Stevie Wonder

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Stevie Wonder (born 1950) is one of the most cherished rhythm-and-blues singers and songwriters of his generation. The 19-time Grammy winner is known for his soulful voice and catchy tunes as well as for his commitment to political and humanitarian causes.

In the course of following Stevie Wonder on his relentless travels, journalists have come to realize just how beloved an entertainer he is. "It dawned on me," wrote Giles Smith in the New Yorker, "that a substantial part of Stevie Wonder's public life consists of the voices of complete strangers telling him they love him." Rolling Stone's David Ritz had a similar opinion. "Following Stevie Wonder around New York is exhilarating work," he wrote. "I get the feeling that he loves being Stevie Wonder. He loves the attention, the adulation, the chance to perform." Ritz also remarked that Wonder's "optimism is infectious."

It is believed that Wonder, born Stevland Judkins Morris in Saginaw, Michigan on May 13, 1950, was blinded due to an overabundance of oxygen in his incubator shortly after his premature birth. "I vaguely remember light and what my mother looks like," he said in a 1986 Life interview, "but I could be dreaming." His father left the family early on. He and his five siblings were raised by their mother. She moved the family to Detroit, where they struggled to survive. Though he has spoken good-naturedly in adulthood about the limitations of his blindness, Wonder told Ritz that as a child he soothed his mother's tears by telling her that he "wasn't sad." He recalled, "I believed God had something for me to do." Along with his siblings, Wonder sang in the Whitestone Baptist Church choir and demonstrated a gift for playing the piano, harmonica, and drums by age eleven.

Thanks to the intercession of a friend, Wonder was introduced to Berry Gordy, president of Detroit-based Motown Records, and Gordy's producer Brian Holland. Gordy placed the exceptional youngster's career in the hands of his associate Clarence Paul, whom he designated as Wonder's mentor. Gordy told Paul, according to Ritz, that his job was to "bring out his genius. This boy can give us hits." Handed the show business moniker "Little Stevie Wonder," the prodigious adolescent-signed to the Motown offshoot label Tamla-did indeed yield hits.

Motown Encouraged Discipline

Wonder's fourth single, "Fingertips Part 2," appeared in 1963 and became the first live performance of a song to reach the top of the U.S. pop chart. Also that year, Wonder became the first recording artist to reach the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 and Rhythm & Blues singles charts simultaneously. Unable to attend a regular Detroit school because of his schedule, Wonder was sent to the Michigan School for the Blind at Motown's expense.

"Motown meant discipline to me," Wonder recalled to Ritz. "The attitude was 'Do it over. Do it differently. Do it until it can't be done any better."' Under such demanding circumstances the young performer grew up fast and he put aside the "little" label in 1964. Over the next few years he churned out hits like "Uptight," "Nothing's Too Good for My Baby," "I Was Made to Love Her," and "For Once in My Life." By 1968, his label had amassed enough chart-toppers to fill his first greatest hits album.

In 1969, Wonder met President Richard Nixon at the White House, where he received a Distinguished Service Award from the President's Committee on Employment of Handicapped People. Meanwhile, he continued to produce hits like "My Cherie Amour," which sold over a million copies, and "Signed Sealed Delivered (I'm Yours)." In 1970, Wonder married Syreeta Wright, a Motown employee and aspiring singer; the two wrote together, and Wonder produced several successful records for her. The marriage was short-lived, however; they divorced in 1972. Wright has said that Wonder's music was her chief rival. "He would wake up and go straight to the keyboard," she recalled in a New Yorker interview. "I knew and understood that his passion was music. That was really his No. 1 wife." Wonder fathered children by three other women over the next couple of decades, though he did not remarry. "I was at the birth of two of my children," he confided in Life. "I felt them being born-it was amazing."

When Wonder turned 21, he was due the money he had earned as a minor through an arrangement stipulated in a previous agreement. But Motown only paid him $1 million of the $30 million he had earned during that time. After considerable legal wrangling he managed to attain a unique degree of artistic and financial autonomy. "At 21, Stevie was interested in being treated well and in controlling his life and in presenting his music, and all those things were extraordinary things for a young man to ask at that point," explained Johanan Vigoda, Wonder's long-time attorney, in the New Yorker. "It wasn't the freedom to be dissolute or undisciplined. He wanted to be free so that he could bring the best of himself to the table."

What Wonder brought to the table-with the establishment of his own music publishing company and near-total creative freedom-was an increasingly sophisticated body of work that managed to fuse the high spirits of classic soul, the syncopations of funk, exquisite melodies, and his own introspective and increasingly politicized lyrics. He demonstrated the versatility of the synthesizer when it was still something of a novelty in the rhythm & blues world.

Accident Redoubled Commitment

Wonder's momentum was almost stopped permanently by a 1973 automobile accident that nearly claimed his life and left him with deep facial scars. If anything, however, this event caused him to become more focused. Virtually all of Wonder's work during the early to mid-1970s was essentially pop, most notably his albums Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and the epic Songs in the Key of Life. His songs from that period, including "Superstition" and "Higher Ground," "Boogie on Reggae Woman," "Sir Duke," "I Wish," and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," were unrivaled both artistically and commercially. "What artist in his right mind," mused singer-songwriter and soul icon Marvin Gaye to Rolling Stone's Ritz, "wouldn't be intimidated by Stevie Wonder?"

In 1979, Wonder released Journey through the Secret Life of Plants, the theme of which many listeners found eccentric. "It was a consideration of the physical and spiritual relationships between human beings and plants,"Wonder explained to Ritz, quipping that "some called it shrubbish." Though he increasingly failed to match the sales peaks of the preceding decades, Wonder was still a giant presence in the world of pop. His Hotter Than July, with its reggae-driven hit "Master Blaster (Jammin')," indicated his continuing creative restlessness. "That Girl," his love song "I Just Called to Say I Love You"-which won an Academy Award for best song and stands as Motown's top-selling single internationally-and his duet with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney on the anti-racism anthem "Ebony and Ivory," all achieved great success.

Delved Into Politics and Charity Work

Over the years Wonder became progressively more involved in politics, lobbying for gun control, against drunk driving, against the apartheid system enforced by South Africa's white minority, and on behalf of a national holiday in recognition of civil rights martyr Martin Luther King, Jr. He played a number of benefits and made public service announcements, often winning honors for his advocacy. The slogan under his picture on a poster for Mothers Against Drunk Driving read: "Before I ride with a drunk, I'll drive myself." He also contributed his labor to the Charge Against Hunger campaign organized by American Express.

Wonder was less musically prolific in the 1980s, but still achieved a great amount of success. He won a Grammy for In Square Circle in 1986 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. He won praise for his work on the soundtrack to Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever. It was said that Wonder composed the material in just three weeks. "Movies are always a good challenge," he told Neil Strauss of the New York Times, "because it's taking what's happening visually and, even though I'm not able to see it, getting a sense of the movie and finding a new way to work with it." His work for Jungle Fever preempted the release of a collection of songs he had been crafting while living in the African nation of Ghana; the resulting disc did not hit stores for several years.

