| Stevie Wonder |
|---|
Stevie Wonder at a conference in Salvador, Brazil, in July 2006 |
| Background information |
|---|
| Birth name | Stevland Hardaway Judkins |
|---|
| Also known as | Stevland Hardaway Morris, Little Stevie Wonder, Eivets Rednow |
|---|
| Born | May 13, 1950 (age 62)
Saginaw, Michigan,
United States |
|---|
| Origin | Detroit, Michigan,
United States |
|---|
| Genres | Soul, pop, R&B, funk, jazz |
|---|
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, activist |
|---|
| Instruments | Vocals, synthesizer, piano,keyboards, harmonica, clavinet,drums, bass guitar, congas,bongos, melodica, keytar,accordion, harpejji |
|---|
| Years active | 1961–present |
|---|
| Labels | Tamla, Motown |
|---|
| Website | www.steviewonder.net |
|---|
Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950 as
Stevland Hardaway Judkins),
[1] known by his
stage nameStevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a
child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century.
[2] Blind since shortly after birth,
[3] Wonder signed with
Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven,
[2] and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.
By popular vote, Stevie was inducted into The SoulMusic Hall Of Fame at SoulMusic.com in December 2012.
[6]
Early life
Stevie Wonder was born in
Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, the third of six children to Calvin Judkins and
Lula Mae Hardaway. Owing to his being born six weeks premature, the blood vessels at the back of his eyes had not yet reached the front and their aborted growth caused the
retinas to detach.
[3] The medical term for this condition is
retinopathy of prematurity, or ROP, and it was exacerbated by the oxygen therapy given while in his hospital
incubator.
[7]
When Stevie Wonder was four, his mother left his father and moved to
Detroit with her children. She changed her name back to Lula Hardaway and later changed her son's surname to Morris, partly because of relatives. Morris has remained Stevie Wonder's legal surname ever since. He began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica, drums and
bass. During childhood he was active in his
church choir.
Discovery and early Motown recordings
Ronnie White of
The Miracles gives credit to his brother Gerald White for persistently nagging him to come to his friend's house in 1961 to check out Stevie Wonder.
[8] Afterward, White brought Wonder and his mother to
Motown. Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO
Berry Gordy signed Wonder to Motown's Tamla label with the name
Little Stevie Wonder.
[1] Before signing, producer
Clarence Paul gave Wonder his trademark name after stating "we can't keep calling him the eighth wonder of the world". He then recorded the regional Detroit single, "I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call It the Blues", which was released on Tamla in late 1961. Wonder released his first two albums,
The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie and
Tribute to Uncle Ray, in 1962, to little success.
Music career
Early success: 1963–1971
By age 13, Wonder had a major hit, "
Fingertips (Pt. 2)", a 1963 single taken from a live recording of a
Motor Town Revue performance, issued on the album
Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, bongos, and harmonica, and a young
Marvin Gaye on drums, was a #1 hit on the
Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts, making him the youngest artist to top the former in its history and launching him into the public consciousness.
In 1964, Stevie Wonder made his film debut in
Muscle Beach Party as himself, credited as "Little Stevie Wonder". He returned in the sequel released five months later,
Bikini Beach. He performed on-screen in both films, singing "Happy Street," and "Happy Feelin' (Dance and Shout)," respectively.
Dropping the "Little" from his name, Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s, including "
Uptight (Everything's Alright)",
[9] "With a Child's Heart", and "
Blowin' in the Wind", a
Bob Dylancover, co-sung by his mentor, producer
Clarence Paul. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his label mates, including "
Tears of a Clown", a number one hit performed by
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.
In 1968 he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the pseudonym (and title)
Eivets Rednow, which is "Stevie Wonder" spelled backwards. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of "Alfie", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the U.S. Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as "
I Was Made to Love Her";
[9] "
For Once in My Life" and "
Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours". In September 1970, at the age of 20, Wonder married
Syreeta Wright, a songwriter and former Motown secretary. Wright and Wonder co-wrote the songs on the next album,
Where I'm Coming From, which did not succeed in the charts. Reaching his twenty-first birthday on May 13, 1971, he allowed his Motown contract to expire.
[10]
In 1970, Wonder co-wrote, and played numerous instruments on the hit "
It's a Shame" for fellow Motown act
The Spinners. His contribution was meant to be a showcase of his talent and thus a weapon in his ongoing negotiations with Gordy about creative autonomy.
