‘Uptight’: How Stevie Wonder went from child star to songwriting genius
Today, the name Stevie Wonder commands a certain respect within the musical field. The Michigan-born singer and pianist has been at the forefront of groundbreaking songwriting for upwards of six decades, rarely faltering in quality, but it was not always this way. During the early days of Motown, Wonder was signed up as an 11-year-old child star, releasing a deluge of records under the slightly patronising moniker Little Stevie Wonder.
Motown was a vitally important record label in terms of developing styles of soul and funk music, but the predominant aim of label boss Berry Gordy Jr seemed to be profits – sometimes to the detriment of the label’s output. So, when an 11-year-old Stevie Wonder auditioned for Motown in 1961, Gordy could see the marketing potential. However, over the next few years, Wonder consistently found himself among the most skilled and successful musicians on the label, despite his age.
Ultimately, you can only command so much respect with a name like Little Stevie Wonder. Once the young singer began to outgrow that moniker, he sought to establish himself as a gifted songwriter in his own right, escaping his reputation as a cutesy child star for Motown. In contrast, Gordy was gearing up to dismiss Wonder from the label, hypothesising that audiences would not resonate with his performance when his voice changed as a result of puberty.
Thankfully, Wonder got the chance to prove the Motown boss wrong with the 1965 single ‘Uptight (Everything’s Alright)’. This track would see Wonder drop ‘Little’ from his name for the first time, and he would contribute to the songwriting process alongside collaborators Sylvia Moy and Henry Crosby. Despite Gordy’s fears, the single provided Wonder with one of his most successful tracks, peaking at number three in the US singles chart and 14 in the UK, helping to establish the singer as an independent and gifted singer-songwriter.
While ‘Uptight’ was not composed entirely independently by Wonder, he was still the driving force behind this smash-hit track. Co-writer Sylvia Moy later recalled, “I asked, ‘Are you sure you don’t have anything else?’ He started singing and playing ‘Everything is alright, uptight.’ That was as much as he had. I said, ‘That’s it. Let’s work with that'”. The song formed a crucial moment in the development of Stevie Wonder as a songwriter and as a mature artist in general.
In the months and years that followed ‘Uptight’, the track took on a life of its own, becoming a popular track within the northern soul scene during the early 1970s, further establishing Wonder as an artist to pay attention to. With regard to Wonder, ‘Uptight’ seemed to send him catapulting headfirst into the world of songwriting. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wonder worked prolifically, crafting countless now-iconic tracks like ‘For Once In My Life’ and ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ in addition to truly groundbreaking albums such as Talking Book and, of course, Songs In the Key of Life.
These seminal works cemented Wonder’s now unchallengeable position as one of the greatest musicians and songwriters of the 20th century, but it all started with the seemingly inconspicuous release of his 1965 single ‘Uptight (Everything’s Alright)’.