In 1992, Wonder signed a unique lifetime pact with Motown. "This is a guy you don't ever want to see recording for anyone else," company president Jheryl Busby told the New Yorker in 1995. "I worked hard to make Stevie see that we had his interests at heart. Stevie is what I call the crown jewel, the epitome. I wasn't looking at Stevie as an aging superstar but as an icon who could pull us into the future." Wonder himself seemed to share this sense of his eternal newness: "I'm going to be 45," he reflected to Ritz, "but I'm still feeling new and amazed by the world I live in. I was in the Hard Rock Cafe in Tokyo last week, and they started playing my records, and I started crying, crying like a little kid, thinking how God has blessed me with all these songs."

Conversation Peace Met with Mixed Reactions

When Conversation Peace-the album on which Wonder had been working for nearly eight years-was released in 1995, it garnered a range of reactions. Vibe deemed it "a decidedly mixed bag, leapfrogging back and forth between divine inspiration and inoffensive professionalism." Reviewer Tom Sinclair took particular exception to the "cloying sentimentality" of some of the songs, as did other critics. Entertainment Weekly praised the album's sound, but noted that "the song selection here, while frisky, is thin, making this comeback small Wonder." Time's Christopher John Farley, however, while allowing that the recording "isn't a slam dunk," called it "another winner for Wonder." In 1996, Wonder added two more Grammy Awards to his extensive collection, receiving another best male rhythm & blues vocal performance honor and one for best rhythm & blues song for the tune "For Your Love" off of Conversation. In addition, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award that year.

Wonder's 1995 concert tour garnered acclaim. "Running 2 1/4 hours, it was an outstanding show-full of pure, old-fashioned R & B," declared Los Angeles Times writer Dennis Hunt of Wonder's performance at the Universal Amphitheatre. Pondering the performer's endurance and the disappearance of most of his contemporaries from the scene, Hunt observed, "Some may point to exquisite taste as the key to Wonder's success, but the real secret is his ability to stay current, to be fluent in the R & B style of the moment." Not surprisingly, critics were virtually unanimous about Wonder's 1995 live double CD, Natural Wonder, which Rolling Stone called "an important and revelatory statement."

Wonder remained in the limelight, performing at a White House dinner for Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain in February of 1998, and appearing as a White House guest later that year. Also in 1998 he performed on the soundtrack of the animated Disney film Mulan. In January 1999, Wonder provided a dazzling halftime show during the Super Bowl. He was awarded yet another Grammy in 1999-his nineteenth-for best male rhythm & blues vocalist. In addition, he continued his humanitarian work, establishing along with German firm SAP, the SAP/Stevie Wonder Vision Awards. These awards recognized efforts to aid blind people in the workplace.

Wonder has continued his songwriting between other projects, and has expressed the desire to do a gospel album. But regardless of the genre he pursues, his music will undoubtedly reflect his spirituality. He has inspired a new generation of artists, including rock group the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who made their bid for mainstream popularity with a version of "Higher Ground," Lenny Kravitz and Michael Franti of Spearhead. However, he nonetheless expressed his determination to keep growing. "You're influenced all the time," he said in the New York Times, "and the day that you cannot be influenced by anything good is the day that you really have let your art die."

Further Reading

Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton, Rock Movers & Shakers, Billboard, 1991.

Entertainment Weekly, March 31, 1995.

Jet, May 8, 1995; May 22, 1995; March 16, 1998; February 23, 1998.

Life, October 1986.

Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1995.

New Yorker, March 13, 1995.

Rolling Stone, July 13, 1995; January 25, 1996

Time, September 4, 1995; April 10, 1996; June 22, 1998; June 29, 1998.

Vibe, March 1995.

singer; songwriter

Personal Information

Born Stevland Judkins Morris, May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, MI; son of Lulu Mae Morris; married Syreeta Wright (a singer), 1971 (divorced, 1972); married Karen "Kai" Millard; children: seven children (five outside of marriage).

Career

Recording artist, Motown Records, 1963-. Founded Black Bull Music publishing company, 1971; sponsored Stevie Wonder Home for Blind and Retarded Children, 1976; founded Wondirection Records, 1982; activist for and contributor to various political and social causes, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the establishment of a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., the anti-apartheid movement, AIDS awareness, and Charge Against Hunger program; KJLH radio station, Los Angeles, owner.

Life's Work

In the course of following Stevie Wonder on his relentless travels, journalists come to realize just how beloved an entertainer he is. "It dawned on me," wrote Giles Smith in the New Yorker, "that a substantial part of Stevie Wonder's public life consists of the voices of complete strangers telling him they love him." Rolling Stone's David Ritz had a similar epiphany. "Following Stevie Wonder around New York is exhilarating work," he wrote. "I get the feeling that he loves being Stevie Wonder. He loves the attention, the adulation, the chance to perform." What's more, Ritz remarked, Wonder's "optimism is infectious." Such optimism may spring from a deep spiritual wellspring, but it is also sustained by decades spent creating indelible, meaningful music.

It is estimated that Wonder--born Stevland Judkins Morris in Saginaw, Michigan--was blinded by a surfeit of oxygen in his incubator shortly after his premature birth. "I vaguely remember light and what my mother looks like," he ventured in a 1986 Life interview, "but I could be dreaming." His father left the family early on, and he and his five siblings were raised by their mother. She moved the clan to Detroit, where they struggled mightily to survive. Though he has groused good-naturedly in adulthood at the limitations his sightlessness has placed on him, Wonder told Ritz that as a child he soothed his mother's tears by telling her that he "wasn't sad." He recalled, "I believed God had something for me to do." Along with his siblings, he paid musical tribute to the Almighty in the Whitestone Baptist Church Choir, along with his vocal prowess demonstrating a gift for piano, harmonica, and drums by age 11.

Thanks to the intercession of a friend, Stevland was brought to the attention of Berry Gordy, president of Detroit-based Motown Records, and Gordy's producer Brian Holland. Gordy placed the exceptional youngster's career in the hands of his associate Clarence Paul, whom he designated as Stevie's mentor. Paul told Rolling Stone's Ritz that Gordy had instructed him, "Your job is to bring out his genius. This boy can give us hits." Handed the show business moniker "Little Stevie Wonder," the talented adolescent--signed to the Motown offshoot label Tamla--did indeed produce a stunning string of hits.

Wonder's fourth single, "Fingertips, Pt. 2," appeared in 1963 and became the first live performance of a song to reach the top of the U.S. pop charts. Also that year, Wonder became the first recording artist to reach the top position on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B singles, and album charts simultaneously. Unable to attend a regular Detroit school while becoming a pop sensation, Wonder was sent to the Michigan School for the Blind at Motown's expense.

