It doesn't get much better than this.... I can't imagine a better feel good song than this one! Check out the REST OF THE VIDEOS in this collection! Stop by Ryan's Smashing Life rslblog.com and say hello!
@@loontil - I just listened to Stevie on a POS laptop speaker. You're right. WTF am I thinking with this modern life. Then again, it is 1:23 AM so I can't exactly crank the stereo. My wife would not be happy.
the guy on the mixing desk deserves some applause, i could hear every instrument in this as well as stevie, i've heard a lot of live performances where the instruments always seem to drown out the vocalist or vice versa but on this one i could hear everyone fine
you can, maybe you were just looking for piano sound lol, the bass line is played by the clavinet. Maybe it's fading a little when the trumpet is on but you can hear it clearly.
3 year old me loved this, 53 year old me still loves this. The best live version of this song. Not to mention the great Ollie Brown on drums, Ray Parker Jr on guitar & "Blue" Lou Marini wailing on sax.
How did the execs give Stevie the OK to play the (actual) song in its entirety plus and extended improvised jam instead of a one-minute educational parody? It's surprises me that one of *THE BEST* live performances took place on a TV show made for toddlers.
Jim Henson was still alive so I’m sure that helped. Also what were they gonna do, stop him? Blind Stevie was gonna finish this FunkTastic live version. Maybe they were planning on cutting part of it and they realized how amazing this jam was and just said eff it, 1/3 of this program is just gonna be this jam.
Evan Miles-Wright Times were different, that much is sure. You could hear it on the radio and there was nothing truly objectionable. Also, Sesame Street was known for having TOP musical guests back then. It was an honor to be asked to appear. I’m sure the parents tuned in just as much. It was a perfect blend of adults’ and kids’ and environments, just as a neighborhood should be.
Scott Edwards, the bassist, on this performance in a 2013 interview with songfacts: "You had that musician interaction and spontaneity. With Stevie, when you see him and he's moving his head, he's listening to what everybody's doing, and if he hears something here or there, he's ready to do something. It's total interaction of musicians: Stevie/us, us/him. And that's what made the magic. When that is gone, that's when you have bland and no response." "We really didn't pay that much attention, because we were so busy watching Stevie. In one clip there's a little boy who was going crazy. I don't remember that little boy, because we had to be ready for what direction Stevie might go. You couldn't be distracted. If you look at the clips, we're all keeping an eye on him or listening to what he's doing. And in my case, I had to be listening to his left hand, because that's where his chordal thing would be leading. You wanted to make sure he looked good, and me being the bass player, I had to be accurate. So I really don't remember those puppets and stuff."
Great anecdote. Definitely Scott was the musician who stood out here - besides Stevie. There's no bass guitar on the original (where Stevie plays the Moog bass), so he has to come up with an original line, while being responsive to Stevie's ad libs. I won't blame him for the speed up in tempo. Stevie was just going with the energy of the moment.
Same here. I saw this as a kid (I'm in the UK) and never forgot it, or the kid going wild on the stairs. Was so glad years ago to find it was on RU-vid and I come back like you :)
The Pointer Sisters singing us our numbers. Stevie Wonder and the band just visiting the Street to drop this epic gold. Sesame Street was beyond awesome.
I remember sitting cross-legged on the carpet in front of the TV with my baby brother (I was 10), shaking my head like Stevie. Now that I see him, I remember that kid at the top of the stairs too, but mostly Stevie's sunglasses, his head-shaking and the red guitar. Happy days. A deep impression in my childhood. (1974) edit: I've just looked it up and this was from 1973, but being in the outback of Australia, we probably got it later.
I was just thinking…. Superstition is 50 years ago and still sounds so good today, but what a difference music was 50 years before Stevie’s Superstition. People were dancing the Charleston : )
I first heard this song at age 12, the day it was released, and told my sister, "That's gonna be a big hit!". It just has everything you look for in a song: great beat, perfect synchronization of instruments, great vocals. I didn't say those big words back then, but I said, "I'm buying that record as soon as possible!!!".
