With 10 U.S. number-one singles, more than 100 million records sold, and a phenomenal 25 Grammy Awards, Stevie Wonder is a true music legend. Throughout the decades that the man has taken to the stage for his jaw-dropping performances, he proved to everyone that anyone could fulfill their dreams. Wonder was particularly inspiring for the visually impaired. But how did the icon lose his sight in the first place? A tragic blunder would rob the artist of his vision.
The Truth Behind Stevie Wonders Blindness
Born This Way
Certainly, Wonder was born with perfectly normal eyes and clear vision. Stevland Hardaway Morris was the name that his parents gave him. Despite having appeared to be a normal young boy, it was clear that he had immense talent, even from such a tender age. Everyone that heard the kid play music and sing was instantly astonished and blown away. It was during the 1970s that Wonder was awarded the Album of the Year Grammy three times on separate occasions. This was an achievement that had never been seen before.
Born This Way
Multi-Talented
Wonder has been seen playing all sorts of instruments in live acts to accompany his golden voice. But this artist could play almost any instrument to have been made. Even before his tenth birthday, the young man was dazzling his family while playing piano, drums, and the harmonica. With time came new musical technologies, and Wonder became taken with the synthesizer. Other favorites of his were bongos, the clavinet, and the bass guitar, and so on.
Multi Talented
The Passionate Musician
But Wonder was not just passionate about music. Unbeknownst to many of his countless fans, Wonder was a well-established civil rights activist, one who brought a particularly important leader to the fore. Martin Luther King Jr. owed much of his successes to Wonder, who was a key member of the campaign that established the hero’s national holiday. Wonder’s charitable efforts have not gone unnoticed, however, and the United Nations named Wonder a “Messenger of Peace” in 2009. Then, in 2014, former President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal
The Passionate Musician
His Most Notable Achievements
But before Wonder was an activist, he was a natural musician and songwriter, immense talents that he is most loved for. Don’t just take our word for it, however, as other musical icons like Elton John added their voices to the praise. John wrote a rousing piece for Rolling Stone magazine that described how the British artist always carries a copy of the Stevie Wonder album, Songs in the Key of Life with him. John considers it the best work of music ever recorded.
His Most Notable Achievements
Beyond Blindness
While Wonder had obviously overcome the challenges that his disability posed, there were far more barriers that he broke through. Wonder’s upbringing was not the easiest, as his family often struggled to put food on the table. Lula Hardaway, Wonder’s mother, mentioned in her biography how poor her family was while Wonder was young. It has also been stated that Wonder’s father was an abusive alcoholic who was particularly vicious towards Lula. Thankfully, life would become slightly merciful for Wonder.
Beyond Blindness
Moving Places
It was shortly after Wonder’s fourth birthday that his mother whisked him away from Michigan to Detroit. It was after this change of scene that Wonder’s inherent musical genius began to bloom. That was when Ronnie White of The Miracles saw this 11-year-old boy playing. White would quickly usher Wonder towards the attention of Berry Gordy Jr., who headed Motown Records. It didn’t take long for Wonder to land a record deal, and his musical career turned profitable.
Moving Places
Head Start
Amazingly, Wonder had joined the music industry long before many of his contemporaries would. He wasn’t even a teenager when his first album was recorded and released. Only a few musical artists managed to achieve incredible successes in the music industry from an early age, like Michael Jackson. The next release was “Little Stevie Wonder the 12 Year Old Genius”. Many were suspicious of the album’s claim at the time! However, the youngster would prove his critics wrong while managing his blindness.
Head Start
The Classic Period
It was during the 70s that Wonder developed into his “classic period,” which saw all manner of unmatched albums that would relabel him as a real prodigy. Jack Hamilton of Slate fame would recall in 2016 how amazed he was with the then young Wonder’s talents and achievements. While most kids his age would wake up after their 21st birthdays with hangovers, Wonder was continuing his unstoppable musical streak. One that Hamilton regards as the most productive in modern times.