[11]
Classic period: 1972–1976
Wonder independently recorded two albums, which he used as a bargaining tool while negotiating withMotown.[citation needed] Eventually the label agreed to his demands for full creative control and the rights to his own songs. The 120-page contract was a precedent at Motown and gave Wonder a much higher royaltyrate.[12] Wonder returned to Motown in March 1972 with Music of My Mind. Unlike most previous albums on Motown, which usually consisted of a collection of singles, B-sides and covers, Music of My Mind was a full-length artistic statement with songs flowing together thematically.[12] Wonder's lyrics dealt with social, political, and mystical themes as well as standard romantic ones, while musically Wonder began exploring overdubbing and recording most of the instrumental parts himself.[12] Music of My Mind marked the beginning of a long collaboration with Tonto's Expanding Head Band (Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil).[13][14]
Released in late 1972, Talking Book featured the No. 1 hit "Superstition",[15] which is one of the most distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner clavinet keyboard.[16] The song features a rocking groove that garnered Wonder an additional audience on rock radio stations.[citation needed] Talking Book also featured "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", which also peaked at No. 1. During the same time as the album's release, Stevie Wonder began touring with the Rolling Stones to alleviate the negative effects from pigeon-holing as a result of being an R&B artist in America.[8] Wonder's touring with The Rolling Stones was also a factor behind the success of both "Superstition" and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life".[12][17]Between them, the two songs won three Grammy Awards.[18] On an episode of the children's television show Sesame Street that aired in April 1973,[19] Wonder and his band performed "Superstition", as well as an original song called "Sesame Street Song", which demonstrated his abilities with the "talk box".
Innervisions, released in 1973, featured "Higher Ground" (#4 on the pop charts) as well as the trenchant "Living for the City" (#8).[15] Both songs reached No. 1 on the R&B charts. 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.[20] Innervisions generated three more Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.[18] The album is ranked #23 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[21] Wonder had become the most influential and acclaimed black musician of the early 1970s.[12]
On August 6, 1973, Wonder was in a serious automobile accident while on tour in North Carolina, when a car in which he was riding hit the back of a truck.[12][22] This left him in a coma for four days and resulted in a partial loss of his sense of smell and a temporary loss of sense of taste.[23] Despite the setback, Wonder re-appeared in concert at Madison Square Garden in March 1974 with a performance that highlighted both up-tempo material and long, building improvisations on mid-tempo songs such as "Living for the City".[12]The album Fulfillingness' First Finale appeared in July 1974 and set two hits high on the pop charts: the #1 "You Haven't Done Nothin'" and the Top Ten "Boogie On Reggae Woman". The Album of the Year was again one of three Grammys won.[18]
The double album-with-extra-EP Songs in the Key of Life, was released in September 1976. Sprawling in style, unlimited in ambition, and sometimes lyrically difficult to fathom, the album was hard for some listeners to assimilate, yet is regarded by many as Wonder's crowning achievement and one of the most recognizable and accomplished albums in pop music history.[12][15][29] The album became the first of an American artist to debut straight at #1 in the Billboard charts, where it remained for 14 non-consecutive weeks.[30] Two tracks, became #1 Pop/R&B hits "I Wish" and "Sir Duke". The baby-celebratory "Isn't She Lovely?" was written about his newborn daughter Aisha, while songs such as "Love's in Need of Love Today" (which years later Wonder would perform at the post-September 11, 2001 America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon) and "Village Ghetto Land" reflected a far more pensive mood. Songs in the Key of Lifewon Album of the Year and two other Grammys.[18] The album ranks 56th on Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[21]
After such a concentrated and sustained level of creativity, Wonder stopped recording for three years, releasing only the 3 LP Looking Back, an anthology of his first Motown period. The albums Wonder released during this period were very influential on the music world: the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guidesaid they "pioneered stylistic approaches that helped to determine the shape of pop music for the next decade";[15] Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included four of the five albums, with three in the top 90;[21] and in 2005, Kanye West said of his own work, "I'm not trying to compete with what's out there now. I'm really trying to compete with Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. It sounds musically blasphemous to say something like that, but why not set that as your bar?"[31]
Commercial period: 1979–1990
It was in Wonder's next phase that he began to commercially reap the rewards of his legendary classic period. The 1980s saw Wonder scoring his biggest hits and reaching an unprecedented level of fame evidenced by increased album sales, charity participation, high-profile collaborations, political impact, and television appearances.