"Motown meant discipline to me," Wonder recalled to Ritz. "The attitude was 'Do it over. Do it differently. Do it until it can't be done any better.'" Under such demanding circumstances the young performer grew up fast. In 1964 he put aside the "Little" label and let fans focus on the Wonder; over the next few years he churned out pop-soul smashes like "Uptight," "Nothing's Too Good for My Baby," "I Was Made to Love Her," and "For Once in My Life." By 1968 his label had amassed enough chart-toppers to fill his first Greatest Hits album.

In 1969 Wonder met President Richard Nixon at the White House, where he received a Distinguished Service Award from the President's Committee on Employment of Handicapped People. Meanwhile, he continued to pile up hits, as "My Cherie Amour" sold over a million copies and "Signed Sealed Delivered (I'm Yours)" vaulted up the charts. 1970 saw Wonder marry Syreeta Wright, a Motown employee and aspiring singer; the two wrote together, and Wonder produced several successful records for her. The marriage was short-lived, however; they divorced in 1972. By all accounts, they remain friends.

Wright has said that Wonder's music was her chief rival. "He would wake up and go straight to the keyboard," she recalled to Smith of the New Yorker. "I knew and understood that his passion was music. That was really his No. 1 wife." Wonder fathered children by three other women over the next couple of decades, though he did not remarry. "I was at the birth of two of my children," he confided in Life. "I felt them being born--it was amazing." In a 1995 Rolling Stone interview, the 44-year-old artist did express a yearning for matrimony, calling it "the space where we're most relaxed and able to give and receive maximum love. I'm not there yet--but soon. It's one of my goals."

When Wonder turned 21 in 1971 he was due the money he had earned as a minor (this arrangement had been stipulated in a previous agreement). But Motown only paid him $1 million of the $30 million he'd earned during that time. After considerable legal wrangling he managed to attain a unique degree of artistic and financial autonomy. "At 21, Stevie was interested in being treated well and in controlling his life and in presenting his music, and all those things were extraordinary things for a young man to ask at that point," explained Johanan Vigoda, Wonder's longtime attorney, to Smith of the New Yorker. "It wasn't the freedom to be dissolute or undisciplined. He wanted to be free so that he could bring the best of himself to the table."

What Wonder brought to the table--with the establishment of his own music publishing company and near-total creative freedom--was an increasingly sophisticated body of work that managed to fuse the high spirits of classic soul, the down-and-dirty syncopations of funk, exquisite melodies, and his own introspective and increasingly politicized lyrical sensibility. From a sonic standpoint, too, he was a trailblazer, demonstrating the versatility of the synthesizer when it was still something of a novelty instrument in the R&B world.

Wonder's momentum was almost stopped permanently by a 1973 automobile accident that nearly claimed his life and left him with deep facial scars. If anything, however, this event provoked him to redouble his efforts. Virtually all of Wonder's work during the early to mid-1970s is essential pop, most notably his albums Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and the epic Songs in the Key of Life. His songs from this period--including the percolating funk-rock workouts "Superstition" and "Higher Ground," the effervescent "Boogie on Reggae Woman," the jubilant paean to classic jazz "Sir Duke," the grittily nostalgic "I Wish," and the breezy chartbuster "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"--left most of Wonder's competition in the dust both artistically and commercially. "What artist in his right mind," mused singer-songwriter and soul icon Marvin Gaye in the presence of Rolling Stone'; s Ritz, "wouldn't be intimidated by Stevie Wonder?"

1979 saw the release of Wonder's musically beguiling Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, the theme of which many listeners found a little eccentric, to say the least. "It was a consideration of the physical and spiritual relationships between human beings and plants," Wonder explained to Ritz, quipping that "some called it shrubbish." Though he increasingly failed to match his creative and sales peaks of the preceding decades, Wonder was still a giant presence in the world of pop. His Hotter Than July, with its reggae-driven hit "Master Blaster (Jammin')," indicated his continuing creative restlessness. And "That Girl," the unstoppable love song "I Just Called to Say I Love You"--which won an Academy Award for best song and stands as Motown's top-selling single internationally--and his duet with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney on the anti-racism anthem "Ebony and Ivory" all burned up the charts.

Over the years Wonder also became progressively more involved in politics, lobbying for gun control, against drunk driving and the apartheid system enforced by South Africa's white minority, and on behalf of a national holiday in recognition of civil rights martyr Martin Luther King, Jr. He played a number of benefits and made public service announcements, often winning honors for his advocacy. The slogan underneath his picture on a poster for Mothers Against Drunk Driving read: "Before I ride with a drunk, I'll drive myself." He also contributed his labor to the Charge Against Hunger campaign organized by American Express.

By the late 1980s, Wonder had become less prolific than he had been in the past, but he was still phenomenally successful. He received a Grammy for 1986's In Square Circle and in 1989 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He won plaudits for his work on the soundtrack to Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever, allegedly composing the material for it in the space of three weeks. "Movies are always a good challenge," he told Neil Strauss of the New York Times, "because it's taking what's happening visually and, even though I'm not able to see it, getting a sense of the movie and finding a new way to work with it." His work for Jungle Fever had preempted a collection of songs he'd been crafting while living in the African nation of Ghana; the resulting disc would not hit stores for several years.

In 1992--by which time multimillion-dollar deals had become commonplace--Wonder signed a unique lifetime pact with Motown. "This is a guy you don't ever want to see recording for anyone else," company president Jheryl Busby told the New Yorker's Smith in 1995. "I worked hard to make Stevie see that we had his interests at heart. Stevie is what I call the crown jewel, the epitome. I wasn't looking at Stevie as an aging superstar but as an icon who could pull us into the future." Wonder himself seemed to share this sense of his eternal newness: "I'm going to be 45," he reflected to Ritz in Rolling Stone, "but I'm still feeling new and amazed by the world I live in. I was in the Hard Rock Cafe in Tokyo last week, and they started playing my records, and I started crying, crying like a little kid, thinking how God has blessed me with all these songs."

When Conversation Peace--the album on which Wonder had been working for nearly eight years--was released in 1995, it garnered a range of reactions. Vibe deemed it "a decidedly mixed bag, leapfrogging back and forth between divine inspiration and inoffensive professionalism"; reviewer Tom Sinclair took particular exception to the "cloying sentimentality" of some of the songs, as did other critics. Entertainment Weekly praised the album's sound, but noted that "the song selection here, while frisky, is thin, making this comeback small Wonder." Time's Christopher John Farley, however, while allowing that the recording "isn't a slam dunk," called it "another winner for Wonder." Regardless of their respective verdicts, most reviewers concurred that Wonder's versatility, passion, and chops remained intact.

