Star Theory – Stevie WonderBy Bertie. Chatfield

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

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.