Jeff Beck Superstition: One Version You Know. One You Don’t.

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A MUSICAL NOTE: Personally, I think it is fairly undisputable that the Stevie Wonder Superstition version is the best. From a groove and soul perspective it is clearly superior, and I think fits the song better. I searched out a period correct live version from Stevie Wonder, because I wanted to hear what he did with it closer to the time frame of when it was written. Time and cultural shifts change the way artists perform a song in a variety of ways.

One thing I noticed on a live version from January 1974, was that the drumer kicked the song off at close to the album tempo. (On the album, the song is much slower than he performed it live.) When Wonder brings the Clav in after the 8 bar drum intro, he immediately jumps the tempo up several BPM.

Wonder played drums on the studio version of this song, and most others during this period. And you can tell, as with most artists who did this, that it is not a “drummer” playing the track. It still sounds good, it’s usually just executed a little weird. I can’t imagine what it must have been like being the drummer in Stevie Wonder’s band.

But here is a really good live version from the same year where they stick to the intro tempo, but it gradually creeps up quite a bit throughout the song. Either way, it is great to experience what it sounded like back then because, especially through this period, Stevie Wonder was indeed, “the eighth wonder of the world.”