Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on January 27, 1973, carried by a clavinet riff doing a guitar's job. He played the keyboard, the drums, and the Moog bass himself. The track took two Grammys and entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.
Wonder called the sound funky, dirty, stinky. That is the appeal in three words. Listen closely, and you can hear several more clavinet tracks buried under the main riff, barely audible, thickening everything around it.
The part covers two guitar roles at once, the single-note hook and the chopped chords sitting underneath it. No guitarist plays on the record. None was needed.
Billy Preston took the same rig somewhere stranger. "Outa-Space" came out of him improvising while he called chord changes to the band, and A&M buried it on the B-side of "I Wrote a Simple Song" in December 1971. Radio DJs flipped the single over anyway.
It climbed to number two on the Hot 100, spent a week at the top of the R&B chart, and won the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance of 1972. Preston named it for the spacy sound. A wordless hit, sold entirely on one keyboard tone.
John Paul Jones credited "Superstition" directly as the inspiration for the beat behind "Trampled Under Foot," which Led Zeppelin started at Headley Grange in February 1974 and finished at Olympic Studios that spring. Physical Graffiti carried it in 1975, and the single stalled at number 38 in America. John Bonham loved playing it live regardless.
Jones had already put the instrument to work on "Custard Pie," so this was no one-off experiment. He simply liked what the thing did to a groove.
Plenty of bands followed the same instinct. Richard Wright cut frenetic clavinet through "Have a Cigar," Glenn Frey laid a funky line under "Life in the Fast Lane," Paul Griffin played the biting part on Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne," and Ken Ascher supplied the hook on John Lennon's "Whatever Gets You Through the Night." Four very different records, one very recognizable bark.
None of this was the plan. Hohner built the instrument to play harpsichord and clavichord repertoire, and instead it found a home in funk, jazz, reggae, and film scores from 1967 onward. Classical players never really wanted it.
Session keyboardists did, because nothing else covered that ground. A guitar cannot chop chords and hold a percussive single-note riff simultaneously. An electric piano goes soft where these records need teeth.
The catch is that those recordings depended on specific instruments, played by specific hands, through specific amplifiers. That is why Rhodes went looking for an original D6 worth capturing in software rather than modeling the design from a schematic, and why the plugin's amp and pickup options matter more than the raw sample.
Nothing else marks a record so fast. One bar of that clipped, wiry attack and you know roughly what decade you are in, what the drums are about to do, and whether the bass is going to walk or lock. Producers still chase the effect because listeners recognize it instantly, half a century after Preston and Wonder made it unavoidable.
Wonder called the sound funky, dirty, stinky. That is the appeal in three words. Listen closely, and you can hear several more clavinet tracks buried under the main riff, barely audible, thickening everything around it.
The part covers two guitar roles at once, the single-note hook and the chopped chords sitting underneath it. No guitarist plays on the record. None was needed.
Garth Hudson and Billy Preston got there first
Three years before "Superstition," Garth Hudson ran a clavinet pushed through a wah pedal on The Band's "Up on Cripple Creek," which reached number 25 in 1969. AllMusic critic Bill Janovitz called his playing non-traditional and funky, and pointed out that it predated similar keyboard work by Wonder. The track swings like New Orleans, and nothing else on the radio that year sounded remotely like it.Billy Preston took the same rig somewhere stranger. "Outa-Space" came out of him improvising while he called chord changes to the band, and A&M buried it on the B-side of "I Wrote a Simple Song" in December 1971. Radio DJs flipped the single over anyway.
It climbed to number two on the Hot 100, spent a week at the top of the R&B chart, and won the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance of 1972. Preston named it for the spacy sound. A wordless hit, sold entirely on one keyboard tone.
Rock bands heard the funk and reached for the same keyboard
Rock got its hands on the sound almost immediately, because Jeff Beck was in the room when the sound was made. He and Wonder worked up a rough demo of "Superstition" during the Talking Book sessions, on the understanding that Beck could cut his own version. Wonder released his first, in October 1972, and Beck's arrived the following March on the Beck, Bogert & Appice album.John Paul Jones credited "Superstition" directly as the inspiration for the beat behind "Trampled Under Foot," which Led Zeppelin started at Headley Grange in February 1974 and finished at Olympic Studios that spring. Physical Graffiti carried it in 1975, and the single stalled at number 38 in America. John Bonham loved playing it live regardless.
Jones had already put the instrument to work on "Custard Pie," so this was no one-off experiment. He simply liked what the thing did to a groove.
Plenty of bands followed the same instinct. Richard Wright cut frenetic clavinet through "Have a Cigar," Glenn Frey laid a funky line under "Life in the Fast Lane," Paul Griffin played the biting part on Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne," and Ken Ascher supplied the hook on John Lennon's "Whatever Gets You Through the Night." Four very different records, one very recognizable bark.
The parts turned out to be impossible to fake
Bill Withers built "Use Me" on the same foundation in 1972, with Ray Jackson at the keyboard, and the single reached number two on both the Hot 100 and the R&B chart. It is a stubbornly simple arrangement. Voice, drums, bass, and a clavinet figure that refuses to let up for three minutes.None of this was the plan. Hohner built the instrument to play harpsichord and clavichord repertoire, and instead it found a home in funk, jazz, reggae, and film scores from 1967 onward. Classical players never really wanted it.
Session keyboardists did, because nothing else covered that ground. A guitar cannot chop chords and hold a percussive single-note riff simultaneously. An electric piano goes soft where these records need teeth.
The catch is that those recordings depended on specific instruments, played by specific hands, through specific amplifiers. That is why Rhodes went looking for an original D6 worth capturing in software rather than modeling the design from a schematic, and why the plugin's amp and pickup options matter more than the raw sample.
Nothing else marks a record so fast. One bar of that clipped, wiry attack and you know roughly what decade you are in, what the drums are about to do, and whether the bass is going to walk or lock. Producers still chase the effect because listeners recognize it instantly, half a century after Preston and Wonder made it unavoidable.