Wonder proved the validity of these observations during his 1995 concert tour. "Running 2 1/4 hours, it was an outstanding show--full of pure, old-fashioned R&B," declared Los Angeles Times writer Dennis Hunt of Wonder's performance at the Universal Amphitheatre. Pondering the performer's endurance and the disappearance of most of his contemporaries from the scene, Hunt observed, "Some may point to exquisite taste as the key to Wonder's success, but the real secret is his ability to stay current, to be fluent in the R&B style of the moment." Not surprisingly, critics were virtually unanimous about Wonder's 1995 live double CD, Natural Wonder, which Rolling Stone called "an important and revelatory statement."

It took ten years for Wonder to release his next album--ten long years, in the opinion of his label, which went through troubled times over those years, including several changes in management. By mid-2005, Wonder had released the first single from the album, a funky number called "So What the Fuss" which featured Prince on guitar. The video for the single was greeted with acclaim as the first-ever video with descriptive narration for the visually impaired. The narration, voiced by rapper Busta Rhymes, describes the actions that accompany the song, including comments on what Wonder is wearing and what instruments are being played. The album, A Time 2 Love, was expected to follow by mid-summer 2005, yet Wonder kept delaying its release, to the frustration of Motown execs. Newsweek quoted wonder as saying: "The reason they haven't got it is I'm not ready to give it to them. However long it takes me, I'm giving the very best that I can... I won't settle for less." It remains to be seen how this album will fit into the Wonder pantheon of music.

Wonder has clearly slowed down the pace at which he releases albums, though he continues to consider himself both a musician and an activist. He conducts an annual holiday benefit concert to provide toys to underprivileged children, he performed at the Live 8 benefit concert in 2005, and he owns a Los Angeles radio station, KJLH, that is dedicated to serving L.A.'s black community. Asked by Billboard whether he had become more activist than musician, Wonder answered: "I'm more musician. My way of expressing how I feel when I'm talking about political or social positions is better served when I do it through my music. It's not to say I can't express myself verbally. But music is the vehicle I've been given as a way to do that." Wonder's plans for the future include a variety of projects. "I plan to do a book," he told Billboard, "and I'm excited about the prospects of a film.... It would be very inspirational in the things that I went through growing up as a little boy being blind and the things my mother had to contend with.... Then maybe there would be another film about the second half of my life.... More than anything, I want to do a musical. I'd also like to do an acting role. I have a couple of ideas I've been working on, film storylines that are pretty good." Though many in the music industry view Wonder as one of the forefathers of modern funk and R&B, Wonder insists that his musical career is far from over: "For me to say I've reached my peak is to say that God is through using me for what he has given me the opportunity to do. And I just don't believe that."

Awards

15 Grammy awards, including those for best male vocalist in both pop and R&B categories, best pop song, and best album; Distinguished Service Award, President's Committee on Employment of Handicapped People, 1969; Academy Award for best song, 1985, for "I Just Called to Say I Love You"; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1989; Whitney M. Young Award, Los Angeles Urban League, 1990; Carousel of Hope Award, Children's Diabetes Foundation, 1990; Honorary Global Founder's Award, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 1990; Essence magazine award, 1995; inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2002; National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame, Johnny Mercer Award, 2004; Billboard Music Awards, Century Award, 2004.

Works

Selected discography

Albums (On Motown, unless otherwise noted)

• Little Stevie Wonder: The Twelve-Year-Old Genius, 1963.
• Recorded Live (includes "Fingertips, Pt. 2"), 1963.
• Uptight (includes "Uptight"), 1966.
• Down to Earth, 1967.
• I Was Made to Love Her (includes "I Was Made to Love Her"), 1967.
• Stevie Wonder's Greatest Hits, 1968.
• For Once in My Life (includes "For Once in My Life"), 1969.
• My Cherie Amour (includes "My Cherie Amour"), 1969.
• Stevie Wonder Live, 1970.
• Signed Sealed and Delivered (includes "Signed Sealed Delivered [I'm Yours]"), 1970.
• Where I'm Coming From, 1971.
• Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, 1972.
• Music of My Mind, 1972.
• Talking Book (includes "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and "Superstition"), 1972.
• Innervisions (includes "Higher Ground"), 1973.
• Fulfillingness' First Finale (includes "Boogie on Reggae Woman"), 1974.
• Songs in the Key of Life (includes "Sir Duke" and "I Wish"), 1976.
• Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, 1979.
• Hotter Than July (includes "Master Blaster [Jammin']"), 1980.
• Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium (includes "That Girl"), 1982.
• In Square Circle, 1985.
• Characters, 1987.
• Jungle Fever (soundtrack), 1992.
• Natural Wonder, 1995.
• Conversation Peace, 1995.
• At the Close of a Century (boxed set), 1999.
• The Definitive Collection, 2002.
• A Time to Love (includes "So What the Fuss"), 2005.

Duets

• With Paul McCartney, "Ebony and Ivory," Tug of War, Columbia, 1982.
• With Chaka Khan, "I Feel for You," I Feel for You, Warner Bros., 1984.
• With Dionne Warwick, "That's What Friends Are For," 1986.
• With Lenny Kravitz, "Deuce," Kiss My Ass, 1995.
• Also contributed songs to albums by Rufus, Minnie Riperton, and other artists.

Further Reading

Books

• Love, Dennis, and Stacy Brown, Blind Faith: The Miraculous Journey of Lula Hardaway, Stevie Wonder's Mother, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002.
• Lodder, Steve, Stevie Wonder: A Musical Guide to the Classic Albums, San Francisco, CA: Backbeat, 2005.
• Werner, Craig Hansen, Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul, New York: Crown, 2004.

Periodicals

• Billboard, May 13, 1995, p. 26; December 11, 2004, p. 15.
• Ebony, July 2004, p. 24.
• Entertainment Weekly, March 31, 1995, p. 61.
• Jet, May 8, 1995, pp. 56-58; May 22, 1995.
• Life, October 1986, pp. 67-74.
• Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1995, p. F1.
• Newsweek, June 20, 2005, p. 44.
• New Yorker, March 13, 1995, pp. 78-87.
• New York Times, January 25, 1995, p. C15.
• Rolling Stone, July 13, 1995, pp. 82-85, 126; January 25, 1996, p. 72.
• Time, September 4, 1995, p. 76; April 10, 1995, p. 88.
• Vibe, March 1995, pp. 97-98.

On-line

• Stevie-Wonder.com, www.stevie-wonder.com (August 11, 2005).
• Stevie Wonder Official Site, www.steviewonder.net (August 11, 2005).

— Simon Glickman and Tom Pendergast

Quotes:

"You can't base your life on other people's expectations."

"Eyes lie if you ever look into them for the character of the person."

"Sometimes, I feel I am really blessed to be blind because I probably would not last a minute if I were able to see things."

"We all have ability. The difference is how we use it."

For The Record...

