"Living for the City" is a 1973 single by Stevie Wonder from his Innervisions album. It reached number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 1 on the R&B chart. Rolling Stone ranked the song number 104 on their 2004 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Living for the City
Stevland Hardaway Morris, known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of contemporary R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder.
Wonder in 1994
Wonder rehearsing for a performance on Dutch television in 1967
Billboard advertisement, June 17, 1967
The first prototype of the Oberheim 4-voice synthesizer, as used by Wonder. The front panel still shows the braille labeling.