WHAT??!??!???! No they did not go on Sesame Street and just TEAR IT UP! (Like they were on Saturday Night Live or the Late Show!) They were like “Hey kids, this song is pure funk, so we are just going to lay it down. Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Oscar, Gordon, Maria and all you little children are just going to have to get with the funk”. Love it!
I come back to this video often, and this is honestly one of my favorite comments on this video. I laugh out loud every time. They truly did tear it UP!
@@siob0t , since we're ALL "diggin this so much", check out the documentary film ThunderSoul, about a high-school jazz-funk stage band in the 70's, disadvantaged kids in a poor Texas town who were lucky enough to have a music teacher and father-figure/mentor who honed these kids into a band good enough to play and compete around the world. You will like!
In the early days, PBS was composed primarily of mavericks who understood kids intuitively based on long careers performing for them as puppetteers. The company had a highly progressive (in the true sense, not the political sense) policy at the time (since rescinded after Henson, Carroll Spinney and the rest of the geniuses died) of not treating kids like infants and "watering down" things for them. Their angle was "These kids grow up in places like Brooklyn and Watts, they see scary, confusing adult stuff literally every day. We can't prevent that, and we can't pretend kids aren't seeing and hearing terrible stuff, but we can be an adult friend that helps them make sense of it without making them afraid of adults or adulthood." It was the one program I watched as a kid that could talk "on my level" without talking down to me like I was a baby who couldn't understand. Adult programming might have been periodically confusing or scary in the old days (I can remember staying up secretly to watch Tales from the Crypt... that was food for thought!), but "kids stuff" was deeply insulting to me, even at age 6. Kids hate being treated like babies.... or, anyway, they used to! Now PBS is "All Safe Space, All the Time". "Oh no! No loud rock music! What if a kid gets scared and has a seizure? What if the parents get mad? What if they play it too loud and hurt their ears!!! We'd better just make it all infantile milktoast baby cartoons with cute fuzzy animals and never challenge the kids with actual human beings... " It seems today's PBS has been infiltrated by the "nanny staters" who don't know jack shit about kids besides what they read in a textbook. "It's okay to be a baby forever, kids! You should ONLY consume things that society has decided are safe for you. Cartoons are safe and will never hurt you. Humans are terrible and will only hurt you. Stick your head in the ground like an ostrich and nothing can hurt you. That's the only way to feel okay." My, my how the definition of "progressive" has changed...
The concert I attended the most beautiful ladies escorted him to the stage to begin. The audience was his before he even sang anything. Keep on rocking
@@FrankJmClarke - Seeing as Jeff Beck just recently passed, this comment is sacrilege. Beck was about the most talented guitarist of his time, how is it all he could play was drums? Referring to Jeff's playing, B.B. King once said “I don’t have those notes on my guitar.”
2023 just heard this for first time....I'm a teenager again...at 70....all glory and praises to creator...and Stevie of course...and band...claude have mercy!!!
@@LA4HINGIS ... The kid dancing up to the fire escape is Lenny Kravitz. The guitarist with the wool hat behind him is Ray Parker Jr. He sang the Ghostbusters theme song soundtrack.
I remember seeing this on Sesame Street as a kid back in the 70's, and I was BLOWN AWAY... it ignited a life-long love of funk, soul and its master, Stevie Wonder. Sesame Street didn't just teach the A-B-Cs and the 1-2-3s... It also taught us the meaning of FUNK.
Thank Gawd singing that awful song isn't Ray Parker's calling card. I'd much rather remember him as a songwriter, being in Stevie's band, and being the frontman for Raydio.
Dave Wollenberg Yes he is !!! The first guitarist we can see in the video, he is playing the first rythmic solo theme of the song with the hat on his head. yes he was younger. I don't know about his current activity...
