Rock N Roll Pantheon
What Difference Does It Make: Robert Margouleff Shapes Sounds
Published: 29 May 2026 at 08:00 Europe/London
Listen on
Episode notes
In the late 1960s, pioneering electronic musician Robert Margouleff and his musical partner Malcolm Cecil built something unlike anything the world had heard: TONTO — The Original New Timbral Orchestra — a sprawling, one-of-a-kind synthesizer system that would go on to reshape the sound of popular music for decades to come.
A Grammy winner for his work on Stevie Wonder's Innervisions, Robert joins us in studio on the What Difference Does It Make Podcast to share the stories behind one of the most creative partnerships in music history. He takes us inside the making of Stevie's most celebrated run of records — Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, and Fulfillingness' First Finale — and reveals how TONTO's revolutionary sonic palette helped define that era. He also produced Devo's commercial breakthrough Freedom of Choice, one of the defining 80s music albums that helped bring synth-driven pop to the mainstream, and collaborated with Billy Preston and The Isley Brothers, cementing his place as one of the most influential figures behind the boards of his generation.
It's all captured in his memoir, Shaping Sounds: Stevie Wonder, Devo, The Synth Revolution And My Life Behind The Music — and today, he's here to bring it to life.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
