Higher Ground by Craig Werner

Author:Craig Werner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780307420879
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

THAT HOPEFUL AUDACITY COMFORTED Stevie Wonder on his twenty-first birthday as he moved to make his vision of creative independence a reality. Taking advantage of his client’s legal right to disavow agreements signed as a minor, Wonder’s lawyer informed Berry Gordy that Stevie was no longer under contract to Motown. Wonder explained the decision primarily in creative terms: “My contract was made when I was very young. And I didn’t know the significance of having my own publishing. But I basically wanted to do more. I felt I didn’t want to slide into one bag. Music changes, and if you’re in the line of change and don’t move, you get trampled.”

The news shocked Gordy, who had hosted Wonder for an early birthday dinner the night before. When Gordy asked him why he hadn’t provided advance warning, Stevie indicated that his lawyer had acted without his permission, and dismissed him. His replacement, a scruffy-looking hardball player named Johanan Vigoda, was, Gordy sighed, “ten times tougher.” First Vigoda hired accountants to examine Motown’s previous financial dealings with Wonder. Finding the accounts in order, Vigoda conducted a grueling round of negotiations with Motown, Atlantic, and Columbia that culminated in Wonder’s decision to re-sign with his old label. The key to the agreement was Motown’s somewhat reluctant willingness to surrender most of its accustomed control over its acts. “It was a very important contract for Motown and a very important contract for Stevie, representing the artists of Motown,” Vigoda reflected. “He opened up the future for Motown. That’s what they understood. They never had an artist in 13 years. They had single records, they managed to create a name in certain areas, but they never came through with a major, major artist.”

Motown president Ewart Abner had been aware of Wonder’s creative dissatisfaction and was less surprised by his move. “He was about 19 then,” he recalled. “He used to remind me that his day was coming, that when he turned 21 he was going to do what he wanted to do. I used to ask him—or tell him—to do things, and he’d say, ‘Okay, but when I’m 21 I’m going to have things my own way. I don’t think you know where I’m coming from. I don’t think you can understand it.’ ” Still, Abner reported, when Stevie “came to me and said, ‘I’m 21 now. I’m not gonna do what you say anymore. Void my contract,’ I freaked.” After Gordy recovered from his initial shock, he reconciled himself to Wonder’s unprecedented deal. The package included a greatly increased share of revenues for the artist, and it established Taurus Productions and Black Bull publishing, both staffed by employees under Wonder’s direct control. In his autobiography, To Be Loved, Gordy described Wonder’s creative emancipation with a mixture of regret and admiration. “I had some misgivings when he asked for total creative control,” Gordy acknowledged. “I thought of the progression he had made from an eleven-year-old high-pitched singer banging on bongos to a full-voiced vocalist, writer, and now producer.

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