Renzie's Early Education in Funk and Cool

I was born in 1973. Which makes me 35 years old this November. Mom would make outrageous claims that I was jamming out to old albums of The Osmonds when I was a kid. But as far as I can remember, it was this one particular song that had the most impact on me when I was 3 or 4- Stevie Wonder's "Superstition".

I watched me a lot of Sesame Street when I was young. In fact, I could even recite some of the lines of the sketches and songs as they were really burned into the back of my skull somehow. I remember The Pointer Sisters. And James Taylor on the show. And Lena Horne. Paul Simon. Smokey Robinson. Even the late Madeline Khan.

But what really stood out was "Superstition". It had an elaborate setup of instruments and musicians, and kids jammin' out on the balcony, and of course, Mr. Stevie Wonder himself. Man, I funked out to Stevie Wonder when I was 3. After doing a bit of research, here's some stuff I discovered about that particular version of "Superstition".

• This performance was recorded live on the set of Sesame Street- right in front of Mr. Hooper's store- in 1972. But check this out: everything was done in one take, and done live.
• The lead guitar player? That's a teenaged Ray Parker Jr., man. "A Woman Needs Love"? "You Can't Change That"? The theme from "Ghostbusters" the movie? Yeah, that's him alright.
• The rest of Stevie's crew: that's Anthony Jackson on bass (some people say it's Scott Edwards, though)- the same guy who gave you the funky bassline on The O Jay's "For The Love of Money", and you also have Ollie Brown on drums, Trevor Laurence on sax and Steve Madaio on trumpet.

How can you not jam out to this one? Here it is, ladies and gentlemen for your enjoyment:

Much thanks to the boys over at Ryan's Smashing Life Music Weblog for posting this funky-ass video on YouTube. And here's another Stevie Wonder classic on Sesame Street: check this post out from my personal TV blog, Too Much TV | Renzie on TV.

Wanna get more Sesame Street vids and clips? There's a whole lot of em posted all over YouTube, but you may want to check out the official Sesame Street Channel on YouTube here.

Hope you enjoyed this post, ladies and gentlemen.

Cheers!