The Classic Period
The Hits Kept Rolling
From 1971 to 1976, Wonder continued to pump out albums such as Talking Book, Music of My Mind, First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life. This last-mentioned album would be a highlight of Wonder’s career, as mentioned by Elton John. Hamilton would also commend the album magnificently, calling it essential to American music and pop culture. Wonder was not only incredibly talented, but he was also extremely industrious and rarely took a break from songwriting and recording, not to mention performing in concerts.
The Hits Kept Rolling
Soulful Writing
You might be wondering what it was about this acclaimed album that made it so significant. Take the lyrical content, for example. His words dealt with relationships, spirituality, and betrayal, not to mention segregation and even divorce. Suddenly, pop music was deep, and its sound was developed, too. Despite being robbed of physical sight, Wonder was incredibly perceptive. Many people wondered how it was possible that a blind person could do so much. This was an ableist underestimating of a true genius.
Soulful Writing
On His Blindness
Wonder would also sing and speak about his blindness, a disability which he never described negatively. In fact, Wonder believes that he would not have been able to utilize certain parts of his mind had he been able to see. You see, when one sense is taken away, a person will begin relying on not only other senses, but their mind, too. It was in 1975 that Wonder first addressed his disability while being interviewed by The New York Times.
On His Blindness
Honestly Speaking
During this interview, the relevant reporter questioned Wonder about his blindness and its effects on his musical abilities. Wonder then said, “It’s played a part in that I’m able to use my imagination to go places, to write words about things I’ve heard people talk about. In music and in being blind, I’m able to associate what people say with what’s inside me.” Wonder’s blindness might have robbed him of being able to see the world around him, but it had also allowed him to understand it on a much deeper level.
Honestly Speaking
The Piano Man
This wouldn’t be the last time that Wonder would speak on his blindness. While speaking to the late Larry King on his show in 2010, Wonder described how significant it was when he learned to play the piano. His hearing took over as his main sense and it helped him to navigate the large instrument. It goes without saying that hearing became Wonder’s primary means for navigating, understanding, and appreciating the world around him and inside him.
The Piano Man
Compared To Legends
King then recalled a conversation that he had enjoyed with George Shearing, another blind musician who was known mainly as a pianist. King had been told by Shearing that his blindness was not something that he regarded as a handicap, as in something that debilitated him. Wonder had also met Shearing once, and the two had shared a powerful and inspiring conversation. Wonder regarded Shearing as an incredible person with whom he obviously had a lot in common.
Compared To Legends
On The Same Page
Wonder had agreed with Shearing’s view on blindness. While blindness is objectively a difficult situation to get through, making the affected person’s physical life more difficult to navigate, it had not taken away from his talent and abilities. Wonder did comment that blindness was a far heavier burden to bear for someone that had been originally able to see and then lost their sight. Wonder himself had not been born blind, as mentioned earlier in this article.
On The Same Page
Blind Faith
While Wonder claimed that blindness had not hampered his life significantly, one had to wonder how it inspired him, especially when it came to his creative process. This was a question that King put to Wonder during his interview. King wondered how having no visual understanding of people, colors, or everyday experiences like watching television affected his songwriting. Although Wonder could play piano better than most people, he did not know what one looked like, at least not in full color.
Blind Faith
Second Sight
To be fair, King had underestimated Wonder’s intelligence and senses. Wonder was so familiar with a piano that he had an almost perfect image of one in his mind. He responded by saying that many of the things that King mentioned he did not know by sight, he virtually knew the forms of, and if his sight had to magically return such objects would be very similar to how he had imagined them. Wonder believed that feeling occurs before seeing.
Second Sight
Further Questioning
In an interview with Oprah that took place in 2004, Wonder would once again be questioned about his relationship with blindness. Oprah wondered how Wonder missed sight if he had never been able to do much of it in the first place. Wonder took his time responding to this question. He said that he longed for the connections that seeing brings. No matter how positively and bravely someone overcomes the severities of their disabilities, there are some things that a person wishes they could experience.
Further Questioning
He Wished
Wonder proceeded by saying to Oprah that he could not deny missing certain things. He could not drive his family around, and there were many things that ordinary fathers and husbands took for granted that to Wonder were dreams. But Wonder had accepted his situation, saying that there was nothing to be done. All that he could do was deal with the challenges on a daily basis. Oprah paused at this and then asked her next question, which was on how Wonder understood sight as a concept.
