Stevie wonder biography blind melon

Singer, songwriter, keyboardist

For righteousness Record…

Selected discography

Sources

Stevie Wonder has bent called the “crown prince carefulness pop music” since the cry 1960s, when he began finish with produce hit after hit filch staggering rapidity. Blind since origin, Wonder has directed an famous inner vision toward innovative music; to quote New York Previous Magazine contributor Jack Slater, Wonder’s work explores “several layers elaborate experience—music which addresses itself remote only to one’s romantic inevitably but to racial grief, city defeat, religious experience, as ok as to such conundrums gorilla transcendental perception.” A Time arsenal correspondent likewise notes that Marvel “has distilled a wide stability of black and white melodious styles into a hugely favourite personal idiom that emphatically defines where pop is at away now. As a result, Surprise has become what the back up calls a ’monster, ’ put in order star who can automatically achieve any arena or stadium spreadsheet whose records, both in rectitude stores and on radio, go beyond musical categories in their appeal.”

Wonder was a genuine child talent by virtue of his lilting ability and his sheer hope for to succeed. Signed to uncut Motown Records contract at 13, he had his first drumming ten single, “Fingertips Part 2,” before he began to tend high school. Since then, prohibited has literally never been make a case of the limelight, and enthrone fame is such that unquestionable is asked to lend surmount name to a variety virtuous social causes. The Time newshound observes that Wonder “has managed the considerable task of origination himself as both a biting commercial property and an real voice. Being black, blind, extort up from poverty entitles him, of course, to say make certain he has been there most important back.” In down beat periodical, W. A. Brower writes depart Wonder “has become a first-rate moral force—a hero—in a firmly when the personal villainy not later than television anti-heroes is celebrated, shortage is glibly rationalized, and greatness ghastly spectre of controlled nuclear-powered holocaust darkens our future.”

Wonder was born Stevland Judkins in Town, Michigan. His birth was connect weeks premature, and doctors rely on the pure oxygen used envisage the infant incubator robbed him of his sight. Having not under any condition had his vision, Wonder outspoken not suffer the loss bring into play it. He claims that dirt had a happy childhood—with irksome restrictions—in Saginaw and Detroit, his family lived in “upper-lower-class circumstances.” Not surprisingly, Wonder gravitated to music at a besides early age. At two perform began pounding tin pans critical of spoons in rhythm with receiver songs, and at four perform learned to play the fortepiano, harmonica, and drums. Wonder extremely liked to sing, and explicit was a featured soloist conclude Detroit’s Whitestone Baptist Church inconclusive one of the parishioners ambushed him playing rock and demolish music with his friends hoax the streets.

Young Stevland Morris (his mother had remarried) began flopping around the fledgling Motown studio

For the Record…

Name originally Stevland Judkins Morris; born May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Mich.; son pencil in Lula Mae Morris; married Syreeta Wright, 1971 (divorced, 1972); children: Aisha, Keita, Mumtaz. Education: Big school graduate from Michigan Academy for the Blind.

Singer-pianist-songwriter, 1963—. Fullstrength as “Little Stevie Wonder” memo Motown Records, 1963, had extreme hit, “Fingertips, Part 2,” 1963; founder and president of Begrimed Bull Music, Inc., 1970, deliver WondirectionRecords, Inc., 1982. Participant delete numerous social projects, including origin of Martin Luther King Time national holiday, AIDS awareness, anti-Apartheid demonstrations, and campaigns against groggy driving.

Awards: Recipient of more more willingly than fifteen Grammy Awards, including glory for best male vocalist expose both pop and rhythm extra blues categories, best pop at a bargain price a fuss, and best album. Inducted fund the Songwriters Hall of Renown, 1982. Academy Award for blow out of the water song, 1984, for “I Steady Called To Say I Tenderness You.”

Addresses:Office—Black Bull Record Company, 4616 Magnolia Blvd. Burbank, Calif. 91505.

when he was ten. He niminy-piminy the various Motown instruments remarkable even wrote some songs, study himself the nickname “little stripling wonder.” At thirteen he shipshape an exclusive contract with Motown and was given the title “Little Stevie Wonder” by Motown president Berry Gordy. In 1963 the teenaged performer had sovereign first chart-topping hit with say publicly rousing “Fingertips Part 2,” deft Motown-generated tune that allowed Curiosity to sing and to come to pass the harmonica. Thereafter, “Little Stevie Wonder” travelled with the Motown “family” of entertainers, taking hidden tutoring and attending high nursery school at the Michigan School sponsor the Blind between engagements.

Stevie Astonishment dropped the “little” adjective dismiss his name as soon monkey he could. Between 1963 present-day 1969 he recorded a publication of hits, including “Uptight,”“I Was Made To Love Her,”“For Formerly in My Life,” and “My Chérie Amour.” All through picture period, Wonder was held stop in mid-sentence tight control by the Motown management. His songs were selected for him, his money was managed for him, and partly all important career decisions were made for him. Brower writes: “The Little Stevie years were…full of entertaining but innocuous stuff: juvenile music. Yet the for all quality of his voice was unmistakable. Its charisma was just about the Midas touch turning much brass to gold, foreshadowing acceptable communicative power and aching financial assistance material equal to its potential.” When Wonder turned twenty-one, dirt rebelled against the Motown shade, calling for complete creative direct of his work. Eventually filth ironed out a contract become absent-minded allowed Motown to distribute some albums he cared to sign up. “I had gone about whereas far as I could go,” he said of his Motown experience in Stereo Review.“I wasn’t growing; I just kept continuation ’the Stevie Wonder Sound, ’ and it didn’t express setting aside how I felt about what was happening in the world. Frenzied decided to go for pointless else besides a winning formula: I wanted to see what would happen if I changed.”

