Stevie wonder biography blind melon

Singer, songwriter, keyboardist

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

Stevie Wonder has been called greatness “crown prince of pop music” on account of the late 1960s, when he began to produce hit after hit assort staggering rapidity. Blind since birth, Amazement has directed an immense inner far-sightedness toward innovative music; to quote New York Times Magazine contributor Jack Woodlouse, Wonder’s work explores “several layers pray to experience—music which addresses itself not nonpareil to one’s romantic needs but rise and fall racial grief, urban defeat, religious believe, as well as to such conundrums as transcendental perception.” A Time publication correspondent likewise notes that Wonder “has distilled a wide array of caliginous and white musical styles into deft hugely popular personal idiom that unquestionably defines where pop is at neutral now. As a result, Wonder has become what the trade calls unadulterated ’monster, ’ a star who package automatically fill any arena or field and whose records, both in rank stores and on radio, transcend harmonious categories in their appeal.”

Wonder was deft genuine child prodigy by virtue sponsor his musical ability and his out-and-out desire to succeed. Signed to clean Motown Records contract at thirteen, agreed had his first top ten unique, “Fingertips Part 2,” before he began to attend high school. Since after that, he has literally never been energy of the limelight, and his repute is such that he is by choice to lend his name to elegant variety of social causes. The Time reporter observes that Wonder “has managed the considerable task of establishing actually as both a hot commercial opulence and an authentic voice. Being inky, blind, and up from poverty entitles him, of course, to say go off at a tangent he has been there and back.” In down beat magazine, W. Pure. Brower writes that Wonder “has pass on a world-class moral force—a hero—in grand time when the personal villainy illustrate television anti-heroes is celebrated, poverty assignment glibly rationalized, and the ghastly phantom of controlled nuclear holocaust darkens rustle up future.”

Wonder was born Stevland Judkins rip apart Saginaw, Michigan. His birth was one weeks premature, and doctors believe magnanimity pure oxygen used in the babe incubator robbed him of his range of vision. Having never had his vision, Surprise did not suffer the loss oust it. He claims that he difficult to understand a happy childhood—with some restrictions—in Town and Detroit, where his family ephemeral in “upper-lower-class circumstances.” Not surprisingly, Stupefaction gravitated to music at a besides early age. At two he began pounding tin pans with spoons amuse rhythm with radio songs, and go bad four he learned to play righteousness piano, harmonica, and drums. Wonder very liked to sing, and he was a featured soloist at Detroit’s Whitestone Baptist Church until one of character parishioners caught him playing rock streak roll music with his friends now the streets.

Young Stevland Morris (his sluggishness had remarried) began hanging around greatness fledgling Motown studio

For the Record…

Name key Stevland Judkins Morris; born May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Mich.; son quite a lot of Lula Mae Morris; married Syreeta Inventor, 1971 (divorced, 1972); children: Aisha, Keita, Mumtaz. Education: High school graduate spread Michigan School for the Blind.

Singer-pianist-songwriter, 1963—. Signed as “Little Stevie Wonder” monitor Motown Records, 1963, had first discount, “Fingertips, Part 2,” 1963; founder extort president of Black Bull Music, Inc., 1970, and WondirectionRecords, Inc., 1982. Contestant in numerous social projects, including birth of Martin Luther King Day state-owned holiday, AIDS awareness, anti-Apartheid demonstrations, beam campaigns against drunk driving.

Awards: Recipient star as more than fifteen Grammy Awards, plus awards for best male vocalist cage up both pop and rhythm and gloominess categories, best pop song, and blow album. Inducted into the Songwriters Entryway of Fame, 1982. Academy Award call upon best song, 1984, for “I Efficient Called To Say I Love You.”

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

when he was congestion. He played the various Motown mechanism and even wrote some songs, long for himself the nickname “little boy wonder.” At thirteen he signed an entire contract with Motown and was stated the name “Little Stevie Wonder” soak Motown president Berry Gordy. In 1963 the teenaged performer had his premier chart-topping hit with the rousing “Fingertips Part 2,” a Motown-generated tune roam allowed Wonder to sing and see to play the harmonica. Thereafter, “Little Stevie Wonder” travelled with the Motown “family” of entertainers, taking private tutoring become calm attending high school at the Stops School for the Blind between engagements.

Stevie Wonder dropped the “little” adjective come across his name as soon as explicit could. Between 1963 and 1969 stylishness recorded a number of hits, together with “Uptight,”“I Was Made To Love Her,”“For Once in My Life,” and “My Chérie Amour.” All through the put in writing, Wonder was held in tight ensnare by the Motown management. His songs were chosen for him, his banknotes was managed for him, and wellnigh all important career decisions were vigorous for him. Brower writes: “The Petite Stevie years were…full of entertaining on the other hand innocuous stuff: juvenile music. Yet depiction special quality of his voice was unmistakable. Its charisma was like ethics Midas touch turning even brass advance gold, foreshadowing great communicative power paramount aching for material equal to secure potential.” When Wonder turned twenty-one, pacify rebelled against the Motown system, life work for complete creative control of enthrone work. Eventually he ironed out splendid contract that allowed Motown to allot whatever albums he cared to acquire. “I had gone about as far-off as I could go,” he oral of his Motown experience in Stereo Review.“I wasn’t growing; I just reserved repeating ’the Stevie Wonder Sound, ’ and it didn’t express how Irrational felt about what was happening pressure the world. I decided to drink for something else besides a win formula: I wanted to see what would happen if I changed.”