+Don Parsons I believe that is actually Michael Sembello (later famous for the song "Maniac" from Flashdance) who played guitar in Stevie Wonder's band along with Ray Parker, Jr. in the 1970s.
His blindness is almost an advantage! He feels everything he hears it all, hes not bothered by any image bullshit. hes simply grooving out like a God. Respect and love to Stevie.
remember people, this man recorded/played most instruments in the studio version of this himself. keys, strings, drums, etc guy is a musical genius, period.
I was reading that for the studio recording of this, they had all the instruments set up in a circle, mostly synth/piano options. The exception was the drums. Stevie walked in, laid down his percussion track in 15 minutes, then went to work in his little circle. Wow!
@@gingerscloset Lip syncing and playbacking was a very common practice at the time, used by many shows, such as Top of the Pops. So it definitely was done back then.
they definitely speed up big time in the first 2 minutes. of course these days... it's not technically perfect... who gives a damn! those boys were cooking!
Maybe I can help with this. Amazingness starts at 0:10 , I suppose. After that point, it's just increasing up to rediculously mindblowing Badassness. This funks me up, man. Too smooth to exist.
Ppl dont realize Stevie was in a out of body euphoric state at the 04:33 mark , being able to hear each individual instrument hit on the correct note pitch and tempo , then the breakdown perfectly executed....all he he could say was "WHOAAA"....🎼🎵🎶🎸🎷🥁🎺🎻🎹🎙
This is why my childhood was infinitely cooler than anyone's since... I was a Sesame Street and Electric Company kid (Morgan Freeman as EZ Reader anyone?) and they didn't dumb everything down for us. Top Music and performers for kids. We were really lucky.
And Z double-O M plus Schoolhouse Rock piped directly into our brains every Saturday morning. Loved that I never felt talked down to as a kid by any of these shows.
@@netlawyerdc We are the baddest generation ever! Listening to Stevie and the BEST of NYCs session musicians just TEARING it up! I LOVE how they do the multiple faux ending and then are like "naw, we are just going to do a sesame street jam for another couple of minutes, for the kids..." LOL
I remember this like it was yesterday. 1973 I was four years old & had no idea how really special this was. I just thought all musicians played like that. 70's kids like me were really spoiled when it came to great music. I feel sorry for today's kids. No one can sing, play an instrument or write a decent song.
See: Kamasi Washington, Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat, MGMT, The Avalanches, Tame Impala, Hozier, Adele, Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, D'Angelo, Frank Ocean, Phantogram, Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Solange, The Weeknd, Flying Lotus, etc. etc. etc. The list goes on.
How many of them are readily accessible to four year olds though? I'm not trying to be sarcastic. It's not as much about "opening your mind" as it is "where can little kids hear good music". I understand you can get anything on demand, but which average kid is going to just listen to music of their own volition? Wrapping it up in something like Sesame Street was a brilliant way to expose kids to music, along with spelling and all the rest.
Best performance of this song ever. No question. Stevie, Ray Parker Jr. and the rest of the band took it to a whole nother' level at the 3:36 mark. Incredible.
This is the HEAVIEST jam ever on Sesame Street. Oscar is still hiding in his garbage can from this. The kid thrashing at 4:10 says it all. Blows my mind every time i watch this clip.
I was five in 1973, and watched Sesame Street since the beginning. I saw this episode when it was brand new.. I thought, this is as good as it gets. For one moment, there was no Vietnam war, no poverty, no racism, just the joy of music. We owe you a lot, Stevie.
ASCENDANT Ah, but are they doing it on a mainstream kids show? Stevie and the band are rocking out in a manner that you rarely see at a live show, let alone on Sesame street! Check out the long haired kid who is grooving out for the entire duration of the video... Television has become sanitized (yet you will see certain female R 'n' B stars and their dancers thrusting around half naked on a kids awards show) to the point where something like this - which is a little bit out of the ordinary - would be ruled out before seeing the light of day, via a focus group committee. And I think the world's a little bit of a poorer place for it. I know this is an old man grumble (but I'm only 34, bear with me), but I'm sticking to my point about something joyful being ruled out, whilst Beyonce's half-naked frame awakens feelings in my five year old nephew that he didn't really need to know existed...it isn't right on any level.
