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In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
1. Stevland Hardaway Morris was born May 13, 1950, as Stevland Hardaway Judkins is known by his stage name Stevie Wonder.
2. Stevie Wonder is a singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist.
3. A child prodigy, he became one of the most creative and loved musical performers of the late 20th century.
4. Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11 and has continued to perform and record for Motown as of the early 2010s.
5. He has been blind since shortly after birth.
6. Among Wonder's works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You"
7. He has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and received 25 Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist.
8. Has sold over 100 million albums and singles, making him one of the top 60 best-selling music artists.
9. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States.
10. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
11. In 2013, Billboard magazine released a list of the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 55th anniversary, with Wonder at number six.
12. Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950, the third of six children to Calvin Judkins and Lula Mae Hardaway.
13. 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.
14. When Wonder was four, his mother left his father and moved to Detroit with her children. She changed her name back to Lula Hardaway and later changed her son's surname to Morris, partly because of relatives.
15. Wonder has retained Morris as his legal surname.
16. Wonder began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica and drums.
17. He formed a singing partnership with a friend; calling themselves Stevie and John, they played on street corners, and occasionally at parties and dances.
18. A prominent figure in popular music during the latter half of the 20th century, Wonder has recorded more than 30 U.S. top ten hits and won 25 Grammy Awards as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award.
19. He has also won an Academy Award for Best Song, and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame.
20. He has also been awarded the Polar Music Prize.
21. American music magazine Rolling Stone named him the ninth greatest singer of all time.
22. In June 2009 he became the fourth artist to receive the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award.
23. He has had ten U.S. number-one hits on the pop charts as well as 20 R&B number one hits, and has sold over 100 million records, 19.5 million of which are albums.
24. He is one of the top 60 best-selling music artists with combined sales of singles and albums.
25. In his childhood, he was best known for his harmonica work, but today he is better known for his keyboard skills and vocal ability.
26. Wonder was the first Motown artist and second African-American musician to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song, which he won for his 1984 hit single "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie The Woman in Red.
27. His classic 1970s albums were very influential on the music world: the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide said they "pioneered stylistic approaches that helped to determine the shape of pop music for the next decade".
28. Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included four of the five albums, with three in the top 90.
29. Wonder has been married twice.
30. First time he has been married to Motown singer/songwriter and frequent collaborator Syreeta Wright from 1970 until their amicable divorce in 1972.
31. Second time he has been married from 2001 till 2012 to fashion designer Kai Millard.
32. Wonder met Yolanda Simmons when she applied for a job as his secretary for his publishing company. Simmons bore Wonder a daughter on February 2, 1975: Aisha Morris. After she was born, Stevie said "she was the one thing that I needed in my life and in my music for a long time. It was this in mind, she was the inspiration for his hit single "Isn't She Lovely".
33. Aisha Morris is a singer who has toured with her father and accompanied him on recordings, including his 2005 album, A Time to Love.
34. Wonder has two sons with Kai Millard Morris; the elder is named Kailand and he occasionally performs as a drummer on stage with his father. The younger son, Mandla Kadjay Carl Stevland Morris, was born on May 13, 2005, his father's 55th birthday.
35. In May 2006, Wonder's mother Lula Mae Hardaway died in Los Angeles, at the age of 76. During his September 8, 2008 UK concert in Birmingham, he spoke of his decision to begin touring again following his loss: "I want to take all the pain that I feel and celebrate and turn it around."
36. Wonder's ninth child, and his second with Tomeeka Robyn Bracy, was born in December 2014. The couple's new daughter is named Nia, meaning "purpose".
37. Wonder was introduced to Transcendental Meditation through his marriage to Syreeta Wright.
38. Wonder's Taxi Productions owns Los Angeles radio station KJLH.
39. 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.
40. Before signing, producer Clarence Paul gave him the name Little Stevie Wonder.
41. Because of Wonder's age, the label drew up a rolling five-year contract in which royalties would be held in trust until Wonder was 21.
42. He and his mother would be paid a weekly stipend to cover their expenses: Wonder received $2.50 a week, and a private tutor was provided for when Wonder was on tour.
43. Wonder was put in the care of producer and songwriter Clarence Paul, and for a year they worked together on two albums. Tribute to Uncle Ray was recorded first, when Wonder was still 11 years old. Mainly covers of Ray Charles's songs, it included a Wonder and Paul composition, "Sunset".
44. The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie was recorded next, an instrumental album consisting mainly of Paul's compositions, two of which, "Wondering" and "Session Number 112", were co-written with Wonder.
45. At the end of 1962, when Wonder was 12 years old, he joined the Motortown Revue, touring the "chitlin' circuit" of theatres across America that accepted black artists.
46. At the Regal Theater, Chicago, his 20-minute performance was recorded and released in May 1963 as the album Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius.
47. In 1968 he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the title Eivets Rednow, which is "Stevie Wonder" spelled backwards.
48. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of "Alfie", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as "I Was Made to Love Her", "For Once in My Life" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours".
49. A number of Wonder's early hits, including "My Cherie Amour", "I Was Made to Love Her", and "Uptight (Everything's Alright)", were co-written with Henry Cosby.
50. Innervisions generated three more Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. The album is ranked No. 23 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Wonder had become the most influential and acclaimed black musician of the early 1970s.
Source: Wikipedia.org
