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i don't have a link anymore.
i copied this to my computer over 2 years ago.
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Boy Wonder Grows Up
An Exclusive Online Extra
by Lee Underwood — 09/12/1974
Sitting behind his desk at Motown Records, Stevie Wonder, blind since birth, danced his fingertips across the control board of the massive Sony TC 850 tape recorder. He punched the rewind buttons, and the old tape spun down. Stevie removed it, took a new ten-inch reel out of a box and threaded it up. We were about to listen to his new album, Fulfillingness' First Finale, the final mix completed only the night before. This was the first hearing outside of the studio.
"It's very important that you concentrate on the lyrics," he said. "I feel very peaceful inside for the first time."
He leaned forward and smiled. The scars from his car accident a year ago were smooth. Only a bump remained above his right eyebrow, with a few smaller scars on his right cheek.
"Things change when you meet someone that is very positive and gives you peace and understanding far better than any relationship in the past."
Finale burst from the speakers and swirled throughout the room with joy, anger, compassion, new love, new dreams, new hope, and a lot of downright filthy funk.
The accident, before and after. The pivot point, the reference point, an inescapable landmark in the life of Stevie Wonder.
August 6, 1973: while traveling north from Greenville, South Carolina to Raleigh on a two-lane road, driver John Harris, Stevie's cousin, tried to pass the logging truck that was weaving from lane to lane in front of them. The trucker suddenly slammed his brakes and stopped right in front of John. The logs from the truck fell off and crashed through the windshield on Stevie's side of the car.
Stevie was in a coma for three days, a semi-coma for seven more.
"My outlook on a little delife has gotten eper-closer to me," Stevie said, his voice almost a whisper. "I learned who loved me - like Abner, president of Motown, stuck with me all the way. And I learned about those who just said, 'Is he gonna be able to work again?'
"I can also see that God was telling me to slow down, to take it easy. I still feel I'm here to do something for Him, to please people, to turn my world into music for Him, to make it possible for people to communicate with each other better. And that's what I'll do. If you go by your feelings, your first impressions, they'll almost never lead you wrong. That's what I didn't do before."
Born May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan, he is the third of six children. Stevie's uncle gave him a four-hole key-chain harmonica at age five, and Stevie was off and running. He began piano lessons at six and started playing drums at eight. He was just about ready.
When Ronnie White of the Miracles, introduced him to Brian Holland of the Holland-Dozier-Holland Motown writing team, Holland took him to Berry Gordon Jr., top gun at Motown. Gordy signed him, changed his name to Wonder, and a superstar was born.
"And the first released thing I produced was Signed, Sealed, Delivered. My mother helped me write it. So did Lee Garrtt, another blind cat. He's recording for Warner Brothers now.
"I also produced the Spinners' It's A Shame, and the follow up, We'll Have It Made. I did an unreleased thing with Martha, Hey Look At Me, and a David Ruffin piece, Lovin' You's Been So Wonderful. Oh, lots of people. Now my ex-wife Syreeta's second album just came out. I produced both of her albums, too, and wrote a lot of the stuff."
How long were you married?
A year and a half.
Was one problem a clash of artistic wills?
No, man. We're just better as friends. We still write things together.
Were you runnin' around Stevie?
(Laughs) I wasn't runnin' around. (Laughs again) No, she's a Leo, and I'm a Taurus. They're two fixed signs, and I'm awful stubborn.
What are your sleeping dreams like?
My dreams are my life. It's the same feeling. I've been blind since birth, so there's no difference in my dreams. You're used to seeing things and hearing things. But do you ever experience smell in dreams? I do. And touch and sound - everything except sight, and for me that's everything.
In Bird of Beauty, on Finale, you speak of resting and of letting your mind find the answers to things you always wanted to know, of taking a furlough, of recreation, having fun, of mind excursions and traveling. Are you finally going to take that trip to Africa you've been talking about for so long?
Yeah, in September. There's gonna be a festival for the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire, Africa. I'm going to do one show there. Through Taurus Productions, I'm also contracting other acts for the festival, and we're going to film it all for a TV special. We're gonna donate all the money to the African drought areas.
Do you feel your roots are there?
As a culture, as a motherland, I've always hoped to go there. And the culture of America has also given a lot. But in Africa there's not really a conception of time. Things are slowed down, and you have a chance to let your mind grow. To just think and to observe . . . the outdoors, insects, living off the land. "Feeding off the love of the land," like in a song I wrote.
And after Africa?
I learn off of life - knowledge is my firewood, you know? So I'll read, travel, listen to the music of different cultures and different people from far away and near.
