(1950-) Music innovator who played a major role in the use and popularizing of synthesizers in the 1970s and '80s. Wonder, who has been blind since birth due to labor complications, was a musical child prodigy, signing his first record contract with Motown subsidiary label Tamla at age 11. He was a hit on the R&B circuit in the 1960s, singing and playing harmonica and co-writing some of his own songs His single "Fingertips" reached Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, making him the youngest artist to accomplish that feat.
As he went through his teenage years, he found both his voice and his musical tastes changing, and he went through a period of little success as the 1960s went on. Around 1969, he decided to expand his horizons beyond traditional R&B, and began writing album material that was thematically related and touched on social issues of the day. During this time period, he became interested in synthesizers after hearing recordings by Tonto's Expanding Head Band. He moved away from standard Motown orchestration and began playing most of the instruments on his recordings himself, including synths and other electronic instruments (notably the Hohner Clavinet).
This led to what most Wonder fans consider his "classic period", beginning with the album Music of My Mind, released in 1972. Wonder mastered the knack of writing concept albums with extended pieces while still managing to place hit singles in the context, and he and his instrumentation became highly visible. (Among other things, his success gave him a chance to collaborate with Malcom Cecil and use T.O.N.T.O. in his recordings, coming full circle from his original interest in synths which had begun with hearing T.O.N.T.O. recordings.) By the late '70s, Wonder being seen to play a particular synth on stage or in a music video had the power to instantly increase sales of that synth. Manufacturers became aware of this and were eager to put a new synth model in Wonder's hands as soon as they could. Dave Rossum has related how Wonder played a prototype of the E-mu Systems Emulator at a trade show and proclaimed his admiration for it; subsequently, E-mu reneged on a prior promise to sell the first production Emulator to Daryl Dragon (of The Captain and Tennille), and sent it to Wonder instead.
Wonder was an early adopter of digital synthesis. On his 1979 album The Secret LIfe of Plants, he used an early sampler, the Computer Music Inc. Melodian. This was quickly replaced in his setup by a Fairlight CMI as soon as it became available. A few years later, he had moved on to using both the Emulator and a Synclavier, which became a staple in his setup for years.
Wonder's musical output slowed down after 1987. Today, he plays concerts sporadically, but has not released an album of all new material since 2005's A Time to Love.