Superstition Stevie Wonder: The Hit He Tried to Give Away
Superstition Stevie Wonder fans know today almost belonged to someone else entirely.
Jeff Beck built the drumbeat first, just playing around between takes on Wonder's album.
Wonder walked in, told him not to stop, and improvised the clavinet riff on top of it.
The deal was simple: Wonder would write Beck a song, and Beck would play guitar on Wonder's record.
You can hear that riff right now on Superstition, arranged the way they cut it that day.
Motown had other plans once executives heard the tape.
This is the chart-verified story, built from Billboard's own weekly and year-end data and cross-checked against outside chart history.
Stevie Wonder in a Los Angeles recording studio, August 1975.
Image credit: Photo via UCLA Digital Library, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Drumbeat Jeff Beck Never Meant to Give Away
Superstition Stevie Wonder almost belonged to someone else entirely.
Jeff Beck had agreed to play guitar on Wonder's new album, Talking Book, sessions that ran through 1972.
One afternoon Beck sat down at the drum kit just to fool around while no one needed the room.
"One day I was sitting at the drum kit, which I love to play when nobody's around, doing this beat," Beck said later.
Wonder came into the studio and told him, "Don't stop."
He sat at a keyboard and improvised the clavinet riff straight over Beck's drum pattern.
Within minutes the two of them had the entire foundation of the song.
The Trade That Never Paid Off for Beck
The original agreement was simple.
Wonder would write Beck a song, and in exchange Beck would play on Wonder's record.
Beck considered what he heard that day a gift, calling it "the riff of the century."
He expected to record and release it as his own.
Motown had a different idea once the label heard the tape.
Wonder had already delayed delivering Talking Book, and the label wanted a strong single to carry it.
According to Beck, Motown executives told Wonder flatly that Beck was not getting the song.
What Happened After Motown Said No
Wonder released it himself instead.
It was the same choice a few years later that pushed What's Going On out of Motown's own hands and into Marvin Gaye's.
Beck's own version waited until March 1973.
It arrived on the album Beck, Bogert & Appice, well after Wonder's had already gone to number one.
How Stevie Wonder Built Superstition Almost Entirely Alone
Once Wonder had the song, he built almost the entire finished track by himself.
The studio credits on "Superstition" break down like this:
- Stevie Wonder: lead vocals, Hohner Clavinet, drums and Moog bass.
- Trevor Lawrence: tenor saxophone.
- Steve Madaio: trumpet and horn arrangement.
That was Stevie Wonder working the same way he had with engineers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff.
It was the same layer-it-all-himself approach that shaped the rest of his classic period.
Superstition Stevie Wonder built that way ended up sounding tighter than most full bands could manage.
The Mood Song Matcher tags the song pumped-up and rebellious.
The one-man-band groove is a big part of why.
The Drummer Question Nobody Fully Settled
Not everyone agrees the drum credit is that simple.
Cheap Trick's Bun E. Carlos has claimed otherwise.
Carlos says Cozy Powell, drummer for the Jeff Beck Group from 1970 to 1972, cut a take during the Talking Book sessions.
That take, he claims, ended up on the finished record.
Powell's name never appears on the credits.
Wonder is the official drummer of record, and the claim has never been confirmed by either camp.
It remains one of the small unresolved footnotes in an otherwise well-documented session.
Where Superstition Stevie Wonder Landed on the Charts
Motown released the single on October 24, 1972, as the lead track from Talking Book, Wonder's fifteenth studio album.
It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 82 in the middle of November.
Superstition Stevie Wonder reached number one on the Hot 100 for the week of January 27, 1973.
That matches the date this site's own weekly Billboard data records for the song's chart-topping week.
That same weekly data credits it with two weeks at number one.
Outside chart histories put it at number one on the R&B chart even earlier, on January 6, 1973.
In the UK it peaked lower, reaching number 11 in February 1973.
The Year-End Picture
On this site's own 1973 year-end Hot 100, Superstition Stevie Wonder finished at number 26.
A January chart-topper often lands lower on a year-end list than the "number one" headline suggests.
Songs that peak all through the summer tend to crowd it out.
The site's weekly data also logs it as Wonder's first of two number-one singles that year.
"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" followed it later in 1973.
Curious how that stacks up against the rest of the year's field?
The Random 70s Song Generator pulls from that same year-end pool of singles.
The Grammys Superstition Stevie Wonder Won First
The song's chart run turned into an awards run the following year.
At the 16th Annual Grammy Awards in 1974, "Superstition" won two awards.
It took Best Rhythm & Blues Song and Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male.
They were the first Grammy wins of Wonder's career.
Chuck Berry and Little Richard presented the award, with Wonder's mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, watching from the audience.
The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.
A Reputation That Kept Growing
Rolling Stone's own ranking of the song tells a similar story of a reputation still climbing decades later.
| List year | Rank |
|---|---|
| 2004 | #74 |
| 2010 | #73 |
| 2021 | #12 |
Few songs from Wonder's catalog gained that much ground that late.
Why Superstition Still Reunites Its Original Creators
The song that started as a favor between two musicians eventually brought them back together.
In 2009, Wonder and Beck shared a stage at Madison Square Garden.
The occasion was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert.
They played Superstition Stevie Wonder together, the drummer-turned-guitarist and the singer who took his beat.
It was 37 years after that first afternoon in the studio.
Few songs on Music of the 70s trace back to a favor that got taken back quite like this one.
Wonder kept a song he was never supposed to keep.
It became the record that opened his entire classic period.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who really wrote Superstition, Stevie Wonder or Jeff Beck?
Stevie Wonder wrote and produced "Superstition", but the idea started with Jeff Beck.
Beck was playing drums for fun during a Talking Book session.
Wonder walked in and improvised the clavinet riff over Beck's beat.
The original deal was that Wonder would write Beck a song.
In exchange, Beck would play guitar on the album.
Motown then kept the song for Wonder instead of letting Beck release it first.
Did Stevie Wonder play drums on Superstition himself?
Stevie Wonder is credited as the drummer on "Superstition", along with lead vocals, Hohner Clavinet and Moog bass.
Trevor Lawrence added tenor saxophone and Steve Madaio contributed trumpet and horn arrangements.
Cheap Trick's Bun E. Carlos has claimed that former Jeff Beck Group drummer Cozy Powell cut an uncredited take used on the finished record.
Wonder remains the official credit, and the claim has never been confirmed.
How many weeks was Superstition number one?
"Superstition" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of January 27, 1973.
It was Stevie Wonder's first number one since "Fingertips, Pt. 2" in 1963.
This site's own weekly Billboard data logs it as reaching two weeks at number one.
It also hit number one on the R&B chart on January 6, 1973, ahead of the pop chart.
In the UK it peaked at number 11.
What Grammys did Superstition win?
"Superstition" won two Grammy Awards at the 16th Annual Grammy Awards in 1974.
It took Best Rhythm & Blues Song and Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male.
They were Stevie Wonder's first Grammy wins of his career.
Chuck Berry and Little Richard presented the award, with his mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, in the audience.
The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.
Is Jeff Beck's version of Superstition different from Stevie Wonder's?
Jeff Beck recorded his own version of "Superstition" in July 1972.
It did not come out until March 1973, on the album by Beck, Bogert & Appice.
Wonder's version had already gone to number one by then.
Beck's guitar-driven recording landed as a minor hit by comparison.
The two later reunited to perform it together at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert in 2009.
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