Stevie Wonder
American and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, composer and record producer (born 1950)
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( STEEV-lənd; né Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, and is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments in the 1970s reshaped the conventions of contemporary R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions.
Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. As a teenager, he established himself as one of Motown's most successful acts, known for his excited harmonica playing and high-pitched singing. His single "Fingertips" topped the Billboard Hot 100 when he was 13, making him the youngest solo artist ever to top the chart. Wonder's critical and commercial peak, termed his "classic period" (1972–1976), began with the albums Music of My Mind and Talking Book (1972), which abandoned the Motown sound in favor of a synthesizer- and keyboard-driven one. With Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974), and Songs in the Key of Life (1976), he became the first Black musician to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and the only artist to have won the award with three consecutive album releases.
In the 1980s, Wonder achieved international cultural presence, with high-profile collaborations (notably with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson), television appearances, charity work, and political influence, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday in the United States. Hotter Than July (1980), the soundtrack album The Woman in Red (1984), and In Square Circle (1985) all peaked within the top five of the Billboard 200.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Stevie Wonder” is american and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, composer and record producer (born 1950). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Stevie, Wonder and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “american and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, composer and record producer (born 1950)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q714. VIAF identifies the subject as 109145970289132252107. The Library of Congress control number is n50013801. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1972, 1976 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stevie Wonder” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.