In 1982, Wonder released a retrospective of his 1970s work with Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium, which included four new songs: the ten-minute funk classic "Do I Do" (which featured Dizzy Gillespie), "That Girl" (one of the year's biggest singles to chart on the R&B side), "Front Line", a narrative about a soldier in the Vietnam War that Stevie Wonder wrote and sang in the 1st person, and "Ribbon in the Sky", one of his many classic compositions. Wonder also gained a #1 hit that year in collaboration with Paul McCartney in their paean to racial harmony, "Ebony and Ivory".
In 1983, Wonder scheduled an album to be entitled "People Work, Human Play." The album never surfaced and instead 1984 saw the release of Wonder's soundtrack album for The Woman in Red. The lead single, "I Just Called to Say I Love You", was a #1 pop and R&B hit in both the United States and the United Kingdom, where it was placed 13th in the list of best-selling singles in the UK published in 2002. It went on to win an Academy Award for "Best Song" in 1985. The album also featured a guest appearance by Dionne Warwick, singing the duet "It's You" with Stevie and a few songs of her own. The following year's In Square Circle featured the #1 pop hit "Part-Time Lover". The album also has a Top 10 Hit with "Go Home." It also featured the ballad "Overjoyed" which was originally written for Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, but didn't make the album. He performed "Overjoyed" on Saturday Night Live when he was the host. He was also featured in Chaka Khan's cover of Prince's "I Feel For You", alongside Melle Mel, playing his signature harmonica. In roughly the same period he was also featured on harmonica on Eurythmics' single, "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)" and Elton John's "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues".
In 1987, Wonder appeared on Michael Jackson's Bad album on the duet "Just Good Friends". Michael Jackson also sang a duet with him titled "Get It" on Wonder's 1987 album Characters. This was a minor hit single, as were "Skeletons" and "You Will Know". In the fall of 1988, Wonder duetted with Julio Iglesias on the hit single "My Love", which appeared on Iglesias' album Non Stop.[citation needed]
Video of the Day
Emily Innes brings you o
Daily Headlines
HUMBER STUDENT FEDERATION HOLDS CARNIVAL TO END SEMESTER
19/04/2012 | Tyler Hunt
The Humber Student Federation finished off the semester with an HSF Carnival and DJ Extravaganza, with carnival games, prizes and a live DJ. Tyler Hunt has the story.
| SYRIAN CEASEFIRE BEGINS, TROOPS REMAIN
12/04/2012 | Dino Pasalic
Syrian troops are holding their fire today after the deadline for a UN backed ceasefire passed, however both sides are reporting several violations.
| SUPERVISED DRUG FACILITIES MAY BE COMING TO TORONTO
12/04/2012 | Tyler Hunt
A lengthy report released Wednesday entitled Toronto and Ottawa Supervised Consumption Assessment (TOSCA) recommends three new, supervised drug-injection facilities in Toronto, plus another two in [ ... ]
|
LACK OF PARTICIPATION CANCELS RECYCLE RACE AT HUMBER
05/04/2012 | Tyler Hunt & Katie Campanella
The Humber Student Federation hoped to end the year on an environmentally friendly note with a Recycle Race planned for the Earth Week celebrations. However, the turnout wasn't exactly what the [ ... ]
| ARTHUR MURRAY DANCE STUDIOS MARK A CENTURY IN BUSINESS
05/04/2012 | Emma Brown, Sarah Horwath & Alex Zakrzewski
The Arthur Murray Dance Studio on The Kingsway in Etobicoke opened their doors last night to celebrate 100 years of teaching the world to dance. Thedailyplanet.com's Alex Zakrzewski has the [ ... ]
| MARCH EMPLOYMENT NUMBERS SURPRISE ECONOMISTS
05/04/2012 | Justin Crann, Michael Gregory, and Dino Pasalic
According to numbers released by Statistics Canada Thursday, the Canadian economy added 83,200 jobs in March, surpassing economists' estimates after a slumbering winter.
|
Daily Headlines
|
