Inner Visions

If you've been following this series of modern day musicians, you may remember a concert I mentioned with the Rolling Stones. It is true that the Stones were able to hold the audience and follow their hands, so to speak. But even before Mick Jagger strut out on stage, the opening act was Stevie Wonder = a living definition of a hard act to follow. If I had just seen his opening act, I could've left knowing that I had seen a great show = but I admit I would've definitely been disappointed at missing the Stones.  But there was no question that Stevie Wonder had prepared the crowd for the excitement of Mick Jagger

Today,ΩåΩ I would like to talk about an artist who can fill a stadium with joy using one riff, one chord change, and one impossibly confident note on a harmonica.

That same Stevie Wonder.

Composer, singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, activist.
A child prodigy who did not burn out.
A hitmaker who refused to choose between romantic love songs and songs that tell hard truths.
A blind musician whose music often seems to see the world more clearly than many of us who use our eyes.
   
In this episode, I’d like to walk through his background,
the forces that shaped him,
the run of hits that re-wired popular music,
his effects on other artists,
and how his blindness is not a side note, but part of how he developed an uncanny vision for sound, people, and justice.

Transcript

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity.

If you've been following this series of modern day musicians, you may remember a concert I mentioned with the Rolling Stones. It is true that the Stones were able to hold the audience and follow their hands, so to speak. But even before Mick Jagger strut out on stage, the opening act was Stevie Wonder = a living definition of a hard act to follow. If I had just seen his opening act, I could've left knowing that I had seen a great show = but I admit I would've definitely been disappointed at missing the Stones.  But there was no question that Stevie Wonder had prepared the crowd for the excitement of Mick Jagger

Today, I would like to talk about an artist who can fill a stadium with joy using one riff, one chord change, and one impossibly confident note on a harmonica.

That same Stevie Wonder.

Composer, singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, activist.
A child prodigy who did not burn out.
A hitmaker who refused to choose between romantic love songs and songs that tell hard truths.
A blind musician whose music often seems to see the world more clearly than many of us who use our eyes.
   
In this episode, I’d like to walk through his background,
the forces that shaped him,
the run of hits that re-wired popular music,
his effects on other artists,
and how his blindness is not a side note, but part of how he developed an uncanny vision for sound, people, and justice.

Stevie Wonder entered the world early.

He was born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan, six weeks premature. Because of complications and an oxygen-rich incubator environment, he developed retinopathy of prematurity, which caused his retinas to detach and left him blind shortly after birth. 

His mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, moved the family to Detroit. This meant Stevie grew up in the city that would become the home of Motown—Hitsville U.S.A.—with church music, street sounds, and radio all swirling around him.

From the beginning, he was that kid:
the boy beating on tabletops in rhythm,
singing along to everything,
picking out melodies on harmonica, piano, drums—often self-taught, often all day. 

Stevie’s blindness did not “give” him talent.
He had the talent and the drive.

What his blindness did was channel his attention:
into touch,
into timing,
into the subtleties of pitch and groove,
into listening so closely that he could hear possibilities many others missed.

People in the neighborhood called him a “little wonder.”
Motown agreed.

At age 11, thanks to Ronnie White of The Miracles, Stevie auditioned for Berry Gordy and signed to Motown’s Tamla label as “Little Stevie Wonder.” 

Two years later, the world met him properly.

In 1963, a live recording called “Fingertips (Part 2)”—just this kid roaring on harmonica, call-and-response with the crowd, band scrambling to keep up—hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Think about that:
Blind, 13 years old, live track, #1 hit.

Already you can hear his instincts:
fearless improvisation,
rhythmic freedom,
a joy that borders on unstoppable.
For a lot of labels, that would have been the story:
novelty prodigy, a few cute records, fade out.

But Stevie Wonder refused to stay a novelty.
He kept learning:
keyboards, bass, drums, arrangement, studio craft.

And as he grew up, he began to want something Motown wasn’t always famous for giving: control.

After turning 21, Stevie renegotiated his Motown contract and secured creative control. That decision unleashed one of the greatest runs in popular music history as though it were a rising wave.

Music of My Mind (1972) – the turning point; Stevie writing, playing, producing, using synths as voices, not gimmicks.

Talking Book (1972) – here come “Superstition,” with its clavinet riff like a funky machine come to life, and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” a deceptively simple, harmonically rich love song.

Innervisions (1973) – “Living for the City,” “Higher Ground,” songs that stare down racism, poverty, spirituality, temptation. This is soul music as moral x-ray.

Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974) – reflective, personal, still razor sharp.

Songs in the Key of Life (1976) – the mountaintop:
“Sir Duke,” “I Wish,” “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” “As,” “Isn’t She Lovely”
a double album that tries to hold an entire human experience:
joy, injustice, faith, family, doubt, gratitude. 
Wikipedia

It is as though he’s hearing the future.
The way he uses synthesizers, drum parts, layered vocals, clavinet – it all points toward R&B, funk, and pop for decades to come. Hip-hop producers later sample him not because it’s nostalgic, but because those grooves are still alive.