Born Stevland Judkins Morris on May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, MI; son of Lulu Mae Morris; married Syreeta Wright (a singer), 1971 (divorced, 1972); married Karen Millard Morris; children: Aisha, Keita, Mumtaz, Kwame, Kailand, and Mandla. Signed to Motown Records, 1963; founded Black Bull Music publishing company, 1971; sponsored Stevie Wonder Home for Blind and Retarded Children, 1976; founded Wondirection Records, 1982; contributed songs to The Woman in Red film soundtrack, 1984; appeared on AIDS benefit single "That's What Friends Are For," 1986; contributed songs to Jungle Fever film soundtrack, 1991; activist for and contributor to various political and social causes; recorded "How Come, How Long" with Babyface, 1996; released A Time to Love, 2005; performed for Super Bowl XL pre-game, 2006; announced 13-date tour, 2007. Awards: Fifteen Grammy Awards; President's Committee on Employment of Handicapped People, Distinguished Service Award, 1969; Academy Award for best song, for "I Just Called to Say I Love You," 1985; inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1989; Children's Diabetes Foundation, Carousel of Hope Award, 1990; Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Honorary Global Founder's Award, 1990; Essence Magazine award, 1995; National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame, Johnny Mercer Award, 2004; Billboard Music Awards, Century Award, 2004; named Kennedy Center honoree, 2006; National Civil Rights Museum, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2006; (With Take 6) Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals, 2002; Grammy, Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals, for "So Amazing" (with Beyonce), 2005; Grammy, Best Male Vocal Performance, for "From the Bottom of My Heart," 2005; Grammy, Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals, for "For Once in My Life" (with Tony Bennett), 2007. Addresses: Record company—Motown Records, 1350 Ave. of the Americas, 20th Fl., New York, NY 10019; 5750 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036.

Singer, songwriter, producer, instrumentalist

In the course of following Stevie Wonder on his relentless travels, journalists have come to realize just how beloved an entertainer he is. "It dawned on me," wrote Giles Smith in the New Yorker, "that a substantial part of Stevie Wonder's public life consists of the voices of complete strangers telling him they love him." Rolling Stone's David Ritz had a similar opinion. "Following Stevie Wonder around New York is exhilarating work," he wrote. "I get the feeling that he loves being Stevie Wonder. He loves the attention, the adulation, the chance to perform." What's more, Ritz remarked, Wonder's "optimism is infectious." Such optimism may spring from a deep spiritual wellspring, but it has also been sustained by decades spent creating indelible and meaningful pop music.

It is thought that Wonder—born Stevland Judkins Morris on May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan—was blinded by a surfeit of oxygen in his incubator shortly after his premature birth. "I vaguely remember light and what my mother looks like," he ventured in a 1986 Life interview, "but I could be dreaming." His father left the family early on, and Wonder and his five siblings were raised by their mother. She moved the family to Detroit, where they struggled to survive. Though he has groused good-naturedly in adulthood about the limitations his sightlessness has placed on him, Wonder told Ritz that as a child he soothed his mother's tears by telling her that he "wasn't sad." He recalled, "I believed God had something for me to do." Along with his siblings, he paid musical tribute to the Almighty in the Whitestone Baptist Church choir, and besides singing, he demonstrated a gift for piano, harmonica, and drums by age 11.

Signed to Tamla
Thanks to the intercession of a friend, Stevland was brought to the attention of Berry Gordy, president of Detroit-based Motown Records, and Gordy's producer Brian Holland. Gordy placed the exceptional youngster's career in the hands of his associate Clarence Paul, whom he designated as Stevie's mentor. Handed the show business moniker "Little Stevie Wonder," the young artist was signed to the Motown offshoot label Tamla.

Wonder's fourth single, "Fingertips, Pt. 2," appeared in 1963 when he was 13, and became the first live performance of a song to reach the top of the U.S. pop charts. Also that year, Wonder became the first recording artist to reach the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100, R&B singles, and album charts simultaneously. Unable to attend a regular Detroit school, Wonder was sent to the Michigan School for the Blind at Motown's expense.

"Motown meant discipline to me," Wonder recalled to Ritz. "The attitude was ‘Do it until it can't be done any better.’" Under such demanding circumstances the young performer grew up fast. In 1964 he put aside the "Little" label and let fans focus on the Wonder; over the next few years he churned out pop-soul smashes like "Uptight," "Nothing's Too Good for My Baby," "I Was Made to Love Her," and "For Once in My Life." By 1968 his label had amassed enough chart-toppers to fill his first Greatest Hits album.

In 1969 Wonder met President Richard Nixon at the White House, where he received a Distinguished Service Award from the President's Committee on Employment of Handicapped People. Meanwhile he continued to pile up hits. "My Cherie Amour" sold over a million copies, and "Signed Sealed Delivered (I'm Yours)" vaulted up the charts. The year 1970 saw Wonder marry Syreeta Wright, a Motown employee and aspiring singer; the two wrote together and Wonder produced several successful records for her. The marriage was short-lived, however; they divorced in 1972. Wonder fathered children by three other women over the next couple of decades.

Free to Be His Best
When Wonder turned 21 in 1971 he was due the money he had earned as a minor (this arrangement had been stipulated in a previous agreement). But Motown only paid him one million of the $30 million he'd earned during that time. After considerable legal wrangling, he managed to attain a unique degree of artistic and financial autonomy. "At 21, Stevie was interested in being treated well and in controlling his life and in presenting his music," Johanan Vigoda, Wonder's longtime attorney, explained to Smith. "It wasn't the freedom to be dissolute or undisciplined. He wanted to be free so that he could bring the best of himself to the table."

What Wonder brought to the table—with the establishment of his own music publishing company and near-total creative freedom—was an increasingly sophisticated body of work that managed to fuse the high spirits of classic soul, the down-and-dirty syncopations of funk, exquisite melodies, and his own introspective and lyrical sensibility. From a sonic standpoint, too, he was a trailblazer, demonstrating the versatility of the synthesizer when it was still something of a novelty instrument in the R&B world.

Wonder's momentum was almost stopped permanently by a 1973 automobile accident that nearly claimed his life and left him with deep facial scars. If anything, however, this event provoked him to redouble his efforts. Virtually all of Wonder's work during the early to mid-1970s is essential pop, including his albums Talking Book, Innervisions, and the epic Songs in the Key of Life. His songs from this period left most of Wonder's competition in the dust, both artistically and commercially. "What artist in his right mind," singer-songwriter and soul icon Marvin Gaye asked Ritz, "wouldn't be intimidated by Stevie Wonder?"

The year 1979 saw the release of Wonder's musically beguiling Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. "It was a consideration of the physical and spiritual relationships between human beings and plants," Wonder explained to Ritz, quipping that "some called it shrubbish." Though he increasingly failed to match his creative and sales peaks of the preceding decades, Wonder remained a giant presence in the world of pop. The love song "I Just Called to Say I Love You" won an Academy Award for Best Song and stands as Motown's top-selling single internationally, and his duet with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney on the anti-racism anthem "Ebony and Ivory" burned up the charts.

