From Robert Margouleff | Shaping Sounds: Stevie Wonder, DEVO, the Synth Revolution and My Life Behind the Music

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0:34JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. member, FDIC. Copyright 2026, JPMorgan Chase & Company. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. May is their favorite because Military Appreciation Month is their time to celebrate those who go above and beyond. They know the military community protects our country, takes care of their families, and volunteers in their communities. That's why they've helped the military community for over 90 years. Learn more at NavyFederal.org slash celebrate. And happy Military Appreciation Month. Navy Federal Credit Union. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing.

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1:49Justin Richmond:Pushkin. I hope you enjoyed our episode with the iconic music producer and engineer and author of the new audiobook, Shaping Sounds, Stevie Wonder, Devo, The Synth Revolution, and my life behind the music, Robert Markalev. If you haven't heard it yet, be sure to check it out. Today I'm sharing an excerpt from Shaping Sounds. Robert talks about working alongside not only Stevie Wonder on his classic albums, but with artists like Minnie Riperton on her hit Loving You, and the Isley Brothers on their 3 Plus 3 album, which brought together incredible guitar leads and smooth vocals to blend old and new school R &B.

2:25Justin Richmond:Here's the clip, but if you want to hear more, check out Shaping Sound, Stevie Wonder, Devo, The Synth Revolution, and My Life Behind the Music, wherever you get audiobooks. You can use the code SOUNDS25, that's S-O-U-N-D-S-25, at pushkin.fm slash shaping sounds to save 25 % on the audiobook. Thanks for listening. Chapter 13, Our Non-Stop Studio. While we were with Stevie, besides working on his own albums, we worked alongside him, continuing as a team on two albums he produced, one for his ex-wife, Sarita Wright, the other for Minnie Riperton. Sarita Wright was a receptionist at the Motown offices in Detroit when Edward Holland of the Holland-Dozier Holland songwriting team heard her singing and was impressed enough that he had her sing on some demos.

3:20She met Stevie in 1968, and they began dating about a year later. Their relationship was both personal and professional. Stevie encouraged her to write her own songs, and the two collaborated on his hit, Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours. They married on September 14, 1970, and although they divorced only 18 months later, they remained good friends and collaborators. We worked on Sarita's debut solo album, Sarita, released on June 20, 1972. As I recollect, part of the divorce settlement was that Stevie would produce an album for her. They worked amazingly well together, and she remained an important part of his team, providing lyrics, background vocals, and compositions for several years.

4:13Yvonne Wright, no relation to Sarita, was another important collaborator. She wrote the lyrics to Girl Blue and Evil. She would sit next to him at the piano while he was recording, and whisper or line to him a few bars ahead as he was playing and singing. He was very tight with her. Music of my mind ends with evil, a simple and incisive piece of social commentary that opened the door to our collective consciousness. Evil, Stevie asks, exasperated, why have you engulfed so many hearts? Why have you destroyed so many minds? The lyrics ring true to this day, and musically, it has a fantastic opening, tanto front and center, with an oboe sound and a foreboding bass.

5:00The sound is simple, singular, sad, and compelling. We first met Minnie Riperton when she came to the Fulfillingness sessions to add background vocals. We were so impressed that even though we were in the thick of it with our own project, it didn't matter. Malcolm, Stevie, and I all jumped at the chance to work with her when her husband and songwriting partner, Dick Rudolph, asked us to help make her second record, Perfect Angel. I remember putting the bird sounds on her song Loving You, which were reminiscent of the sound effects we used with Stevie on Living for the City. Minnie had an extraordinary voice, especially in her falsetto register.

5:44It was totally under her control, and its clarity was astounding. Loving You became Ripperton's biggest hit and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart on April 5, 1975. It went on to sell over a million copies. We recorded most of the album at the record plant, L.A., and mixed it at Westlake Audio, Tom Hidley's New Place. We went there because it had the first API console with fader automation, and we tracked many of Minnie's vocals in the control room with all of us on headphones. Tom had built Westlake as a showroom to sell the latest studio gear. He used the control room in the back to demo his studio design concepts, the latest in recording consoles, and all the new gear coming to market.

6:32It wasn't really a studio, just a control room. The store in the front was a showroom, and it gave us access to all the latest outboard gear in the industry. It became our lounge during our nighttime sessions. Sometimes we would sit on the floor up front, leaning against all these new racks of gear with its pistachio and brown shag carpeting, eating pizza or a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The API console only remembered fader levels. The rest was done in real time as usual. The memory was stored on the first and last tracks of the master tape, so every time we made an update, we would have to jockey back and forth printing the update on the alternate track, which caused the fader moves to come back later and later and was overly complicated.

