Talking Book is the fifteenth studio album by American singer, songwriter, and musician Stevie Wonder, released on October 27, 1972, by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records. This album and Music of My Mind, released earlier the same year, are generally considered to mark the start of Wonder's "classic period".[6] The sound of the album is sharply defined by Wonder's use of keyboards and synthesizers.
As Talking Book saw Wonder enjoying more artistic freedom from Motown and relying less on Motown's head Berry Gordy for musical direction and expression, it is often seen as the beginning of his transition from a youthful prodigy into an independent and experimental artist. Speaking of the album in 2000, Wonder said: "It wasn't so much that I wanted to say anything except where I wanted to just express various many things that I felt—the political point of view that I have, the social point of view that I have, the passions, emotion and love that I felt, compassion, the fun of love that I felt, the whole thing in the beginning with a joyful love and then the pain of love."[9]
The sound of the album is sharply defined by Wonder's keyboard work, especially synthesizers. While the synthesizers give a funky edge to tracks like "Maybe Your Baby", the HohnerClavinet embellishments on "Big Brother" evoke a six-string acoustic guitar, and the note-bending harmonica work on several tracks touches on some folk and blues influences. Wonder's use of the Clavinet Model C on "Superstition" is widely regarded as one of the definitive tracks featuring the instrument.[10] Wonder played the majority of the instruments on the album himself, but he received some support from such guest musicians as Jeff Beck, Ray Parker Jr., David Sanborn, and Buzz Feiten.
The packaging of original pressings[12] of the album incorporated both the album's title and Wonder's name embossed in braille (as well as being printed in English), along with a message that was only embossed in braille until the 2000 release of the album.[13] The message reads:
Here is my music. It is all I have to tell you how I feel. Know that your love keeps my love strong.
Reviewing the album for Rolling Stone at the time of its release, Vince Aletti called Talking Book "ambitious" and "richly-textured", writing that "even at its dreamiest, the music has a glowing vibrancy" and makes for an altogether "exceptional, exciting album, the work of a now quite matured genius".[24] Writing a few years later in The Village Voice about Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life (1976), Robert Christgau said that "Talking Book is closer to a perfect album", as "a more complex and satisfying delight—a delight that combines the freewheeling energy of Dylan and the Stones with the softer accessibility of a Carole King—is provided by an artist with the ambition to ride his own considerable momentum and the talent to do more than just hang on while doing so."[25] In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Christgau said the album found Wonder taking artistic control and breaking through, continuing his "wild multi-voice experiments" and writing better ballads without losing "his endearing natural bathos"; Christgau also highlighted "Superstition" as a translation of Wonder's "way of knowledge into hard-headed, hard-rocking political analysis".[16]J. D. Considine, in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), called the album "a pop tour de force".[18]
Talking Book has appeared in professional rankings of the greatest albums of all time. It was voted number 322 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000).[7] In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number 90 on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time;[citation needed] it maintained that ranking on the 2012 version of the list,[26] and was number 59 on the 2020 edition.[27]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Stevie Wonder, unless otherwise noted
^Martin, Bill (1998), Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock, Chicago: Open Court, p. 41, ISBN0-8126-9368-X
^Perone, James E. (2012). The Album: A Guide to Pop Music's Most Provocative, Influential, and Important Creations, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. x. ISBN978-0313379062. Wonder integrated soul, funk, rock, torch song, and jazz on his 1972 album Talking Book and his 1973 album Innervisions.
^Some observers count six classic albums, some count five, and others count four. Bogdanov, Vladimir; Woodstra, Chris; Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (2001). All music guide: the definitive guide to popular music (4 ed.). Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 447–448. ISBN0-87930-627-0. Stevie Wonder came into his own with Music of My Mind, but Talking Book is where he hit his stride... Cramer, Alfred William (2009). Musicians and composers of the 20th century. Vol. 5. Salem Press. p. 1645. ISBN978-1-58765-517-3. Brown, Jeremy K. (2010). Stevie Wonder: Musician. Black Americans of Achievement. Infobase Publishing. p. 57. ISBN978-1-60413-685-2.