Over the years Wonder also became progressively more involved in politics, lobbying for gun control, against drunk driving and the apartheid system enforced by South Africa's white minority, and on behalf of a national holiday in recognition of civil rights activist the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He played a number of benefits and made public service announcements, often winning honors for his advocacy. The slogan underneath his picture on a poster for Mothers Against Drunk Driving read: "Before I ride with a drunk, I'll drive myself." He also contributed his labor to the Charge Against Hunger campaign organized by American Express.

Inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
In the late 1980s Wonder was less prolific than he had been in the past, but he was still phenomenally successful. He snagged a Grammy for 1986's In Square Circle, and in 1989 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He won plaudits for his work on the soundtrack to Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever, allegedly composing the material in the space of three weeks. "Movies are always a good challenge," he told Neil Strauss of the New York Times, "because it's taking what's happening visually and, even though I'm not able to see it, getting a sense of the movie and finding a new way to work with it." His work for the film preempted a collection of songs he'd been crafting while living in the African nation of Ghana, and the resulting disc would not hit stores for several years.

In 1992—by which time multimillion-dollar deals had become commonplace—Wonder had signed a unique lifetime pact with Motown. "This is a guy you don't ever want to see recording for anyone else," company president Jheryl Busby told Smith. "I worked hard to make Stevie see that we had his interests at heart. … I wasn't looking at Stevie as an aging superstar but as an icon who could pull us into the future." Wonder himself seemed to share this sentiment, telling Ritz, "I'm still feeling new and amazed by the world I live in."

When Conversation Peace—the album on which Wonder had been working for nearly eight years—was released in 1995, it garnered a range of reactions. Vibe deemed it "a decidedly mixed bag, leapfrogging back and forth between divine inspiration and inoffensive professionalism"; reviewer Tom Sinclair took particular exception to the "cloying sentimentality" of some of the songs, as did other critics. Entertainment Weekly praised the album's sound but noted that "the song selection here, while frisky, is thin, making this comeback small Wonder." Time's Christopher John Farley, however, while allowing that the recording "isn't a slam dunk," called it "another winner for Wonder." Regardless of their respective verdicts, most reviewers concurred that Wonder's versatility and talent remained intact.

Wonder proved the validity of these observations during his 1995 concert tour. "It was an outstanding show—full of pure, old-fashioned R&B," declared Los Angeles Times writer Dennis Hunt, of Wonder's performance at the Universal Amphitheatre. Pondering the performer's long career and ability to outlast most of his contemporaries, Hunt observed, "Some may point to exquisite taste as the key to Wonder's success, but the real secret is his ability to stay current, to be fluent in the R&B style of the moment." Critics were virtually unanimous about Wonder's 1995 live double CD Natural Wonder, which Rolling Stone called "an important and revelatory statement."

Inspiration to a New Generation
Regardless of the genre he pursues, Wonder's music will undoubtedly always reflect his undeniably compassionate spirituality. He has inspired a new generation of artists, including rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who made their bid for mainstream popularity with a version of "Higher Ground," Lenny Kravitz, Michael Franti of Spearhead, and virtually every aspiring young soul artist. And he has expressed his determination to keep growing. "You're influenced all the time," he asserted to Strauss, "and the day that you cannot be influenced by anything good is the day that you really have let your art die."

Although Wonder's Conversation Peace (1995) sold poorly, he won two Grammys with his single "For Your Love." His long string of accomplishments received renewed attention when Coolio used "Pastime Paradise" (from Songs in the Key of Life) in "Gangsta's Paradise" in 1996. Wonder then recorded "How Come, How Long" with Babyface, and the song placed on Billboard's Rhythmic Top 40 and the Top 40 Mainstream charts. Also in 1996, Songs in the Key of Life was chosen as a subject for the Classic Albums documentary series.

In the fall of 2005, Wonder released A Time to Love, his first album in ten years. Asked at a British press conference why he had taken ten years, Wonder replied: "Obviously, I wasn't working on A Time to Love for ten years," he told Contact Music. "I was doing life." Critics responded warmly to the album, comparing it to his classic work in the 1970s. "Through exploration and balance," wrote Rob Theakst in All Music Guide, "A Time to Love finds the two halves of Wonder's adult career finally coming to home to roost in peaceful harmony with one another, and it's one of the finest records he has done in decades." Two singles from the album, "Shelter in the Rain" and "From the Bottom of My Heart" charted, and the latter won a Grammy in 2006. One track, "So What the Fuss," included a guitar solo by Prince.

In 2006 Wonder performed at the Super Bowl XL pre-game, including a duet of the "Star Spangled Banner" with Aretha Franklin. He also made an appearance on a special episode of American Idol that featured performances of his songs. Wonder met with the contestants, offered advice, and sang "My Love Is on Fire" live on the program. He also appeared as a guest on Busta Rhymes's The Big Bang in 2006. Wonder won a Grammy Award for his collaboration with Tony Bennett on "For Once in my Life." In the summer of 2007 Wonder planned a 13-date tour, "A Wonder Summer's Night," his first concert series in ten years.

Selected discography
Little Stevie Wonder: The Twelve-Year-Old Genius, Motown, 1963.
Recorded Live, Motown, 1963.
Uptight, Motown, 1966.
Down to Earth, Motown, 1967.
I Was Made to Love Her, Motown, Motown, 1967.
Stevie Wonder's Greatest Hits, Motown, 1968.
For Once in My Life, Motown, 1969.
My Cherie Amour, Motown, 1969.
Stevie Wonder Live, Motown, 1970.
Signed Sealed and Delivered, Motown, 1970.
Where I'm Coming From, Motown, 1971.
Greatest Hits, Vol. 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.
Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown, 1979.
Hotter Than July, Motown, 1980.
Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium, Motown, 1982.
In Square Circle, Motown, 1985.
Characters, Motown, 1987.
Jungle Fever (soundtrack), Motown, 1992.
Conversation Peace, Motown, 1995.
Natural Wonder, Motown, 1995.
A Time to Love, Motown, 2005.

With Others
(With Paul McCartney) "Ebony and Ivory," Tug of War, Columbia, 1982.
Chaka Khan, "I Feel for You," I Feel for You, Warner Bros., 1984.
The Woman in Red, Motown, 1984.
Dionne Warwick, "That's What Friends Are For," Motown, 1986.
(With Lenny Kravitz) "Deuce," Kiss My Ass, Motown, 1995.
"Stubborn Kind of Fellow," Inner City Blues: The Music of Marvin Gaye, Motown, 1995.
Quincy Jones, Q's Jook Joint, Qwest/Warner Bros., 1995.
Also contributed songs to albums by Rufus, Minnie Riperton, and other artists.

Sources
Books
Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton, Rock Movers & Shakers, Billboard, 1991.

Periodicals
Entertainment Weekly, March 31, 1995, p. 61.
Jet, May 8, 1995, pp. 56-58; May 22, 1995.
Life, October 1986, pp. 67-74.
Los Angeles Times, January 16, 1995, p. F1.
New Yorker, March 13, 1995, pp. 78-87.
New York Times, January 25, 1995, p. C15.
Rolling Stone, July 13, 1995, pp. 82-85, 126; January 25, 1996, p. 72.
Time, September 4, 1995, p. 76; April 10, 1995, p. 88.
Vibe, March 1995, pp. 97-98.

