STEVI WANDER – THE BLIND MIRACLE
Steveland Jadkins was barely 3 years old when the family moved to live in the industrial capital of America, Detroit, in search of a better life. Soon he became Stiveland Morris, and just as suddenly he had five half-brothers and sisters.
Life evolved differently. In the worst of times, the whole family roamed the river docks to squeeze some coal to kindle a domestic stove. singer Stevie Wonder If you managed to save something, children bought new clothes. And when Stevie celebrated his ninth birthday, his parents gave him a harmonica. Let us add to this the neighbor, who left the whole piano for the boy, and the association of local entrepreneurs purchased for the blind boy the drum set.
He almost perfectly mastered these instruments, listening to Ray Charles and Sam Cook in his transistor, sang in the streets and in the church choir. Jerold White, brother of the famous Ronnie White of The Miracles, decided to pray on Sunday. He was struck by the voice of a black blind boy of about ten. Stevie received an audience in the house of this unremarkable uncle. Wunderkind liked his friend, who hired a young talent to work in his studio. Rumors of a blind genius reached the legendary Barry Gordy.
Hearing the voice of Stevie and his game, Barry was laconic: “This guy is a real miracle.” So Steveland Morris turned into Little Stevie Wonder and in 10 years entered into a standard contract for underage musicians. All his fees were placed on savings accounts in the bank until the age of majority.
One stroke of the pen – and you’re in another world. Farewell, paternal home and half-starved childhood! Four months of tour with famous musicians, 94 concerts and only three days off during all this time. Here, adult singer Stevie Wonder often gave up, and little Stevie always looked cheerful and even managed to write songs on the tour bus when his older colleagues snuffled peacefully. In general, the child prodigy quickly adapted to a large and close-knit family, and soon even took on his usual look, wearing a strict suit and tie.
Becoming older, Stevie began to smoke marijuana, but, quickly losing control of his mind, he switched to more sensual pleasures promoted by rock and roll.
Stevie Wander – his own producer
Meeting with Martin Luther King turned all his perceptions of the white and black world. He became interested in politics, but the employer prepared him a different role than the musical fighter for the rights of black people. It is no secret that Gordy was an ordinary prudent businessman and first of all he saw excellent goods in the works of Wander. Stevie had other plans, and he immediately openly stated this: “When I turn 21, I’m going to take control of my career.”
History doesn’t say if the bosses took the statement of the young musician, who got rid of the nickname Little back in 1964, seriously. As promised by Stevie, the singer Stevie Wander the morning after the grand party in honor of his majority on the table at the boss lay a letter from the lawyer, who said that his client terminated all the contracts. Gordy was shocked. Wander, by the way, too. The lawyer apparently hurried and was immediately dismissed, but his words remained valid. Stevie received under the old contract owed him a million dollars, while the company earned him no less than 30.
With the first hit album “I Was Made To Love Her”, Stevie sets the bar for his career to a new height and takes it a lot later a year later, when he decides to produce his own songs in the next album. Here he makes his debut as a clarinetist, and the company Gordy Motown finally understands that Wonder performs his own thing better than someone else’s.
In 1971, everyone is waiting for the extension of a seemingly mutually beneficial relationship, but the miracle Stevie, not finding support for his freedom-loving impulses, takes a hard-earned million and opens two of his own production companies.
Hardcore Workaholic Stevie Wander
Now his thoughts are directed to the future of soul music, and he is looking for a technical embodiment of those not quite clear ideas, singer Stevie Wonder, who are spinning in his head. Two of them from New York – Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margudeff – are helping in their implementation. Since Stevie dealt with a variety of musical instruments, he really liked the idea of combining them all in one. But he did not believe that this was possible, and asked him to demonstrate to him the effect of the synthesizer. After the last chord, Wander called this instrument a miracle of technology and bitterly admitted that he would never cope with such a huge number of keys and switches at the same time.
But curiosity got the better of it, and with the help of the New Yorkers, Stevie was again one of the first where the black man’s hands practically did not touch. He did not regret a quarter of his million to buy studio time, worked like an ant, slept four hours a day, and a year later there were 35 fully completed compositions in his arsenal and 200 more started!
