Blind from infancy, Wonder signed with Motown Records as an adolescent and continues to perform and record for the label to this day. He has become one of the most successful and well-known artists in the world, with nine US number one hits to his name and album sales totaling more than 100 million units. Wonder has recorded several critically acclaimed albums and hit singles and writes and produces songs for many of his labelmates and outside artists as well. A multi-instrumentalist, Wonder plays the drums, congas, bass guitar, organ and most famously the piano, keyboard, clarinet and harmonica.
Stevland Judkins was born prematurely in Saginaw, Michigan. It is thought that he received excessive oxygen levels in his incubator which led to retinopathy of prematurity. Common among other prematurely-born children in the 1940s and 50s, this is considered to be the ultimate cause of his blindness. Hardaway instructed her other children (there would eventually be five boys and one girl in the home) to treat Stevland the same as any other child and not to tease or over-assist him because of his blindness. As a result, Stevland had a balanced childhood. The family moved to Detroit, Michigan and Stevie began singing and playing instruments in church at an early age. He in particular took to the piano, congas and harmonica.
In 1961, at the age of 11, Stevland Morris was introduced to Ronnie White of the popular Motown act the Miracles. White brought Morris and his mother to Motown Records. Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO Berry Gordy signed Morris to Motown's Tamla label as Little Stevie Wonder.
At the age of 13, Little Stevie Wonder had his first major hit, 'Fingertips (Pt 2)', a 1963 single taken from a live recording of a Motortown Revue performance. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, congas and harmonica and a young Marvin Gaye on drums, was a number one hit on the US pop charts and launched him into the public consciousness.
Dropping the 'Little' from his moniker, Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid 1960s, including 'Uptight (Everything's Alright)', 'With a Child's Heart' and 'Blowin' in the Wind', a Bob Dylan cover. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his labelmates.
Wonder argued with Berry Gordy over creative control a number of times. As a compromise, Motown released an album under the name Eivets Rednow (Stevie Wonder backwards). Arguments continued and Wonder allowed his Motown contract to expire, leaving the label on his twenty-first birthday in 1971. His final album before his departure was Where I'm Coming From, which Gordy had strongly fought against releasing.Wonder independently recorded two albums, which he used as a bargaining tool while negotiating with Motown. Eventually, the label agreed to his demands for full creative control and the rights to his own songs, and Wonder returned to Motown in March 1972 with Music of My Mind, an album which is considered a classic of the era. Unlike most previous artist LPs on Motown, which usually consisted of a collection of singles, B-sides and covers, Music of My Mind was an actual LP, a full-length artistic statement that began a string of five albums released over a period of less than five years, making up what is generally considered Stevie Wonder's classic period.
October 1972's Talking Book featured the number one pop and R&B hit 'Superstition', which is one of the most distinctive examples of the sound of the clavinet. The song, originally intended for rock guitarist Jeff Beck, features a rocking groove that garnered Wonder an additional audience on rock radio stations. That audience was further exposed to Wonder when he opened for the Rolling Stones on their much-heralded 1972 American Tour. Wonder's pop following was not neglected, however, as 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life' followed to number one on the pop charts and has been a staple love song for the decades since. Between them the songs won three Grammy Awards.
Wonder's critical and popular acclaim only increased less than a year later, in August 1973, when Wonder released what is often called his best album, Innervisions. Political considerations were brought into greater focus than ever before, with the driving, percolating 'Higher Ground' (number four on the pop charts) followed by the memorable epic 'Living for the City (number eight), which found Wonder more evocatively describing a time and place in American life than he would anywhere else in his career. Popular ballads such as 'Golden Lady' and 'All in Love Is Fair' were also present, in a mixture of moods that nevertheless held together as a unified whole. The album generated three more Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
On August 6, 1973, just days after the release of Innervisions, Wonder was in a serious automobile accident while on tour, when a log from a truck went through a passenger window and struck him in the head. This left him in a coma for four days and resulted in a permanent loss of his sense of smell. Despite the setback, Wonder eventually recovered all of his musical faculties and reappeared in concert at Madison Square Garden in March 1974 in a performance that highlighted both up-tempo material and long, building improvisations on mid-tempo songs such as 'Living for the City'. The album Fulfillingness' First Finale then appeared in July 1974 with a more personal, introspective outlook, but nevertheless sent two hits high on the pop charts. The Album of the Year was again one of three Grammys won.
On October 5, 1975, Wonder performed the historical Wonder Dream Concert in Kingston, Jamaica, a Jamaican Institute for the Blind benefit concert. Along with Wonder, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, the three original 'Wailers' performed together for the last time.
