He’s Misstra Know it all – Stevie Wonder (1974)

Description

Additional information about this, Stevie Wonder vinyl art.

Stevie Wonder – The Artist

Stevland Hardaway Morris known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. A child prodigy, he is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century. Stevie Wonder signed with Motown’s Tamla label at the age of 11, and he continued performing and recording for Motown into the 2010s. He has been blind since shortly after birth.

He’s Misstra Know it all – The Song

“He’s Misstra Know it all“ is a single by Stevie Wonder for the Tamla (Motown) label, from his Innervisions album, which reached number 10 on the UK Singles Chart in April 1974. The song takes the form of a mellow ballad with a steady beat, principally a solo performance with Wonder providing lead vocal, background vocal, piano, drums, handclaps and congas] Horn sounds are played on the Moog synthesizer that is programmed by Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff. Ethereal flute-like sounds are provided by the TONTO modular synthesizer that is also programmed by Cecil and Margouleff. Willie Weeks, on electric bass, is the only other musician. Towards the end of the song the mood changes to a stronger feel, more strident singing and with hand-claps emphasising the beat, half-beat and quarter-beat. The song is essentially a long description of a know-it-all confidence trickster character who is a “man with a plan”, who has a slick answer to all his critics and who has “a counterfeit dollar in his hand”. It has been alleged that this is a reference to United States’ President Richard Nixon, who resigned the same year the single was released.

Man with a large Cranium – The Shape

This record has been crafted into the silhouette of a man with a large cranium. The idea was inspired by the Mekon a alien character from the 50s comic strip Dan Dare.  Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories. Dare appeared in the Eagle comic series Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future from 1950 to 1967 (and subsequently in reprints), and dramatised seven times a week on Radio Luxembourg (1951–1956). The stories were set in the late 1990s, but the dialogue and manner of the characters is reminiscent of British war films of the 1950s. Dan Dare has been described as “Biggles in Space” and as the British equivalent of Buck Rogers. Dan Dare was distinguished by its long, complex storylines, snappy dialogue and meticulously illustrated comic-strip artwork by Hampson and other artists, including Harold Johns, Don Harley, Bruce Cornwell, Greta Tomlinson, Frank Bellamy, and Keith Watson.

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