Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder is a soul music giant, a beloved American icon, and an indisputable genius of popular music. The musician's heightened awareness of sound -- a consequence of his blindness -- has helped him create vibrant music teeming with joyous positivity, even when he's written about heartbreak and addressed issues of race, spirituality, and society in general. Wonder's recordings are a richly eclectic and singular brew of soul, funk, rock & roll, Broadway/Tin Pan Alley-style pop, jazz, reggae, and African elements. Combined with his elastic voice, peerless melodic facility, gift for complex arrangements, and taste for lovely ballads, his broad appeal over the decades has been unmatched. A child prodigy, Wonder first topped the Billboard pop chart at the age of 13 in 1962 with "Fingertips." That mere hint of his talent as a multi-instrumentalist was followed by eight more Top Ten hits, "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" and "My Cherie Amour" among them, before the end of the decade. In the '70s, Wonder scored five number one hits, from "Superstition" to "Sir Duke," and with the likes of Motown label mate Marvin Gaye and Isaac Hayes brought R&B into the album age as one of the era's greatest musical auteurs. Talking Book (1972) and Innervisions (1973), Top Ten LPs answered with chart-toppers Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) and the diamond platinum Songs in the Key of Life (1976), were crafted as complex, kaleidoscopic statements enriched by Wonder's pioneering use of synthesizers. The next decade, Wonder remained active as trends came and went, delivering additional platinum albums such as Hotter Than July (1980), In Square Circle (1985), and Characters (1987) amid inductions into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Recording less frequently since then, he released A Time to Love (2005) in his fifth decade of activity, during which he also earned his 25th Grammy Award for his and Tony Bennett's duet remake of his own "For Once in My Life." Wonder has continued to tour, most notably performing the entirety of Songs in the Key of Life, across the U.S., and has also released the occasional single, such as the Gary Clark, Jr. collaboration "Where Is Our Love Song" (2020), a response to global unrest.

From 🇺🇸 United States