Stevie Wonder (born
Stevland Hardaway
Judkins on May 13, 1950; name later changed to
Stevland Hardaway Morris) is an American
singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer.
Blind from birth, Wonder signed with
Motown Records at the age of eleven, and
continues to perform and record for the label. He has recorded more
than thirty U.S. top ten hits and won twenty-two
Grammy Awards, the most ever won by a male
solo artist.
Early life
Stevie
Wonder was born in Saginaw
, Michigan in
1950 as the third of six children to Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae
Hardaway Morris. The product of a premature birth, the blood
vessels at the back of his eyes had not yet reached the front, and
their aborted growth caused the
retinas to
detach. The medical term for this condition is known as
retinopathy of prematurity, or
ROP, and while it may have been exacerbated by the oxygen pumped
into his
incubator,
this treatment was not the primary cause of his blindness.
When
Wonder was four, his mother left his father and moved herself and
her children to Detroit
.
Wonder's mother changed her name back to Lula Hardaway Morris and
Morris remains Wonder's legal name. Wonder took up piano at age
seven, and had mastered it by age nine . During his early childhood
he was active in his
church choir. He
also taught himself to play the
harmonica
and the
drums, and had mastered both by age
ten . Wonder also learned to play the
bass during his early years.
Discovery and early Motown recordings
In 1961, at the age of eleven, Wonder was discovered singing
outside a street corner by a relative of
The Miracles'
Ronnie
White, who was later introduced to Wonder. White brought Wonder
and his mother to
Motown Records.
Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO
Berry Gordy signed Wonder to Motown's Tamla
label with the name
Little Stevie Wonder. Before
signing, producer
Mickey Stevenson
gave Wonder his trademark name after remarking about him saying
"that boy's a wonder". He then recorded the minor hit "I Call It
Pretty Music, But the Old People Call It the Blues", which was
released 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: 1963–71
By age 13, Wonder had a major hit, "
Fingertips ", 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 U.S. pop and R&B charts and
launched 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
moniker,
Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s,
including"
Uptight ",
"With a Child's Heart", and "
Blowin'
in the Wind", a
Bob Dylan cover which
was one of the first songs to reflect Wonder's social
consciousness, 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";
"
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
former company secretary for Motown and songwriter. For his next
album known as
Where I'm
Coming From, his newly-wed wife Syreeta gave him a helping
hand with the writing and producing aspects, with the permission of
Gordy. The album flopped in the charts. Reaching his twenty-first
birthday on May 21, 1971, he allowed his Motown contract to
expire.
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
on-going negotiations with Gordy about creative autonomy.
Classic period: 1972–76
Wonder independently recorded two albums, which he used as a
bargaining tool while negotiating with Motown. Eventually the label
agreed to his demands for full creative control and the rights to
his own songs; the 120-page contract shattered precedent at Motown
and additionally gave Wonder a much higher royalty rate. Wonder
returned to Motown in March 1972 with
Music of My Mind. Unlike most previous
artist LPs on Motown, which usually consisted of a collection of
singles,
B-sides and covers,
Music of My
Mind was an actual LP, a full-length artistic statement with
songs flowing together thematically. 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. This started the
so-called "classic period" of Wonder's career during the 1970s.
Music of My Mind marked the beginning of a long
collaboration with synthesiser pioneers
Tonto's Expanding Head Band
(
Robert Margouleff and
Malcolm Cecil).
Released in the fall of 1972,
Talking
Book featured the number-one hit "
Superstition", which is one of the most
distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner
clavinet keyboard. The song, originally intended
for rock guitarist
Jeff Beck, features a
rocking groove that garnered Wonder an additional audience on rock
radio stations.
Talking Book also featured "
You Are the Sunshine of My
Life", which also peaked at number-one. Wonder's touring with
The Rolling Stones on their
1972 American
Tour was also a factor behind the success of both
"Superstition" and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life". Between them,
the two songs won three
Grammy Awards.
On an episode of the children's television show
Sesame Street that aired in April 1973,
Wonder and his band performed "Superstition", as well as an
original song called "Sesame Street Song", which demonstrated his
abilities with the "talk box".
Political considerations were brought into greater focus than ever
before on his next album,
Innervisions, released in 1973. The album
featured "
Higher
Ground" (#4 on the pop charts) as well as the trenchant
"
Living for the City" (#8). Both
songs reached number 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.
