He was born Steveland Morris in Saginaw, Michigan. Blind since infancy, Wonder began playing the piano at the age of 4 and was a proficient singer and instrumentalist by the age of 13, when his first hit, “Fingertips Part 2” (1963), was released by Motown, at which time he was given his professional name.

He produced the albums Signed, Sealed and Delivered (1970) and Where I'm Coming From (1971), the latter written entirely by Wonder and his wife, Syreeta Wright. On the album Music of the Mind (1972) he used modern recording technology to allow him to play most of the instrumental accompaniments.

Wonder experimented with synthesizers and was one of the first musicians to make extensive use of electronic music in black American song. Talking Book (1972), an album on which he played all the instruments and sang all the vocal parts, contained the hit singles “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” and “Superstition,” and he won several Grammy Awards for Talking Book and his next album, Innervisions (1973). The same year he survived a near-fatal automobile accident. More Grammy Awards followed for the albums Songs in the Key of Life (1976), which contains the hit song “Sir Duke,” a celebratory tribute to American jazz composer Duke Ellington; and In Square Circle (1985).

Wonder's other albums include Looking Back (1977); Hotter than July (1980); Characters (1987); Jungle Fever (1991), the sound track to a motion picture by American director Spike Lee; and Conversation Peace (1995). In 1996 Wonder won three more Grammy Awards: for best male rhythm-and-blues vocalist, best song, and for lifetime achievement.

Wonder has also been active in such social causes as the antiapartheid movement, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation. An advocate of black civil rights, Wonder spearheaded the effort to institute a national holiday in honor of the birthday of clergyman and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr.


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