Stevie Wonder had been inside Motown’s Tamla system since age 11, where writers wrote, session players played and singers sang. When his childhood contract expired at 21 in 1971, he received his childhood earnings and used that bargaining power to sign a new deal granting him full artistic control. In May 1971 he met Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff of Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, whose TONTO synthesizer, a wall of Moog and ARP modules, let him build sounds directly instead of explaining them to arrangers and session players. The two became his associate producers, engineers and Moog programmers.
Recorded at Media Sound and Electric Lady Studios in New York and Crystal Industries in Los Angeles, Music of My Mind was his 14th studio album and ran about 47 minutes. Wonder played Moog bass, piano, tack piano, drums, harmonica and clavinet, used a talk box, and sang nearly every lead and background vocal, layering parts on multitrack tape. Released in March 1972, it reached number 21 pop and number 6 R&B and opened what critics call his classic period.
- Only two other instrumentalists appear: Art Baron on trombone on Love Having You Around and Buzzy Feiten on guitar on Superwoman.
- Syreeta Wright and Yvonne Wright co-wrote some of the songs.
- Penny Valentine of Sounds hailed the album as a milestone and singled out its vocal arrangements.
- Robert Christgau praised the synthesizer improvisations and the execution of the one-man album concept.
- Vince Aletti in Rolling Stone respected the ambition but found some studio and vocal effects gimmicky and self-indulgent.
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