Innervisions generated three more Grammy Awards,
including
Album of
the Year. The album is ranked #23 on
Rolling Stone
Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Wonder had become
the most influential and acclaimed black musician of the early
1970s.
On August
6, 1973, Wonder was in a serious automobile accident while on tour
in North
Carolina
, when a car
he was riding in rear-ended a flatbed
truck, sliding under the back of the truck causing the bed to
crash through the windshield, striking Wonder in the head.
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.
Despite
the setback Wonder eventually recovered all of his musical
faculties, and re-appeared in concert at Madison Square
Garden
in March 1974 in a performance that highlighted
both up-tempo material and long, building improvisations on
mid-tempo songs such as "Living for
the City". The album
Fulfillingness' First
Finale appeared in July 1974 and set two hits high on the
pop charts: the #1 "
You Haven't
Done Nothin'" (a political protest song aimed at Richard Nixon)
and the Top Ten "
Boogie On Reggae
Woman". The Album of the Year was again one of three Grammys
won.
The same year Wonder took part in a Los Angeles
jam session which would become known by the
bootleg album
A Toot and a
Snore in '74, likely the only known post-Beatles recording
of
John Lennon and
Paul McCartney playing together. He also
co-wrote and produced the Syreeta Wright album
Stevie Wonder Presents:
Syreeta.
On October
4, 1975, Wonder performed at the historical "Wonder Dream Concert" in Kingston
, Jamaica, a
Jamaican Institute for the Blind benefit concert. Along with
Wonder, the three original
Wailers —
Bob
Marley,
Peter Tosh and
Bunny Wailer — performed together for the last
time.
By 1975, in his 25th year, Stevie Wonder had won two consecutive
Grammy Awards: in 1974 for
Innervisions and in 1975 for
Fulfillingness' First
Finale. The following year, singer songwriter
Paul Simon won the Grammy for Album of the Year
for
Still Crazy
After All These Years. In his acceptance speech, Simon
jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album that
year, a quip that proved prophetic.
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 recognisable and accomplished albums in pop music history. 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. 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 Life won Album of
the Year and two other Grammies. The album ranks 56th on
Rolling Stone
Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
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 Guide
said that these albums "pioneered stylistic approaches that helped
to determine the shape of pop music for the next decade";
Rolling Stone
Magazine's 2003 list of
the 500 Greatest Albums of
All Time included four of the five, with three in the top 90;
while 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?"
Commercial period: 1979–90
It was in Wonder's next phase that he began to commercially reap
the rewards of his legendary classic period. The '80s 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.
This period had a muted beginning, for when Wonder did return, it
was with the
soundtrack album
Journey
through the Secret Life of Plants (1979), featured in the
film
The Secret
Life of Plants. Mostly instrumental, the album was panned
at the time of its release but has come to be regarded by some
critics as an unusual classic. In this year Wonder also wrote and
produced the dance hit "Let's Get Serious", performed by
Jermaine Jackson and (ranked by
Billboard as the #1 R&B single of 1980).
Hotter than July (1980)
became Wonder's first platinum-selling single album, and its single
"
Happy Birthday" was a
successful vehicle for his campaign to establish Dr.
Martin Luther King's birthday as a
national holiday. The
album also included "
Master
Blaster ", his tribute to
Bob Marley,
"
All I Do", and the sentimental ballad,
"
Lately", which was
later
covered by Jodeci and
S Club 7.
In 1982, Wonder released a retrospective of his '70s work with
Stevie Wonder's
Original Musiquarium, which included four new songs: the
ten-minute
funk classic "
Do
I Do" (which included legendary jazz trumpeter
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 performed the song "
Stay
Gold", the theme to
Francis
Ford Coppola's film adaptation of
S.E. Hinton's novel
The Outsiders. Often
mistakenly attributed solely to Stevie Wonder, the music is by
Carmine Coppola, while Wonder wrote
the lyric.
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, which was a huge hit. In roughly the same
period he was also featured on harmonica on
Eurythmics' single, "
There Must Be an
Angel " and
Elton John's "
I Guess That's Why
They Call It The Blues", all huge hits.