Online
"Stevie Wonder," All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (August 31, 2007).
"Stevie Wonder," Contact Music, http://www.contactmusic.com (August 31, 2007).
Additional information for this profile was obtained from Motown Records publicity materials, 1995.

• Genres: Rhythm & Blues

Biography

Stevie Wonder is a much-beloved American icon and an indisputable genius not only of R&B but popular music in general. Blind virtually since birth, Wonder's heightened awareness of sound helped him create vibrant, colorful music teeming with life and ambition. Nearly everything he recorded bore the stamp of his sunny, joyous positivity; even when he addressed serious racial, social, and spiritual issues (which he did quite often in his prime), or sang about heartbreak and romantic uncertainty, an underlying sense of optimism and hope always seemed to emerge. Much like his inspiration, Ray Charles, Wonder had a voracious appetite for many different kinds of music, and refused to confine himself to any one sound or style. His best records were a richly eclectic brew of soul, funk, rock & roll, sophisticated Broadway/Tin Pan Alley-style pop, jazz, reggae, and African elements -- and they weren't just stylistic exercises; Wonder took it all and forged it into his own personal form of expression. His range helped account for his broad-based appeal, but so did his unique, elastic voice, his peerless melodic facility, his gift for complex arrangements, and his taste for lovely, often sentimental ballads. Additionally, Wonder's pioneering use of synthesizers during the '70s changed the face of R&B; he employed a kaleidoscope of contrasting textures and voices that made him a virtual one-man band, all the while evoking a surprisingly organic warmth. Along with Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes, Wonder brought R&B into the album age, crafting his LPs as cohesive, consistent statements with compositions that often took time to make their point. All of this made Wonder perhaps R&B's greatest individual auteur, rivaled only by Gaye or, in later days, Prince. Originally, Wonder was a child prodigy who started out in the general Motown mold, but he took control of his vision in the '70s, spinning off a series of incredible albums that were as popular as they were acclaimed; most of his reputation rests on these works, which most prominently include Talking Book, Innervisions, and Songs in the Key of Life. His output since then has been inconsistent, marred by excesses of sentimentality and less of the progressive imagination of his best work, but it's hardly lessened the reverence in which he's long been held.

Wonder was born Steveland Hardaway Judkins in Saginaw, MI, on May 13, 1950 (he later altered his name to Steveland Morris when his mother married). A premature infant, he was put on oxygen treatment in an incubator; likely it was an excess of oxygen that exacerbated a visual condition known as retinopathy of prematurity, causing his blindness. In 1954, his family moved to Detroit, where the already musically inclined Stevie began singing in his church's choir; from there he blossomed into a genuine prodigy, learning piano, drums, and harmonica all by the age of nine. While performing for some of his friends in 1961, Stevie was discovered by Ronnie White of the Miracles, who helped arrange an audition with Berry Gordy at Motown. Gordy signed the youngster immediately and teamed him with producer/songwriter Clarence Paul, under the new name Little Stevie Wonder. Stevie released his first two albums in 1962: A Tribute to Uncle Ray, which featured covers of Stevie's hero Ray Charles, and The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie, an orchestral jazz album spotlighting his instrumental skills on piano, harmonica, and assorted percussion. Neither sold very well, but that all changed in 1963 with the live album The 12 Year Old Genius, which featured a new extended version of the harmonica instrumental "Fingertips." Edited for release as a single, "Fingertips, Pt. 2" rocketed to the top of both the pop and R&B charts, thanks to Wonder's irresistible, youthful exuberance; meanwhile, The 12 Year Old Genius became Motown's first chart-topping LP.

Wonder charted a few more singles over the next year, but none on the level of "Fingertips, Pt. 2." As his voice changed, his recording career was temporarily put on hold, and he studied classical piano at the Michigan School for the Blind in the meantime. He dropped the "Little" portion of his stage name in 1964, and re-emerged the following year with the infectious, typically Motown-sounding dance tune "Uptight (Everything's Alright)," a number one R&B/Top Five pop smash. Not only did he co-write the song for his first original hit, but it also reinvented him as a more mature vocalist in the public's mind, making the similar follow-up "Nothing's Too Good for My Baby" another success. The first signs of Wonder's social activism appeared in 1966 via his hit cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and its follow-up, "A Place in the Sun," but as Motown still had the final say on Wonder's choice of material, this new direction would not yet become a major facet of his work.

By this time, Wonder was, however, beginning to take more of a hand in his own career. He co-wrote his next several hits, all of which made the R&B Top Ten -- "Hey Love," "I Was Made to Love Her" (an R&B number one that went to number two pop in 1967), and "For Once in My Life" (another smash that reached number two pop and R&B). Wonder's 1968 album For Once in My Life signaled his budding ambition; he co-wrote about half of the material and, for the first time, co-produced several tracks. The record also contained three more singles in the R&B chart-topper "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day," "You Met Your Match," and "I Don't Know Why." Wonder scored again in 1969 with the pop and R&B Top Five hit "My Cherie Amour" (which he'd actually recorded three years prior) and the Top Ten "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday." In 1970, Wonder received his first-ever co-production credit for the album Signed, Sealed & Delivered; he co-wrote the R&B chart-topper "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" with singer Syreeta Wright, whom he married later that year, and also scored hits with "Heaven Help Us All" and a rearrangement of the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out." In addition, two other Motown artists had major success with Wonder co-writes: the Spinners' "It's a Shame" and the Miracles' only pop number one, "Tears of a Clown."

1971 brought a turning point in Wonder's career. On his 21st birthday, his contract with Motown expired, and the royalties set aside in his trust fund became available to him. A month before his birthday, Wonder released Where I'm Coming From, his first entirely self-produced album, which also marked the first time he wrote or co-wrote every song on an LP (usually in tandem with Wright) and the first time his keyboard and synthesizer work dominated his arrangements. Gordy was reportedly not fond of the work, and it wasn't a major commercial success, producing only the Top Ten hit "If You Really Love Me" (plus a classic B-side in "Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer"). Nonetheless, it was clearly an ambitious attempt at making a unified album-length artistic statement, and served notice that Wonder was no longer content to release albums composed of hit singles and assorted filler. Accordingly, Wonder did not immediately renew his contract with Motown, as the label had expected; instead, he used proceeds from his trust fund to build his own recording studio and to enroll in music theory classes at USC. He negotiated a new deal with Motown that dramatically increased his royalty rate and established his own publishing company, Black Bull Music, which allowed him to retain the rights to his music; most importantly, he wrested full artistic control over his recordings, as Gaye had just done with the landmark What's Going On.