7:22So Malcolm and I would make as many moves as possible and use the automation as little as possible. In the end, we were happy with the record, once again using the latest and greatest technology fed our creative spirit. While we were working with Stevie on his projects, There was little room or desire to work with anyone else. There were down times, though, especially when Stevie was on the road. That's when Malcolm and I kept busy working on albums with other artists. We recorded the Isley Brothers 3 plus 3 in 1973 while Stevie was touring and promoting Inner Visions. The Isleys were a true family affair.

8:07The original Isley Brothers consisted of O 'Kelly Isley Jr., Rudolph Isley, and Ronald Isley. Three plus three would be the first album to formally include the younger brothers Ernie on guitar and Marvin on bass, and brother-in-law Chris Jasper on keyboards. The original trio officially became a sextet, hence the album title. It was both old-school and new-school R &B, with Ronald's incomparable smooth lead vocals and Ernie's hard-edged guitar leads. Chris and Marvin brought new funk rock energy to the band, and the combination proved to be a significant artistic advance for them. Our first meeting came when they walked in on us while we were mixing Don't You Worry About a Thing with Stevie.

8:55We already knew about them and figured out pretty quickly what they had in mind, which was precisely what we had on our table. As usual, we had a lockout in Studio B to ensure our setup remained intact. We would arrive early in the afternoon and prepare the room for work. Once again, we tracked the basics with quad monitoring and the players in the control room. The guys would usually arrive an hour or so after us and get started right away. There was no dilly-dallying around the canteen. They were always very single-minded and down to business. They came in well prepared, having played and perfected all the songs in rehearsal or on the road.

9:39Ronald's lead vocals were terrific. He was at the top of his form, and we could feel his gospel roots. We used an RE20 mic in the same close, confessional approach we deployed for Stevie's vocals. Working with Ernie on guitars was a sonic adventure. He regaled us with tales of how, as a little boy, he played guitar with Jimi Hendrix in the family's kitchen. Jimi was there because the senior Isleys had recruited Jimi to play in their backup band in the early 60s. We developed a very original sound for Ernie's lead guitar parts. We recorded his amp through a Dolby 361 noise reduction unit, but didn't decode the signal.

10:21We left it raw and then compressed it with a Flickinger tube limiter. You can hear the results of our labor on the guitar leads on Who's That Lady and Summer Breeze, among others on the record.

10:58The rest of the tracking was very straightforward, with our traditional approach being tight and close, with the drums recorded from the drummer's point of view. Marvin's bass was recorded direct to the board, as were all of Chris's electronic synths and keys. There was improv, experimenting with percussion, and figuring out the background vocal arrangements in the studio. O 'Kelly and Rudolph, along with the rest of the guys, sang the background vocal parts. They also oversaw all the business, financials, and logistics. O 'Kelly's one eccentricity was that he had very long fingernails, at least two or three inches long on his left hand.

11:41Rudy ran the show both on and off the road. He made sure everybody got to the studio on time. If any of the brothers were late, they would hear it from him and it wouldn't be pleasant. They were a very professional, well-oiled machine. We never connected outside the studio. It was all strictly business. Malcolm and I had the feeling that in their eyes, we were like the studio itself, simply tools to be used. They wanted what Malcolm and I could do to enhance their sound by bringing in new techniques and technologies to the album. We were there strictly to serve those needs, which was totally fine with us.

12:25When we finished, O 'Kelly brought in a briefcase with a stack of$100 bills and paid our$12 ,000 fee in cash. A year later, when Stevie was on the road once again, we recorded a second album with the Isley brothers. The Heat Is On continued where 3 Plus 3 left off, with the same lineup. By now, the Isleys had found their pocket and perfected their soul-funk sound. Malcolm and I felt like we'd never left the studio, as if we'd recorded 3 Plus 3 the day before. The big difference was that we tracked the record at Kendon Recorders in the San Fernando Valley on the other side of the Santa Monica Mountains from Hollywood and the record plant.

13:08It was another Tom Hidley design, and the console was an API with custom Dean Jensen transformers Transformers. We felt right at home. We mixed the album at Tom's Westlake Audio. The Heat Is On was unusual because all the up-tempo funk was on side one and the smooth ballads were on side two, which helped it set a certain mood. It first charted on June 14, 1975 and spent 40 weeks on the Billboard 200. It was the Isley Brothers' first album to hit number one. Once again, when we were done, O 'Kelly showed up with his famous briefcase and paid us in cash. We never saw or heard from them again.

14:14Justin Richmond:on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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