Stevie Wonder - "Higher Ground"
May 4, 2017 20:12:36 GMT -5
Post by Live Your Life on May 4, 2017 20:12:36 GMT -5
This was released as a single from 1973's Innervisions. It peaked at #7 at CHR/pop, #1 at R&B, and #4 on the Hot 100. Classic.
AllMusic's song review:
AllMusic's song review:
"Higher Ground" has a special significance for Stevie Wonder. The song was recorded just three months before the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer was involved in a near fatal highway collision while on his way to a concert that broke his skull, bruised his brain, and put him in a coma on August 6, 1973. Synth programmer/engineer Malcolm Cecil, who'd collaborated with Wonder on his Music of My Mind and Talking Book albums and his then just-released Innervisions LP, wanted to visit the comatose singer in the hospital, hoping that playing some music in his presence would help bring Wonder back to consciousness. Wonder's road manager, Ira Tucker Jr., was thinking along the same lines. He sang "Higher Ground" into the singer's ear. Miraculously, he began to move his fingers in time with the song, which let Tucker know that the singer was on the road to recovery. Wonder had quickly written the song during a whiff of whirlwind inspiration. He recorded all the vocals and played all the instruments on the finished track with Cecil and Robert Margouleff handling the synthesizer programming. The two would arrange all the keyboards in the studio in a circle and Wonder would walk from one to the other. "Higher Ground" went to number one R&B and number four pop in fall 1973. The Innervisions album also yielded "Living for the City," "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing," "Too High," "Golden Lady," and "Jesus Children of America." Chris Jasper, who also worked with Cecil and Margouleff during his stint as a member of the Isley Brothers, appropriated "Higher Ground"'s groove on "Nobody but My Baby" from his Deep Inside album.
