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Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. Wonder's single " Fingertips " was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, when he was 13, making him the youngest solo artist ever to top the chart.
A note-for-note re-recording of Wonder's version was used as the backing track for Bill Cosby's 1967 musical comedy single, "Little Ole Man (Uptight, Everything's Alright)", which was a US number 4 hit. Bill Cosby is not related to the song's co-writer Henry Cosby.
Written and composed by Wonder's mentors, Clarence Paul and Henry Cosby, "Fingertips" was originally a jazz instrumental recorded for Wonder's first studio album, The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie. The live version of the song was recorded in 1963 during a Motortown Revue performance at the Regal Theater in Chicago, Illinois. [2]
During the recording process, bassist Nathan Watts laid down a bass guitar line to serve as a guide track for Wonder, but Wonder eventually replaced this with his own keyboard bass performance. [ 2 ] The more-than-six-minute song was not released as a single, as Wonder was unwilling to shorten the song to fit the 7", 45 rpm format . [ 2 ]
By 1976, Stevie Wonder had become one of the most popular figures in R&B and pop music, not only in the U.S., but worldwide. Within a short space of time, the albums Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale were all back-to-back-to-back top five successes, with the latter two winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1974 and 1975, respectively.
The original Stevie Wonder version was featured in The Best Man Holiday ' s predecessor The Best Man in a more lighthearted scene. In 2014 it was covered by American singer Camille for her Stevie Wonder tribute album I Sing Stevie: The Stevie Wonder Songbook, an album that received an Independent Music Awards nomination for Best Tribute Album. [48]
"Ebony and Ivory" is a song that was released in 1982 as a single by Paul McCartney featuring Stevie Wonder. It was issued on 29 March that year as the lead single from McCartney's third solo album, Tug of War (1982). Written by McCartney, the song aligns the black and white keys of a piano keyboard with the theme of racial harmony.
Fulfillingness' First Finale is the seventeenth studio album by American singer, songwriter, musician, and producer Stevie Wonder, released on July 22, 1974, by Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records. It is the fourth of five albums from what is considered Wonder's "classic period".