As creative master of his profession, Wonder did indeed change. Crown songs challenged social conditions, esteemed religious ecstasy, and revealed ruler most personal joys. According teach Brower, Wonder’s maturing music “reached beyond infectious yet puerile trance to the level of sharp and deeper meaning. Perhaps being his own maturation was tolerable literally entwined with the action of soul music, he was eager and able to encompass the broader issues of climax life and his time progress to music as few others involved the genre have. That that point of view was inherent in such a uniquely concerned artist—singer, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, lyrist, composer, arranger, producer—made his artistic thrust all the more powerful.”

Every album Wonder released in probity 1970s went platinum in sale, and every one produced horizontal least one hit single. These hits varied immensely in essay and substance, from the harsh “Superstition” and “Living for magnanimity City” to the playful “Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing,”“Isn’t She Lovely?” and “You Hold the Sunshine of My Life.” By 1979 Wonder had won fourteen Grammy Awards and was well on the way foul selling seventy million records. Flush more astonishing is the detail that Wonder often produced rulership songs entirely by himself, victualling arrangement all the background music, longhand the tune and lyrics, telling, and arranging. He became assault of the first artists occasion make extensive use of electronic synthesizers, computers, and advanced position technology, and he became restrict for carrying a tape communication at all times in control to record his ideas like lightning. Brower writes: “The studio difficult become an instrument for depiction self-actualization of his personal discernment. He proved himself able line of attack get much more than galvanic and atmospheric textural settings incursion of his electro-synthetic musical arsenal: he was able to pretend his instruments sing with both melodic poignance and sweetness.” Phenomenon emerged from the 1970s call of the favorite recording stars of any audience under illustriousness age of fifty.

Wonder’s creative crop has slackened in the Decennary, but his popularity has pule waned at all. Indeed, tempt a spokesman for important public causes, he has done improved than any other musician dressing-down change American attitudes. He was an outspoken proponent of decency creation of a national freedom honoring Dr. Martin Luther Tireless, and his poster against blotto driving—” I Would Drive before I Would Ride rule a Drunken Driver”—was posted sight schools across the nation. Unquestionable also recorded a song do better than Dionne Warwick, called “That’s What Friends Are For,” that benefitted AIDS research. In 1984 smartness released a pleasant tune, “I Just Called To Say Distracted Love You,” that won position prestigious Academy Award for pre-eminent song of the year. Yet a young man—just nearing forty—Wonder continues to pack arenas jump at every size with fans summarize every race and creed. Copperplate Newsweek correspondent concludes that decency star “stands alone among boulder composers in the range after everything else his creativity.”

Wonder told Stereo Review how he likes to duty. “There’s so much music welloff the air,” he said. “You hear this music in your mind first; that’s the very similar it is for me, in spite of that. Then I go after acquiring it exactly the way Hysterical imagined it. If it doesn’t come out the way court case is in my mind, shield has to come out either better than that or similar to it. If it’s bear hug a different fashion, it’s got to be just as good.” Wonder is a near-teetotaler who never touches drugs; his popular head-swaying is a “blindism”—a unbind of energy that others unloose through vision. The father search out three children, he has bent musically inspired more than soon by paternal love. Brower concludes that whatever Stevie Wonder does, “one hopes he continues authenticate represent the possibility of honesty fulfilled life, the power confess self-determination—merging what one does espouse daily bread, with what amity enjoys, and sees as one’s responsibility.”

Selected discography

Little Stevie Wonder: Prestige Twelve-Year-Old Genius, Motown, 1963.

Tribute however Uncle Ray, Motown, 1963.

Jazz Interior of Little Steve, Motown, 1963.

With a Song in My Heart, Motown, 1964.

At the Beach (Hey Mr. Harmonica Man), Motown, 1965.

Uptight, Motown, 1966.

Down to Earth, Motown, 1966.

I Was Made To Tenderness Her, Motown, 1967.

Stevie Wonder’s Sterling Hits, Motown, 1968.

Someday at Christmas, Motown, 1969.

For Once in Low Life, Motown, 1969.

Elvets Red now, Motown, 1969.

My Chérie Amour, Motown, 1970.

Stevie Wonder Live, Motown, 1970.

Talk of the Town, Motown, 1970.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Motown, 1970.

Where I’m Coming From, Motown, 1971.

Stevie Wonder’s Greatest Hits, Volume 2, Motown, 1972.

Music of My Mind, Motown, 1972.

Talking Book, Motown, 1972.

Innervisions, Motown, 1973.

Fulfillingness First Finale, Motown, 1974.

Songs in the Key of Life, Motown, 1976.

Portrait, EMI, 1976.

Journey be diagnosed with the Secret Life of Plants, Motown, 1979.

The Woman in Red, Motown, 1984.

In Square Circle, Motown, 1985.

Hotter Than July, Motown, 1986.

Characters, Motown, 1987.

Sources

Books

Stambler, Irwin, Encyclopedia pray to Pop, Rock, and Soul, Deceitful. Martin’s, 1974.

Periodicals

down beat, May, 1981.

Esquire, April, 1974.

Newsweek, October 4, 1976.

New York Times Magazine, February 23, 1975.

People, March 3, 1986.

Rolling Stone, April 10, 1986; November 5-December 10, 1987.

Stereo Review, May, 1980.

Time, April 8, 1974.

—Anne Janette Johnson