Stevie Wonder Caricature

Stevie Wonder Caricature, shown here at Motown “Hitsville USA” Studio, Detroit, Michigan, age 14 in 1964 at the genesis of his career.

Stevland Hardaway Morris is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist. A child prodigy, he is considered to be one of the most critically and commercially successful musical performers of the late 20th century. Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, and he continued performing and recording for Motown into the 2010s. He has been blind since shortly after birth.

Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, the third of six children of Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway, a songwriter. He was born six weeks premature which, along with the oxygen-rich atmosphere in the hospital incubator, resulted in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a condition in which the growth of the eyes is aborted and causes the retinas to detach; so he became blind. At age 4, his family moved to Detroit, where Wonder sang as a child in a choir at the Whitestone Baptist Church in the Motor City.
In 1961, when aged 11, Wonder sang his own composition, “Lonely Boy”, to Ronnie White of the Miracles; White then took Wonder and his mother to an audition at Motown, where CEO Berry Gordy signed Wonder to Motown's Tamla label. Before signing, producer Clarence Paul gave him the name Little Stevie Wonder.

Over time Wonder became a rock superstar with such hits as: “Superstition”, “I Just Called to Say I Love You”, “Living For The City”, “Sir Duke”, “My Cherie Amour”, “I Wish”, “Isn't She Lovely”, “Part Time Lover”, “Knocks Me Off My Feet” and “Higher Ground”, plus a host of others.

Wonder has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and won 25 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. American music magazine Rolling Stone named him the ninth greatest singer of all time.