I recently purchased the Cannonball Aderly Quartet's Mercy Mercy Mercy Live At The Club album and I listend to the title track written by Joe Zaniwul and immediately noticed how similar the electric piano work and they drum intro was to Stevie Wonder's Living For The City. Zaniwul's track was written in the early 1960's and Wonder released LFTC in 1973. I'm just wondering if anyone else is familiar with the Zaniwul track and if you have noticed any similarities between the two.

Knowing Stevie, he probably wrote "LFTC" in the early 1960s!

Remember this is the same man who wrote "Feeding Off The Love of The Land" in '74 and didn't release it until Jungle Fever debuted in 1991 along with a hose of other songs!

okaypimpn said:

True but we don't know when Zaniwul wrote that track either...Have u ever listened to the Zaniwul track? The keys are so similar its scary.

DorothyParkerWasCool said:

No, I haven't heard it, but I'll try to check it out.

I know the riff your talking about and they do sound similar. But these are two completely different songs.

psykosoul said:

Yeah, i know its not the same song..that was not what I said in the original post. I was commenting on the strong similarities in the key work on the two tracks.

Interesting. I haven't heard that Cannonball Adderly track. But I remember there is some song off of one of Weather Report's albums that Joe Zawinul claims is the basis for hip hop (he wrote it). I wish I could remember what it was...and I've never heard it, but that's his claim.


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[This message was edited Fri Apr 2 15:46:32 2004 by Supernova]

okaypimpn said:

Yeah, but Zawinul wrote "Mercy" at a time when Stevie was still singing "Fingertips".... he didn't start stretching out until "Where I'm Coming From", no earlier than '69...

DorothyParkerWasCool said:

That blues/gospel Mercy Mercy Mercy chord progression you're referring to, is the one being used during the chorus sections of that song and the verse sections of Living for the City.

If you've heard a version of Mercy Mercy Mercy with lyrics, here's the section i'm talking about:
She's got the kind of lovin', kissin' and a-huggin'
Sure is mellow, glad that i'm her fellow

In Living for the City it's used as the main groove of the song. In Mercy Mercy Mercy it's a small section of the chorus. The fact that they're both using a Fender Rhodes (or Rhodes-like) keyboard sound adds to the similarity.

Tribal Disorder

paligap said:

What do you mean by "stretching out?"

Stevie was writing hits for other cats at motown before '69. Check "Just A Little Misunderstanding (1963)"Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever" (1966), "What Else Is There To Do (But Think About You)" (1967) and "Tears of a Clown" (1967). I could keep going on...

okaypimpn said:

That's true, but "Mercy, Mercy Mercy" Has A Jazz/Gospel/Soul/ sound That stevie had not yet (At least not on record at Motown) started playing in.

paligap said:

Oh, okay. I see your point.