By 1985, Stevie Wonder was an American icon, the subject of
good-humored jokes about blindness and affectionately impersonated
by
Eddie Murphy on
Saturday Night
Live. Wonder sometimes joined in the jokes himself; in
The
Motown Revue Smokey Robinson presented Wonder with an award
plaque, which he pretended to read for the audience– and to notice
a spelling mistake. He was in a featured duet with
Bruce Springsteen on the all-star charity
single for African famine relief, "
We
Are the World", and he was part of another charity single the
following year (1986), the AIDS-targeted "
That's What Friends Are For". He
also played the harmonica on the album
Dreamland Express by
John Denver in the song "
If
Ever", a song Wonder co-wrote with Stephanie Andrews. He also
wrote the track "
I Do Love You" for
The Beach Boys' 1985
self-titled album. Stevie Wonder also
played the harmonica on a track called "Can't Help Lovin' That Man"
from "Showboat" on the "
The Broadway
Album" by
Barbra
Streisand.
In 1986, Stevie Wonder appeared on
The Cosby Show as himself in the episode
"A Touch of Wonder," where Theo and Denise get in a car crash with
the singer's car and he invites them to his studio.
In 1987, Wonder appeared on
Michael
Jackson's
Bad album on the duet "Just Good Friends".
The song was performed live on one occasion in Sydney, Australia
when Wonder made a surprise appearance at Jackson's show at the
Parramatta Stadium. 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 dueted with
Julio
Iglesias on the hit single "My Love", which appeared on
Iglesias' album
Non Stop and was a hit single on both
sides of the Atlantic.
Wonder has recorded with Jon Gibson, a Christian Soul musician, in
a remake of his own song, "Have a Talk With God", covered by Gibson
on which Wonder plays harmonica. The two men met in the early 1980s
through a shared music agent.
Later career: 1991–2001
After 1987's
Characters LP, Wonder continued to release
new material, but at a slower pace. He recorded a soundtrack album
for
Spike Lee's film
Jungle Fever in 1991. From this album,
singles and videos were released for "Gotta Have You" and "These
Three Words". The B-side to the "Gotta Have You" single included a
recording of "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land", the song that was
played during the end credits of the movie "Jungle Fever", but was
not included on the soundtrack. A piano and vocal version of
"Feeding Off The Love Of The Land" was also released on the
Nobody's
Child: Romanian Angel Appeal compilation. It is rumored
that "Feeding Off The Love Of The Land" was originally intended for
release on
Fulfillingness' First Finale Volume Two, a
project that has never been confirmed as completed.
Conversation Peace and
the live album
Natural
Wonder were also released in the 1990s. The former
received its European launch at a high-profile March 1995 press
conference in Paris, where Stevie mentioned how the tearing down of
The Wall between East and West Berlin and the desire for a united
Europe had played a significant part in the inspiration behind the
album.
In 1994, Wonder made a guest appearance on the
KISS cover album
KISS My Ass: Classic KISS
Regrooved, playing harmonica and supplying background
vocals for the song "
Deuce", performed
by
Lenny Kravitz.
In 1996, Stevie Wonder's
Songs in the Key of Life was
selected as a documentary subject for the
Classic Albums documentary series. This
series dedicates 60 minutes to one groundbreaking record per
feature.
The same year, he performed John Lennon's song "Imagine" in the closing ceremony of the
Olympic Games, held at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in
Atlanta
. The same year, Wonder performed in a remix of
"Seasons of Love" from the Jonathan Larson musical Rent which is part of the original
Broadway
cast
recording.
In 1997, Wonder collaborated with
Babyface
for an emotionally-charged song about spousal abuse (domestic
violence) called "
How Come, How
Long" which was nominated for an award.
In December 1999, Wonder announced that he was interested in
pursuing an
intraocular retinal
prosthesis to partially restore his sight. That same year,
Wonder was featured on harmonica in the
Sting hit "
Brand New Day".
In 2000, Stevie Wonder contributed two new songs to the soundtrack
for Spike Lee's satire based on
minstrelsy,
Bamboozled: "Misrepresented People" and
"Some Years Ago".
Current career: 2002–Present
In March
2002, Wonder performed at the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City
.
On July 2, 2005, Wonder performed in
the USA part of the Live 8 series
of concerts in Philadelphia.
Wonder's first new album in ten years,
A Time to Love, was released on October
18, 2005, after having been pushed back from first a May, and then
a June release.
The album was released electronically on
September 27, 2005, exclusively on Apple's
iTunes Music
Store. The first single, "So What the Fuss", was
released in April and features Prince on
guitar and background vocals from
En Vogue. A second single, "From the Bottom of My
Heart" was a hit on adult-contemporary
R&B radio. The album also featured a duet with
India.Arie on the title track "A Time to
Love".
