Superstition began as a trade. During sessions for Talking Book, guitarist Jeff Beck agreed to play on Stevie Wonder’s album in exchange for an original Wonder song he could record with his own band. At Electric Lady Studios in New York in the summer of 1972, Beck sat at a drum kit during a break and started a groove, and Wonder told him to keep going while he improvised the riff on a Hohner Clavinet Model C using a minor pentatonic scale. They cut a demo that day. The finished track added a Moog bass line programmed with Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff on TONTO, plus horns from Steve Madaio on trumpet and Trevor Lawrence on tenor sax.
Wonder gave the song to Beck for his trio Beck, Bogert and Appice, but their album was delayed. Berry Gordy heard Wonder’s version, predicted a major hit, and pressed him not to give it away. Motown released it as the Talking Book lead single on October 24, 1972, and Beck’s version did not appear until March 1973. Wonder’s single entered the Hot 100 at number 82 and reached number one in January 1973, replacing Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain, while also topping the soul chart over Billy Paul’s Me and Mrs. Jones.
- It was Wonder’s first Hot 100 number one since Fingertips Part 2 in 1963.
- Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos has said Cozy Powell told him he played the drums on the released master, though Wonder is credited.
- It won two Grammys and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998; Rolling Stone ranked it number 12 of the 500 greatest songs in 2021.
- Wonder performed it on Sesame Street in 1973 and appeared as a New Orleans witch doctor in a 2013 Super Bowl Bud Light ad built around the song.
- In January 2025 he played it with Sting at the Intuit Dome during the FireAid wildfire relief benefit.
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