Stevie Wonder is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who has been blind since shortly after birth. By age 13, he had a major hit with "Fingertips" which launched him into the public consciousness. Throughout his career, Wonder produced music in genres such as soul, pop, R&B, funk, and jazz. He is renowned for his talents on instruments like the piano and harmonica despite being blind. Wonder has had a significant cultural impact as one of the first black Americans to take his music to Africa and through songs that reflected the political and social issues of the 1960s-70s civil rights era.

1. Star Theory – Stevie Wonder
By Bertie. Chatfield

2. Biography & Genre
• Born May 13, 1950 as Stevland Hardaway Judkins, known by his stage name
Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a
child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late
20th century. Blind since shortly after birth, Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla
label at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for Motown to this
day, and still has a deal in the present day.
• In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2008,
Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to
celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with Wonder at number five.
• Across his years of work Stevie Wonder was known to produce music with several
different bases of genre; such as Soul, Pop, R&B, Funk and Jazz.

3. Early & Classic Period Success
• By age 13, Wonder had a major hit, "Fingertips (Pt. 2)", a 1963 single taken from a
live recording of a Motor Town Revue performance, issued on the album Recorded
Live: The 12 Year Old Genius. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, bongos, and
harmonica, and a young Marvin Gaye on drums, was a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot
100 and R&B charts, making him the youngest artist to top the former in its history
and launching him into the public consciousness.
• In 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.
• On October 4, 1975, Wonder performed at the historical "Wonder Dream Concert"
in Kingston, Jamaica, a benefit for the Jamaican Institute for the Blind.
• 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” and "Village Ghetto
Land" reflected a far more pensive mood.

4. Image Development
• Stevie Wonder is his performance
usually dressed as himself, but one of
his signatures was the harmonica, as
well as his skill on the piano, despite
his blindness.
• His blindness however, also led to
another of his signature items, his
glasses, along with the image of a
microphone showing that he was a
singer.
• 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 ninths, elevenths,
thirteenths, diminished fifths, etc. in
his compositions.

5. How is he Sold?
• The main presentation of Stevie Wonder,
is through his talent in singing and
instrument use, and enhanced by his
capability with a disability, mainly when he
was in his teens. A beloved multi-
instrumentalist as a child!
• As his work and age developed, his
portray was shown through his afro and
dress code (which developed through each
decade), where in more recent decades his
glasses are the key defining feature when
he’s performing.
• He’s piano skill is also crucial to defining
his music which leads the attraction for his
audience, not only impressed my his skill,
but also touched by the emotion of his
work, showing deep love and caring in a
number of his songs, such as “Isn’t She
Lovely?”

6. Younger Image
• As Dyer has shown to us, Wonder was
portrayed through the media to have lasting
significance in his young talent, aided by the
skill and adaptation to his condition.
• Even in the image of his as a real person,
helped to boost his fame, because his blindness
was no act.
• His cultural focus from the beginning to show
his talent, but also to develop the relationship
between whites and blacks in America,
following the beliefs of major players such as
Martin Luthor King. He represented black
minorities, and desire for no more repression.
He expressed this emotion to his audience.
• The main focus Wonder created for his
audience was the beauty in his lyrics, linking to
his emotion views and ideals through certain
songs like “I Wish” and “Past Time
Paradise”, which was turned to a gangsters
paradise by Coolio.

7. Cultural Significance
• Known as The Motown legend - he was the
only one to still record under the banner of
the era-defining label - doesn't get around as
much as he used to.
• Wonder was one of the first black
Americans to take his music to the land of
its roots, touring Africa in the early 1970s.
So clear and so urgent was that call to him
that he even considered living in Africa,
working with blind children.
• He even tribute to the birthday of Martin
Luthor King, writing his version of “Happy
Birthday”, also reflecting on cultural songs
which were mainly political in the 1970s.
• Wonder had become the most influential
and acclaimed black musician of the early
1970s, changing the racial situation in
America at the time.