Wonder performed at the pre-game show for
Super Bowl XL in Detroit in early 2006,
singing various hit singles (with his four-year-old son on drums)
and accompanying
Aretha Franklin
during "
The Star Spangled
Banner".
In March 2006, Wonder received new national exposure on the
top-rated
American Idol
television program. Each of 12 contestants were required to sing
one of his songs, after having met and received guidance from him.
Wonder also performed "My Love Is on Fire" (from
A Time To
Love) live on the show itself. In June 2006, Stevie Wonder
made a guest appearance on
Busta
Rhymes' new album,
The Big
Bang on the track "Been through the Storm". He sings the
refrain and plays the piano on the
Dr. Dre
and
Sha Money XL produced track. He
appeared again on the last track of
Snoop
Dogg's new album
Tha
Blue Carpet Treatment, "Conversations". The song is a
remake of "Have a Talk with God" from
Songs in the Key of Life.In
2006 Wonder staged a duet with
Andrea
Bocelli on the latter's album
Amore, offering harmonica
and additional vocals on "Canzoni Stonate".Stevie Wonder also
performed at Washington, D.C.'s 2006 "A Capitol Fourth"
celebration, which was hosted by actor star
Jason Alexander.
On August 2, 2007, Stevie Wonder announced the A Wonder Summer's
Night 13 concert tour — his first U.S. tour in over ten years.
This tour
was inspired by the recent passing of his mother, as he stated at
the conclusion of the tour on December 9 at the Jobing.com
Arena
in Glendale
, Arizona. Boxer
Mike
Tyson appeared briefly on stage at the end of the musical
program. Wonder's musical director during this period was
University of Alabama at
Birmingham professor
Henry Panion,
a renowned arranger, composer and conductor, and a pioneer in the
development of college music technology programs.
On August
28, 2008, the day Barack Obama accepted
his party's nomination to run for President of the United States,
Wonder performed at the Democratic National
Convention at Invesco Field at Mile High
in Denver
, Colorado. Songs included were a previously
unreleased song, "Fear Can't Put Dreams to Sleep," and "
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
I'm Yours", a song that was used regularly during the
Obama
campaign.
On September 8, 2008, Wonder started the European leg of his Wonder
Summer's Night Tour, the first time he had toured Europe in over a
decade.
His opening show was at the National
Indoor Arena
in Birmingham
, England. During the tour, Wonder played eight UK
gigs; four at The O2 Arena
in London, two in Birmingham and two at the
M.E.N.
Arena in Manchester
. Stevie Wonder's other stops in the tour's
European leg also found him performing in Holland (Rotterdam),
Sweden (Stockholm), Germany (Cologne, Mannheim and Munich), Norway
(Hamar), France (Paris), Italy (Milan) and Denmark (Aalborg).
Wonder also toured Australia (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney
and Brisbane) and New Zealand (Christchurch, Auckland and New
Plymouth) in October and November.
By June 2008 Wonder was working on two projects simultaneously: a
new album titled
The Gospel Inspired By Lula which will
deal with the various spiritual and cultural crises facing the
world, and
Through The Eyes Of Wonder, an album which
Wonder has described as a performance piece that will reflect his
experience as a blind man. Wonder was also keeping the door open
for a collaboration with
Tony Bennett
and
Quincy Jones concerning a rumoured
jazz album. If Wonder was to join forces with Bennett, it would not
be for the first time. The couple's rendition of "For Once in My
Life" earned them a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals
in 2006.. They also performed "Everyday (I Have The Blues)"
together on one of Bennett's previous albums. Wonder's harmonica
playing can be heard on the 2009 Grammy-nominated "Never Give You
Up" featuring
CJ Hilton and
Raphael Saadiq.
Wonder performed on January 18, 2009 at the
We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln
Memorial. On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, Wonder
performed the song "
Brand
New Day" with musician
Sting.
The song was part of the program for The Neighborhood Inaugural
Ball, one of ten
inaugural
balls honoring President Barack Obama. He performed his new
song "All About the Love Again" and, with other musical artists,
"
Signed, Sealed, and
Delivered" in honor of the president.
On February 23, 2009,
Wonder became the second recipient of the Library of Congress's
Gershwin Prize for pop music, honored
by President Barack Obama at the White House
.
On July
7, 2009, Wonder performed "Never Dreamed You'd Leave In
Summer" and "They Won't Go
When I Go" at the Staples Center
for Michael
Jackson's memorial service.