He refuses to separate beauty from conscience.
“Higher Ground,” “Living for the City,” “Village Ghetto Land,” “Pastime Paradise”—these tracks are musically irresistible and lyrically unflinching. 

He builds worlds, not just singles.
These albums feel like conversations with his listeners:
about God, evil, hope, blindness, Blackness, America, love, and daily life.
And all this from a musician many people, very lazily, wanted to reduce to an “inspirational” story.
Stevie Wonder doesn’t just inspire; he innovates.

To give you a sense of just how deeply Stevie is woven into our listening lives, just walk through a few of the songs that still hang in the air:

“For Once in My Life” – that soaring declaration of gratitude and security.

“Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” – horns, handclaps, that unstoppable chorus.

“Superstition” – the clavinet riff that changed funk forever; he plays most of the instruments himself. 

“You Are the Sunshine of My Life” – intimacy with unexpected chord shifts.

“Living for the City” – a mini-drama about systemic racism inside a 7-minute soul track.

“Boogie On Reggae Woman” – playful, deep groove, harmonica over synth bass.

“Sir Duke” – a love letter to Ellington and the power of music itself.

“Isn’t She Lovely” – pure joy of parenthood; harmonica instead of sentimental strings.

“Master Blaster (Jammin’)” – reggae-inflected tribute to Bob Marley.

“Happy Birthday” – not just a party song, but part of a political campaign to make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday.

I could fill episodes with just the B-sides and album cuts.

The key point: is that  Stevie Wonder’s “hits” aren’t random one-offs.
They’re chapters in a sustained, thoughtful exploration of what Black American music—and American conscience—could sound like on the radio.

Now, let’s talk directly—but carefully—about Stevie Wonder’s blindness.

He lost his sight as an infant. That fact is part of his story, but not its punchline. 

What’s remarkable isn’t “he did all this despite being blind.”

What’s remarkable is how he:
moves through studios like they’re extensions of his body,
memorizes layouts,
hears arrangements fully in his head before they exist,
navigates bands, microphones, cables, with an ease that comes from long, serious craft.

Again and again, people who’ve worked with him talk about his ears and his empathy:
he listens to players, to engineers, to the mood of a room,
and adjusts, encourages, jokes, pushes, corrects.

His blindness seems to have sharpened—not created, but sharpened—
an inner picture:
of how parts fit together,
of what people feel,
of how a song will land in the heart of someone he’ll never meet.

Stevie Wonder cannot see a sunset or read a chart on a music stand.
But he can walk into a studio and “see” the entire record before anyone else hears it.
He doesn’t watch people’s faces, but he hears their souls in how they clap, how they sing, how they hesitate.

This is not magical thinking. It’s attention.
It’s discipline.
It’s decades of turning the whole world into sound.
And rather than being defined by disability, he uses his platform to advocate:
for people with disabilities,
for racial justice,
for peace, against apartheid, against war,
for making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a federal holiday—an effort he was instrumental in pushing across the finish line. 

That is vision.

Stevie Wonder’s fingerprints are everywhere.

On R&B, soul, and pop.
His 70s albums basically redraw the blueprint:

The fusion of gospel roots, funk rhythm, jazz harmony, and pop melody.

The notion that the singer can also be the writer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist controlling the sound.

Artists from Prince to Alicia Keys, from Babyface to Bruno Mars, from Beyoncé to Frank Ocean, inherit that approach:
serious musicianship + mainstream appeal + authorial control. 

On hip-hop and sampling.
“Pastime Paradise,” “Higher Ground,” “Village Ghetto Land,” “I Wish,” “Sir Duke” and more have been sampled, reworked, and quoted by rap and R&B artists. His grooves are part of hip-hop’s DNA.

On social commentary.
He proves you can place songs about racism, poverty, and spiritual struggle at the center of hit records—and people will sing along, dance, and absorb the message.

On disability representation.
Simply by existing at his level of visibility and excellence, Stevie Wonder disrupts lazy narratives about blindness and ability.

He is not framed as fragile, not as a token, but as a leader:
a bandleader, a studio mastermind, someone presidents and activists listen to.

On musicians’ courage.
Many artists point to Stevie Wonder as someone who gave them permission:
to push for better contracts, to take the studio seriously, to fight for control of their masters, to believe that pop music can carry weight.

If you remove Stevie Wonder from the story of modern music, enormous portions of R&B, pop, and hip-hop start to wobble.

So where does Stevie Wonder sit in this series—next to your composers, your legends, my question-mark titles about “greatest” and “world’s best”?

He stands as:
One of the greatest songwriters and record-makers of the last sixty years.
A once-in-a-century musician who turned Motown from a hit machine into a playground for personal, spiritual, and political exploration.
Proof that a so-called “limitation” can coexist with astonishing freedom.
A man whose blindness did not define his talent but may have deepened his focus, his patience, and his understanding of human feeling.

You and I can watch a crowd from the back of a hall.
Stevie Wonder can hear a crowd from the first note:
when they lean in, when they relax, when they understand.
Maybe that’s his secret:
He has spent a lifetime listening so hard to the world
that he can’t help but sing it back more beautifully than we remembered it.

I’m George Bartley, and this is Celebrate Creativity.

Thank you for listening.