
Electric Lady Studios was known for producing stars such as Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones. All the machinations of its time were incorporated into it, which was right up Stevie’s alley. Here is where Stevie created his new bargaining tool for a new contract from Motown: Music on My Mind.
Of course, Stevie had some help along the way. After falling in love with TONTO Expanding Head Band’s album Zero Time he gladly abducted the two, Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil, onto his music train. He claims in an A&E documentary,
” The reason that I got into [TONTO] was that I had ideas in my head, and I wanted my ideas to be heard.”
TONTO was already known for its expansive symphonic sound, hence its name: The Original and New Timbral Orchestra. However, as marvelous as things were coming out for Stevie, it also took a toll on his marriage. Instead of it being another woman this time, the mistress was his music (or, in this case, TONTO.) Syreeta Wright says in a New Yorker interview,
“I knew and understood his passion was music. That was his No. 1 wife.”
The marriage strain resulted in his album, Music on My Mind. It turns out Electric Lady was his homie. His ride or die. His kumbaya, or whatever you want to call it. The point is with the great lady and TONTO, Stevie was able to produce his music into what defines Stevie Wonder. Their partnership seemed relatively everlasting, especially when Stevie told them on the first day, I want you to be directors of my company, oh, and I also want you to get a point on my records.” Wonder said this because he had no contract and was set on having his own publishing and production companies. Together they would create some of Stevie’s biggest hits, but the future would differ from what was promised. In the end, the experiment is what leads him back to Motown.
References
Love, D., & Brown, S. (2007). Blind faith: The miraculous journey of Lula Hardaway, Stevie Wonder’s mother: An authorized biography of Lula Hardaway. Simon & Schuster.
Ribowsky, M. (2010). Signed, sealed, and delivered: The soulful journey of stevie wonder. John Wiley & Sons.
Sanneh, K. (2022). Major labels: A history of popular music in seven genres. Penguin Books.