When I was a wee child, my aunt told my mother to check out a new show on public television. My aunt was a fourth grade teacher, so my mom knew she was a smart cookie. I watched Sesame Street from the start. My sons also watched. What a fantastic children’s show!
Karl Helm And that’s saying a lot! The actual recording is great but you get to really hear them horns blasting and that funky bass coming in, straight up live performance!
I remember watching this as a kid when it first aired on Sesame Street. I was jamming and dancing along to the music. Looking back, this was and still is an amazing performance. Thanks Stevie!
Princelia Martinez Me too, our generation was spoilt.... I just assumed everyone did perfect music all the time and that every TV show was brilliant,and that they would always understand me. Is the pinball song the Sesame St counting stuff? My favourite was the "jazzy spies", I loved "10" because it reminded me of the day when it was my birthday, it was dark and a thunderstorm, and Sesame St was on and Grace Slick was singing the notes, and my mum went out to buy me presents, and she was soaking wet but she did it to give me something for my birthday.
And Generation Y gets....Kidz Bop? Something very bad happened to this country between PBS of the 1970s (when NYC was Gotham City and a global leader in robberies) and PBS of today (when it's not even in the top 5 most dangerous cities in America). We lost our balls. A huge part of the impetus for Sesame Street was the desire to not "baby talk" inner city kids in the 1970s, since they saw all kinds of drug use and violent crime and poverty every day. Now, I guess they think the best thing for a sheltered suburban kid is to... be more sheltered? Lest they break like an eggshell if you show them something they don't understand? It's almost like a conspiracy. I refuse to believe anybody could think the current PBS lineup does anything positive for kids except tell them it's okay to be a baby as an adult. And precisely who benefits from a nation of overgrown children who cry and call for a grown up to help them at the drop of a hat? Yes.
Stevie's smile is infectious. Tell me you didn't crack a grin along with him. And dear lord, that kid at the top of the stairs was feeling the funk in his soul. He's just going at it, not giving a damn about anyone else. I wish to manage that someday.
How in the hell did this legendary live performance get 1000 dislikes?!!!...WTF?!!! Man! As a little kid I rocked to this jam when I first saw it on Sesame Street. Stevie and his crew ROCKED!😎🤘🏽🙌🏽🤙🏽🎷🎶
Reporter back in the day- "So Stevie you've reached new heights artistically and commercially with Talking Book, where do you think you'll kick off this next tour? Madison Square Garden? Maybe a baseball stadium somewhere?!" Stevie- "Nah man, I was thinkin like maybe Sesame Street? That'd be cool." Reporter- "uhhhh..."
ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THE FUNKIEST VERSIONS OF THIS SONG!!! THOSE BREAKDOWNS ARE INSANE AND THEN THEY KICK BACK INTO IT!! IF THIS DON'T GET YOU UP MOVNG YOU DEAD INSIDE!!! MYYYY GODDDD!!!
I think this is my favorite live performance video ever. The sound guy, the video guy, just absolutely dialed in. This needs to be a college course, just perfect 👌.
Does it get any more cool than this? Stevie getting into it so much he didn't want to stop, and the sounds they were putting out towards the end, wow. Sesame Street in the 70s was the BEST!
COPPA has blocked a lot of comment sections for Sesame Street videos so it makes me happy to see this one's been untouched. Seeing millions on RU-vid praise this awesome-as-hell performance really made my day.
I've watched this many, many times. And when I started watching Sesame Street in the mid-to-late '70s, this episode was still in frequent rotation. Again, I've watched this many times. MANY times. But just now...the pure awesomeness that is this performance just made me burst into tears. God bless Stevie Wonder!! I am so lucky to have been born when I was born.