Accomplishments
A prominent figure in popular music during the latter half of the
20th century, Wonder has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten
hits and won twenty-two
Grammy Awards
(the most ever won by a solo artist) as well as a
Lifetime Achievement
Award.
He has also won an Academy Award for Best Song, and
been inducted into both the Rock and Roll
and Songwriters halls of fame.
He has also been awarded the
Polar
Music Prize. American music magazine
Rolling Stone named him the ninth greatest
singer of all time. In June 2009 he became the fourth artist to
receive the
Montreal Jazz
Festival Spirit Award.
He has ten
U.S. number-one hits on the
pop charts as well as 20 R&B number one hits, and album
sales totaling more than 100 million units. Wonder has recorded
several critically acclaimed albums and hit singles, and writes and
produces songs for many of his label mates and outside artists as
well. Wonder plays the piano, synthesizer, harmonica,
congas, drums, bass guitar,
bongos, organ, melodica, and
clavinet. In his childhood, he was best known for
his harmonica work, but today he is better known for his keyboard
skills and vocal ability. Wonder is the first
Motown artist and second African American
musician to win an
Academy Award for
Best Original Song for
his 1984 hit single "
I
Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie
The Woman in Red. According to
britishhitsongwriters.com he is the eleventh most successful
songwriter in U.K. chart history based on weeks that his
compositions have spent on the chart.
Impact
Wonder's success as a socially conscious musical performer
influenced popular music. Some major musicians and other public
figures who cite Wonder as an idol or a major influence on them are
Stevie Ray Vaughan,
India.Arie,
Barack
Obama,
Blackstreet,
Gloria Estefan,
Musiq Soulchild,
George Michael,
The
Neptunes,
Luciano Pavarotti,
Tupac Shakur,
Will Smith,
Coolio,
Snoop Dogg,
Kirk
Franklin,
Mary J. Blige,
Mariah
Carey,
Babyface,
Kelis,
Donnell Jones,
Jermaine Jackson,
Janet Jackson,
Luther Vandross,
N'Sync,
Glenn Lewis,
Dru Hill,
Boyz 2
Men,
Alicia Keys,
Eric Hutchinson,
Carrie Underwood,
Elton John,
John
Legend,
Prince,
Anthony Kiedis (lead vocalist of
Red Hot Chilli Peppers),
Sting,
Beyoncé Knowles,
Aaliyah,
Brandy,
Justin Timberlake,
Ashanti,
Shogo Hamada,
Jason Kay (lead vocalist of
Jamiroquai),
Utada
Hikaru,
Ken Hirai,
Whitney Houston,
Wang
Leehom,
Lenny Kravitz,
Glenn Hughes, and
Erykah
Badu.
Wonder has appeared as guest musician/vocalist on numerous
recordings by other artists, including
Carly
Simon,
Busta Rhymes,
Quincy Jones,
Sting,
Pointer
Sisters,
Barbra Streisand,
Andrea Bocelli,
Jeff Beck,
Snoop Dogg,
Elton John,
Lenny Kravitz,
Billy
Preston,
James Taylor,
Roberta Flack,
Smokey Robinson,
Paul McCartney,
Tony
Bennett,
Frank Sinatra,
Queen Latifah,
The
Supremes,
Babyface,
The Beach Boys,
Chaka
Khan,
Herbie Hancock,
Luther Vandross,
The Temptations,
Gloria Estefan,
Andrae Crouch,
Michael Jackson,
Jermaine Jackson,
John Denver,
BeBe
Winans,
Julio Iglesias,
Don Henley,
Take 6,
The Flying Burrito
Brothers,
Rod Stewart,
The Gap Band,
'NSYNC,
The Manhattan Transfer,
Donna Summer,
Eurythmics,
B.B.
King,
Jon Gibson ("Have a Talk
With God"),
Paula Abdul, and
Whitney Houston.
Vocalists
Minnie Riperton,
Deniece Williams,
Carl Anderson, and
Angela Winbush all began their careers in the
1970s as backup vocalists for Wonder as part of "Wonderlove".
Wonder's songs are renowned for being quite difficult to sing. He
has a very developed sense of harmony and uses many extended chords
utilizing extensions such as 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, b5s, etc. in his
compositions. Many of his melodies make abrupt, unpredictable
changes. Many of his vocal melodies are also
melismatic, meaning that a syllable is sung over
several notes. In the
American Idol
Hollywood Performances, judge
Randy
Jackson repeatedly stated the difficulty of Wonder's songs.