Freed from the dictates of Motown's hit-factory mindset, Wonder had already begun following a more personal and idiosyncratic muse. One of his negotiating chips had been a full album completed at his new studio; Wonder had produced, played nearly all the instruments, and written all the material (with Wright contributing to several tracks). Released under Wonder's new deal in early 1972, Music of My Mind heralded his arrival as a major, self-contained talent with an original vision that pushed the boundaries of R&B. The album produced a hit single in the spacy, synth-driven ballad "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)," but like contemporary work by Hayes and Gaye, Music of My Mind worked as a smoothly flowing song suite unto itself. Around the same time it was released, Wonder's marriage to Wright broke up; the two remained friends, however, and Wonder produced and wrote several songs for her debut album. The same year, Wonder toured with the Rolling Stones, bringing his music to a large white audience as well.

For the follow-up to Music of My Mind, Wonder refined his approach, tightening up his songcraft while addressing his romance with Wright. The result, Talking Book, was released in late 1972 and made him a superstar. Song for song one of the strongest R&B albums ever released, Talking Book also perfected Wonder's spacy, futuristic experiments with electronics, and was hailed as a magnificently realized masterpiece. Wonder topped the charts with the gutsy, driving funk classic "Superstition" and the mellow, jazzy ballad "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," which went on to become a pop standard; those two songs went on to win three Grammys between them. Amazingly, Wonder only upped the ante with his next album, 1973's Innervisions, a concept album about the state of contemporary society that ranks with Gaye's What's Going On as a pinnacle of socially conscious R&B. The ghetto chronicle "Living for the City" and the intense spiritual self-examination "Higher Ground" both went to number one on the R&B charts and the pop Top Ten, and Innervisions took home a Grammy for Album of the Year. Wonder was lucky to be alive to enjoy the success; while being driven to a concert in North Carolina, a large timber fell on Wonder's car. He sustained serious head injuries and lapsed into a coma, but fortunately made a full recovery.

Wonder's next record, 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale, was slightly more insular and less accessible than its immediate predecessors, and unsurprisingly imbued with a sense of mortality. The hits, however, were the upbeat "Boogie On, Reggae Woman" (a number one R&B and Top Five pop hit) and the venomous Richard Nixon critique "You Haven't Done Nothin'" (number one on both sides). It won him a second straight Album of the Year Grammy, by which time he'd been heavily involved as a producer and writer on Syreeta's second album, Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta. Wonder subsequently retired to his studio and spent two years crafting a large-scale project that would stand as his magnum opus. Finally released in 1976, Songs in the Key of Life was a sprawling two-LP-plus-one-EP set that found Wonder at his most ambitious and expansive. Some critics called it brilliant but prone to excess and indulgence, while others hailed it as his greatest masterpiece and the culmination of his career; in the end, they were probably both right. "Sir Duke," an ebullient tribute to music in general and Duke Ellington in particular, and the funky "I Wish" both went to number one pop and R&B; the hit "Isn't She Lovely," a paean to Wonder's daughter, became something of a standard, and "Pastime Paradise" was later sampled for the backbone of Coolio's rap smash "Gangsta's Paradise." Not surprisingly, Songs in the Key of Life won a Grammy for Album of the Year; in hindsight, though, it marked the end of a remarkable explosion of creativity and of Wonder's artistic prime.

Having poured a tremendous amount of energy into Songs in the Key of Life, Wonder released nothing for the next three years. When he finally returned in 1979, it was with the mostly instrumental Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, ostensibly the soundtrack to a never-released documentary. Although it contained a few pop songs, including the hit "Send One Your Love," its symphonic flirtations befuddled most listeners and critics. It still made the Top Ten on the LP chart on Wonder's momentum alone -- one of the stranger releases to do so. To counteract possible speculation that he'd gone off the deep end, Wonder rushed out the straightforward pop album Hotter Than July in 1980. The reggae-flavored "Master Blaster (Jammin')" returned him to the top of the R&B charts and the pop Top Five, and "Happy Birthday" was part of the ultimately successful campaign to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday (Wonder being one of the cause's most active champions). Artistically speaking, Hotter Than July was a cut below his classic '70s output, but it was still a solid outing; fans were so grateful to have the old Wonder back that they made it his first platinum-selling LP.

In 1981, Wonder began work on a follow-up album that was plagued by delays, suggesting that he might not be able to return to the visionary heights of old. He kept busy in the meantime, though; in 1982, his racial-harmony duet with Paul McCartney, "Ebony and Ivory," hit number one, and he released a greatest-hits set covering 1972-1982 called Original Musiquarium I. It featured four new songs, of which "That Girl" (number one R&B, Top Five pop) and the lengthy, jazzy "Do I Do" (featuring Dizzy Gillespie; number two R&B) were significant hits. In 1984, still not having completed the official follow-up to Hotter Than July, he recorded the soundtrack to the Gene Wilder comedy The Woman in Red, which wasn't quite a full-fledged Stevie Wonder album but did feature a number of new songs, including "I Just Called to Say I Love You." Adored by the public (it was his biggest-selling single ever) and loathed by critics (who derided it as sappy and simple-minded), "I Just Called to Say I Love You" was an across-the-board number one smash, and won an Oscar for Best Song.

Wonder finally completed the official album he'd been working on for nearly five years, and released In Square Circle in 1985. Paced by the number one hit "Part Time Lover" -- his last solo pop chart-topper -- and several other strong songs, In Square Circle went platinum, even if Wonder's synthesizer arrangements now sounded standard rather than groundbreaking. He performed on the number one charity singles "We Are the World" by USA for Africa and "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warwick & Friends, and returned quickly with a new album, Characters, in 1987. While Characters found Wonder's commercial clout on the pop charts slipping away, it was a hit on the R&B side, topping the album charts and producing a number one hit in "Skeletons." It would be his final release of the '80s; he didn't return until 1991, with the soundtrack to the Spike Lee film Jungle Fever. His next full album of new material, 1995's Conversation Peace, was a commercial disappointment, despite winning two Grammys for the single "For Your Love." That same year, Coolio revived "Pastime Paradise" in his own brooding rap smash "Gangsta's Paradise," which became the year's biggest hit. Wonder capitalized on the renewed notoriety by cutting a hit duet with Babyface, "How Come, How Long," in 1996. Since then, Motown has released a number of remasters and compilations attempting to define and repackage Wonder's vast legacy. His far-reaching influence was felt in the neo-soul movement that came to prominence in the late '90s, and he also remained a composer of choice for jazz artists looking to incorporate harmonically sophisticated pop/R&B tunes into their repertoires. That only scratches the surface of Wonder's impact on contemporary popular music, which is why he was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, and remains a living legend regardless of whatever else he does. After a decade hiatus, Wonder returnted to the spotlight in autumn of 2005 with A Time 2 Love, a comeback album on par with his classic releases featuring a tour de force of guest appearances including "So What the Fuss", which featured Prince on guitar.~ Steve Huey, Rovi

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