In Bird of Beauty, I say life is gonna be what it is, "Cause what is/is gonna stay/till the heart of time/decides to change." And I really believe that. You have to do something with the time Father is giving you.
Sometimes I feel when I write lyrics that the Supreme Being is speaking to me. And I'd like to feel He is speaking through me. It's a very special thing to me to write a word, to express how I feel.
When you were a little kid, a junior deacon in the Whitestone Baptist Church, why did they throw you out, man?
'Cause I was singin' rock 'n' roll! (Laughs)
You've been influenced by a lot of white musicians, haven't you?
I like a lot of people. I've liked Bacharach since Chuck Jackson's recording of I Wake Up Crying. Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I like the way the Beatles used their voices and echo on For the Benefit of Mr. Kite.
Was the Stones tour a rough one for you?
Not as rough as everybody thinks. I mean, I used to do gigs, ride 500 or 1,000 miles in a bus, play another gig, then do it all over again. But the Stones tour was a good one because it was instrumental in exposing my music to a huge audience, and they loved it. When you write this, you let the public know I really love them back, won't you?
What about drugs?
I smoked grass once, but I don't need that. Before the accident, I drank wine and beer, but now I only have a beer once in awhile. I eat a lot of cookies! (Laughs) Really! A lot of cookies.
I notice that your blindness doesn't seem to hamper you.
I do almost everything you do. I watch TV, read, go to the airport - I even flew an airplane once, a Cessna something. I shop for clothes, use a cassette for my telephone book - I do everything except drive a car. Bein' blind ain't no big problem for me.
What about the remark Miles Davis recently made about you in down beat (July 18) regarding your old bass player, Michael Henderson?
What remark was that?
Well, Miles refused to see Mick Jagger, and when he asked why Jagger wanted to see him in the first place, Miles said, "One of his friends was trying to impress him by saying he knew me. Stevie Wonder, now there's a sad motherfucker. He thinks I stole Michael Henderson from him, but Michael came to me. I never did anybody like that in my life."
Oh really? Did he say that? He shouldn't have said that.
So what happened?
Micheal went and did a session with him . . . for Miles to say that . . . I think for Michael to go with him was an expansion.
So you don't think that Miles did steal him?
No. Maybe Miles did, I can't really say. But never did I feel that Miles stole my bass player . . . I didn't know he said that . . . I don't even have any reply. I think it's ignorant, really. Why would he fix his mouth to even say that?
Were you trying to impress Mick Jagger that you know Miles?
That's really . . . that's . . . I mean, I'm somewhat shocked at what he said. I've always admired Miles' music and his talent, but you can dilute your talent by having a character like that . . . That's really horrible, man. "A sad motherfucker." (Hurt laughter) Wow! You know? How can he even do that? Just hold the tape just one second, I have to regroup . . . I'll say one thing: Miles is smart enough to get young musicians, 'cause he lost it. It's cruel for him to say that. Why would I want to tell Mick Jagger I know Miles? I mean, I'm not into gossip. I prefer being alone.
You once said you didn't think you'd paid a lot of dues. You still feel that way?
I have not paid as many dues as, say, some of the musicians with Duke Ellington or Count Basie. I've been on the bus and rode for 14 hours and had to change our back somewhere and had to sing through mikes made of cardboard. But, I'm very, very, lucky and have to thank everyone my success has come early. I thank God and all the people who've made it possible . . . I . . . I don't see how Miles could say that, man.
Well, you answered him. You covered it. Do you listen to jazz much?
I've been listening a great deal lately to Chick Corea's Return to Forever album.
What about John McLaughlin?
Not that much.
What would you say is your most lasting song?
Visions will always last. I hope that will be the song I'm remembered by.
Your soul is beautiful, Stevie . . . One last question: do you listen to electronic music composers, people like Berio, Subotnik, Xenakis, to help you learn more about the synthesizer?
Some. The great thing about electronic music is you can make things larger than life. You can choose colors, and you can make the sounds of an instrument that does not exist.
But I feel you have to stay on the ground, that you can go too far and you lose the people - for me, anyway.
You listen to They Won't Go When I Go. That'll tell you where I'm going - away from sorrow and hate, up to joy and laughter.
I feel everyone should be able to grasp what you're doing. I shouldn't be so complicated that it's beyond everyone's capabilities, nor should it be so simple that you cannot use your mind to think about it.
I would like to feel that as my albums change, my people - meaning all people - will come with me, that we will grow together. Everything that I experience is in the songs that I write. You see, my music is my way of giving back love.
''i went from bashful to asshole to international''- CdoubleO
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