Some of his best known and most frequently covered songs are played
in keys which are more often found in jazz than in pop and rock.
For example, "
Superstition",
"
Higher Ground"
and "
I Wish" are in the
key of E flat minor, and feature distinctive riffs in the E flat
minor
pentatonic scale (i.e.
largely on the black notes of the keyboard).
Wonder played a large role in bringing synthesizers to the
forefront of popular music. With the help of
Robert Margouleff and
Malcolm Cecil, he developed many new textures
and sounds never heard before. In 1981, Wonder became the first
owner of an
E-mu Emulator.It was
Wonder's urging that led
Raymond
Kurzweil to create the first electronic synthesizers that
realistically reproduced the sounds of orchestral instruments;
Wonder had become acquainted with the inventor as an early user and
evangelist of his
reading machine,
the technology for which would prove instrumental in the success of
the
Kurzweil K250.
During the 2008 United States Presidential Election, Wonder was a
strong supporter of
Barack Obama's
candidacy for President.
Songs sampled by other musicians
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble covered "Superstition" and
Wonder makes a cameo appearance in the official music video for the
song. The elements of "Love's In Need of Love Today" were used by
50 Cent in the song "Ryder Music", and
Warren
G sampled "Village Ghetto Land" for his song "Ghetto Village."
"Pastime Paradise" would become an interpolation for
Coolio's "
Gangsta's Paradise" while
Will Smith would use "I Wish" as the basis for
the theme song to his movie,
Wild Wild West. George
Michael and Mary J. Blige covered "As" in the late 90's. In 1999,
Salome De Bahia made a Brazilian version of "Another Star". Tupac
Shakur sampled "That Girl" for his hit song "So Many Tears". Red
Hot Chili Peppers covered "Higher Ground" in 1989 on their
"Mother's Milk" album.
John Legend
covered his song "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" for the 2005 film,
Hitch.
Mary Mary, did a cover of
his song, "You Will Know" on their 2002 album,
Incredible.
Additional songs by Stevie Wonder have also been sampled or
re-made. Wonder is one of the most sampled artists/singers
ever.
Personal life
Wonder has been married twice—to Motown singer
Syreeta Wright from 1970 until their divorce
in 1972; and since 2001, to fashion designer Kai Milla Morris. He
has seven children from his two marriages and several
relationships.
His daughter, Aisha Morris, was the inspiration for his hit single
"Isn't She Lovely." Aisha Morris is a singer who has toured with
her father and accompanied him on recordings, including his 2005
album,
A Time 2 Love. Wonder
has two sons with Kai Milla Morris; the older is named Kailand and
he occasionally performs as a drummer on stage with his father. The
younger son, Mandla Kadjay Carl Stevland Morris, was born May 13,
2005, his father's 55th birthday.
In May 2006, Wonder's mother died in Los Angeles, California, at
the age of 76. During his September 8, 2008 UK concert in
Birmingham he spoke of his decision to begin touring again
following his loss. "I want to take all the pain that I feel and
celebrate and turn it around".
Wonder is an activist for
civil rights and endorsed 2008
United States
Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama, who would
later be elected 44th President of the United States, the first
African American to do so. Apparently, the respect is more than
mutual, as Obama responded to a
Rolling Stone interview question
that asked him who his musical heroes are by saying: "If I had one,
it would have to be Stevie Wonder. When I was just at that point
where you start getting involved in music, Stevie Wonder had that
run with
Music of My Mind,
Talking Book,
Fulfillingness' First Finale and
Innervisions,
and then
Songs in the Key of Life. Those are as brilliant
a set of five albums as we've ever seen."
Children:
- Aisha Morris (born April 1975) (by Yolanda Simmons)
- Keita Morris (by Yolanda Simmons)
- Kwame Morris
- Mumtaz Morris (by Melody McCulley)
- Sophia Morris
- Kailand Morris (by Kai Milla Morris)
- Mandla Kadjay Carl Stevland Morris (born May 13, 2005) (by Kai
Milla Morris)
Wonder's children are by wife Kai Milla Morris, Yolanda Simmons and
Melody McCulley. He never married Simmons or McCulley.
Charting discography
Singles
U.S. and UK Albums
Awards and recognition
Grammy Awards
Wonder has received 25
Grammy Awards:
including a Lifetime Achievement Award
- Between 1965 and 1980, a self-produced artist won an additional
Grammy as a producer as well as an artist.
Other awards and recognition
See also
References
External links
in Memphis.
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