Stevland Hardaway Judkins was born six weeks premature in Saginaw, Michigan in 1950, and the high-oxygen incubator that saved him caused retinopathy of prematurity and left him blind. By eight he sang solo in church and taught himself piano, harmonica and drums, playing street corners as Stevie and John. Berry Gordy signed him at 11 as Little Stevie Wonder, but with royalties held in trust and expenses charged against his account, he and his mother lived on a $2.50 weekly stipend. At 13 his live Fingertips, recorded at Chicago’s Regal Theater with a bassist shouting for the key, made him the youngest solo artist to top the Hot 100.
When his voice changed, Motown considered dropping him at 14 until Sylvia Moy persuaded Gordy to keep him and wrote for his new register. In May 1971, at 21, he let his contract expire, recorded independently in New York with the TONTO synthesizer, and returned to Motown with total creative control and a 14 percent royalty. In August 1973, three days after Innervisions came out, a logging truck crash in North Carolina fractured his skull and left him in a coma for four days. He later became the first production user of Ray Kurzweil’s reading machine for the blind.
- Within weeks of the crash he played a benefit to rescue Shaw University, a historically Black school where he was a trustee.
- He became the first Black musician to win the Grammy for Album of the Year and the only artist to win it for three consecutive album releases.
- In 1979 he was already using early digital samplers such as the Computer Music Melodian.
- He wrote an anthem and toured nationally to build support for making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday.
- He was granted Ghanaian citizenship in 2024.
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