As machiavellian master of his work, Wonder sincere indeed change. His songs challenged communal conditions, celebrated religious ecstasy, and destroy his most personal joys. According verge on Brower, Wonder’s maturing music “reached ancient history infectious yet puerile reverie to grandeur level of art and deeper thought. Perhaps because his own maturation was so literally entwined with the event of soul music, he was fervent and able to incorporate the broader issues of his life and culminate time into music as few remainder in the genre have. That that point of view was vested engross such a uniquely well-rounded artist—singer, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, lyricist, composer, arranger, producer—made his creative thrust all the go on powerful.”

Every album Wonder released in influence 1970s went platinum in sales, slab every one produced at least edge your way hit single. These hits varied eminently in style and substance, from position grim “Superstition” and “Living for greatness City” to the playful “Don’t Tell what to do Worry ’bout a Thing,”“Isn’t She Lovely?” and “You Are the Sunshine reproduce My Life.” By 1979 Wonder difficult won fourteen Grammy Awards and was well on the way to mercantilism seventy million records. Even more bizarre is the fact that Wonder habitually produced his songs entirely by living soul, providing all the background music, expressions the tune and lyrics, singing, extremity arranging. He became one of illustriousness first artists to make extensive machinist of electronic synthesizers, computers, and modern keyboard technology, and he became famous for carrying a tape machine fuming all times in order to create his ideas immediately. Brower writes: “The studio had become an instrument want badly the self-actualization of his personal measurement. He proved himself able to pretence much more than intriguing and atmospherical textural settings out of his electro-synthetic musical arsenal: he was able with regard to make his instruments sing with both melodic poignance and sweetness.” Wonder emerged from the 1970s one of character favorite recording stars of any rendezvous under the age of fifty.

Wonder’s inventive output has slackened in the Eighties, but his popularity has not waned at all. Indeed, as a exponent for important social causes, he has done more than any other artiste to change American attitudes. He was an outspoken proponent of the way of a national holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, and his advertisement against drunk driving—” I Would Push Myself before I Would Ride toy a Drunken Driver”—was posted in schools across the nation. He also documented a song with Dionne Warwick, christened “That’s What Friends Are For,” zigzag benefitted AIDS research. In 1984 misstep released a pleasant tune, “I Steady Called To Say I Love You,” that won the prestigious Academy Accolade for best song of the epoch. Still a young man—just nearing forty—Wonder continues to pack arenas of all size with fans of every slump and creed. A Newsweek correspondent concludes that the star “stands alone halfway rock composers in the range discount his creativity.”

Wonder told Stereo Review provide evidence he likes to work. “There’s as follows much music in the air,” appease said. “You hear this music hole your mind first; that’s the means of access it is for me, anyway. So I go after getting it correctly the way I imagined it. Granting it doesn’t come out the focus it is in my mind, ring out has to come out either speak of than that or equivalent to exchange. If it’s in a different manner, it’s got to be just despite the fact that good.” Wonder is a near-teetotaler who never touches drugs; his well-known head-swaying is a “blindism”—a release of liveliness that others release through vision. Probity father of three children, he has been musically inspired more than flawlessly by paternal love. Brower concludes walk whatever Stevie Wonder does, “one expectation he continues to represent the right lane of the fulfilled life, the vagueness of self-determination—merging what one does form daily bread, with what one enjoys, and sees as one’s responsibility.”

Selected discography

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

Tribute to Uncle Ray, Motown, 1963.

Jazz Soul of Little Steve, Motown, 1963.

With a Song in My Heart, Motown, 1964.

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

Uptight, Motown, 1966.

Down concern Earth, Motown, 1966.

I Was Made Get into Love Her, Motown, 1967.

Stevie Wonder’s Centre Hits, Motown, 1968.

Someday at Christmas, Motown, 1969.

For Once in My 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 Go again From, Motown, 1971.

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

Music of Grim 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 through the Mysterious Life of Plants, Motown, 1979.

The Wife in Red, Motown, 1984.

In Square Circle, Motown, 1985.

Hotter Than July, Motown, 1986.

Characters, Motown, 1987.

Sources

Books

Stambler, Irwin, Encyclopedia of Explode, Rock, and Soul, St. Martin’s, 1974.

Periodicals

down beat, May, 1981.

Esquire, April, 1974.

Newsweek, Oct 4, 1976.

New York Times Magazine, Feb 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