He Wished
Living Vicariously
To put it simply, Wonder would make up for the shortcomings of his blindness by living through others. He would be keenly interested in what others were doing. He also had a “vivid imagination” as he put it. He also wasn’t afraid to share how others had treated him in the past. He said, “And growing up, I was around people who weren’t afraid to say, ‘Man, why are you lookin’ over there? What’s wrong with you? I’m over here. You need to keep your head still.’”
Living Vicariously
Stereotyped
The discussion then shifted to Wonder’s treatment by others in his community as a child. Wonder could not hold back a chuckle as he recalled how people did not appreciate his musical talents. Rather, they saw him as the blind kid that could not keep quiet! To be fair, Wonder was constantly banging on things, hammering on boxes, and whacking his bongos day in and day out. He was also glued to the piano. The people around him were desperate for silence!
Stereotyped
Insider Perspective
Wonder provided a rare glimpse into what life as a blind person is like. He had managed to develop what he (and many others) called “facial radar”, which is an ability that allows one to pick up the echoes bouncing off things close to him. Wonder’s hearing had become so incredibly sharp that he could pick up the minuscule woosh of his hands if he moved them in front of his face. Isn’t that incredible?
Insider Perspective
The Master
Oprah was obviously fascinated with this magical-sounding ability. She wondered out loud whether each thing produced sound, and Wonder confirmed that. He explained that everything possesses a distinct sound according to where it is placed. If Wonder had to enter a room, he would be able to pick up its sounds, according to where objects had been placed. It all comes down to acoustics, which changes according to how a room shifts as things enter and leave.
The Master
False Discrimination
In 2012, Wonder would once more have to defend himself during a The Guardian interview. The journalist wondered if Wonder believed that he had been disadvantaged by his blackness and blindness. Wonder would politely respond by saying that he did not consider either qualities as being disadvantages. Certainly, many people would find being born into a disadvantaged group in a disabled body with bitter negativity, but Wonder had managed to alchemize his life heroically and respectfully.
False Discrimination
Self-Acceptance
Wonder would carry on elaborating on how he views himself. He had accepted who he was, and he loved himself. This was not an egotistical love, but one that appreciated how God had permitted him to survive any challenge and make the most out of the results. This was an individual who truly appreciated his blessings. He had the ability to produce music incredibly easily, and for that, he was eternally grateful. We can only commend Wonder for his incredible optimism and positive attitude to all of life’s difficulties. But Wonder had not been born blind, and we wonder how different his attitude would have been had he lived a typical life.
Self Acceptance
Colorful Individual
Wonder explained to Oprah during the 2004 interviewer after being asked whether he could remember colors or not that he had a more conceptual understanding of color. Oprah had put the question to Wonder as she knew that he had at one stage in his life been able to see. This question then prompted a deeper discussion of Wonder’s senses, and how he had come to lose his sight in the first place. What had happened to that little child?
Colorful Individual
Different Views
Wonder said that whenever someone described a color to him, then he would understand what they were speaking about in the way that he knew how. He said that although he had once been able to see, it was only for a very short time following his birth. Oprah then took the question further by asking if it was true that he had been administered far too much oxygen as a baby when he was hooked up to an incubator.
Different Views
Birth Complications
Wonder acknowledged that this was true. He had indeed been put in an incubator at birth, a process that had destroyed his eyesight. Wonder said, “Right – I was premature. My doctor didn’t know what’s known now about the right amount of oxygen, so I was given too much, and an area of my eyes was destroyed.” The baby Stevland Hardaway Judkins had been robbed of his most essential sense due to a doctor’s negligence. What kind of traumatic birth story had Wonder lived through?
Birth Complications
Past Traumas
Stevland Hardaway Judkins was born in 1950 in a premature state, having been delivered six weeks before his due date. It was in a Saginaw, Michigan hospital that baby Stevland was rushed to an incubator to keep his fragile body alive. While Stevland’s life might have been saved by this emergency procedure, he had to pay a hefty price in return. Once Stevland reached the age of seven weeks, his eyesight had completely faded. All thanks to a doctor’s poor choices.
