Stevie Wonder had the artistic wind at his back, teeming with creative energy and scaling new musical heights, when he met Jeff Beck in 1972. Their encounter at a New York studio would soon bear ...

But the October 1972 release of Wonder’s “Superstition,” issued as a lead single at Motown’s insistence, wound up stealing the thunder. “I told Motown, ‘Listen, I did this for Jeff Beck.