Past Traumas
Too Much Oxygen
Wonder described the tragic incident to Oprah in detail. An unhealthy abundance of oxygen was administered to the baby Stevland while he was inside the incubator, causing abnormal blood vessels to sprout within his eyeballs. Such vessels then made their way to the retinas of his eyes, which coat the eyes’ rear tissues. The vessels then hemorrhaged, which hurt the retinas to the point that they detached from the eyeballs. Could anyone have suspected that this process was happening while Stevland lay in the incubator?
Too Much Oxygen
Scientific Understanding
The National Eye Institute calls this process prematurity, or retinopathy. It is a condition that often strikes premature babies that weigh in below 3 pounds. So many blind people would have been struck with this condition as babies. It was in 1942 that the condition was initially identified, a discovery that would affect Wonder just eight years later when he was born. While many people would lament this debilitation, Wonder believed that he had been fortunate in this situation.
Scientific Understanding
Fatal Coincidences
Wonder’s birth story took an even darker turn when he described how a girl that had come into this world just sixty seconds before him had lost her life. While the overflow of oxygen had destroyed Wonder’s eyesight, this girl had died from the excess oxygen. Incredibly, Wonder had never once felt a shred of bitterness toward the doctor that had taken such a vital part of his body from him. This is simply the kind of person that Wonder is.
Fatal Coincidences
Anxious Compensation
Wonder concluded his story that when he returned to Saginaw, Michigan, many years later as an adult. He revisited the place that he had come to life, the hospital where he had suffered the devastating birth complications that made him the man he is today. What Wonder did not expect was to be awarded by the hospital! Hilariously, Wonder believed that the award was given out of fear that Wonder would try and sue the doctor that had hurt him at birth. Of course, the doctor had borne no ill will toward him, and neither did Wonder in return.
Anxious Compensation
A Mother’s Fears
Growing up, Wonder had been doted upon by his grief-stricken mother, who bitterly lamented the fact that her son was blind. One myth regarding Wonder was that he told his mother that he was happy and that she should not worry. Oprah also wanted to establish if this quote was true, which Wonder confirmed. He said that he had told his mother something along those lines. Wasn’t it incredible that Wonder had managed to comfort his mother, even through his own difficulties?
A Mothers Fears
Maternal Comforts
Wonder described how he had hated seeing his mother distraught during his childhood. He just wanted to convince her that he was not suffering. It broke his heart to hear his mother crying so much. In his religious mother’s mind, Wonder must have offended God somehow and was being punished for it. Of course, Lula Hardaway had other problems beyond her son’s disability, and it was all incredibly difficult for her. The family struggled with poverty for a long time.
Maternal Comforts
Life Lessons
Hardaway had managed to impart some important life lessons on her son, however. She said to her son that he must carry on with life and be strong, not feel shame, and let go of the past. Such advice really carried Wonder through much of his life’s harder moments and to become self-confident. It did not matter how challenging life would become for the artist with this knowledge in mind. He was prepared for anything!
Life Lessons
Mean Kids
Wonder also commented on how other children used to bully him due to his blindness. But in true Wonder fashion, the artist only used this adversity to try his best. He said, “But I just became more curious. ‘How can I climb this tree and get an apple for this girl?’ That’s what mattered to me.” This blind youth would never allow his blindness to take away from his quality of life, or to stop him from living it to the fullest.
Mean Kids
Perfectly Normal
Wonder is the kind of person that dislikes calling himself “disabled”. That was not how his mother raised him and he did not see his lack of sight as a disadvantage or something to complain about. His mother had not been overbearing either, having allowed him to fumble in his own stead and learn from his mistakes. Of course, she would support him in his time of need. But she refused to baby her son by holding his hand.
Perfectly Normal
Learning To Fly
Wonder finished by saying, “[My mom would] tell me to be careful, but I was going to do what I was going to do. She was just fast enough to catch me. She knew I had to learn – and the more she allowed me to do, the more she could let go.” Wonder might not have become the person that he is today if he had not enjoyed such a wonderful mother. He proved that he was capable of anything, just how his mother had convinced him.
Learning To Fly