Who is the youngest solo artist with a number one hit?
There’s a reason why a young Stevland Hardaway Morris came to be known as “Little Stevie Wonder“. As a blind keyboard prodigy, Wonder was signed by Motown Records at the ripe age of just 11 years old. In time, Wonder would become a completely self-sufficient artist by writing, producing, and playing all the instruments on most of his major hits and chart-topping albums. But in the early 1960s, Wonder was best known for his enthusiastic demeanour and spirited harmonica playing.
When he was first signed, Wonder was moulded as Motown’s answer to Ray Charles. In fact, Wonder’s second album was a direct link to Charles, Tribute to Uncle Ray. But Wonder wasn’t much of a cover artist – he was already beginning to write songs and carve out a unique identity by the time he turned 13. Still, his claim to fame was his live show with the Motortown Revue. Surrounded by members of Motown’s in-house band, The Funk Brothers, including Marvin Gaye on drums, Wonder stormed the stage with his multi-instrumental prowess.
Across just a few songs, Wonder would hop from piano to bongos to drums to harmonica, showing off his inherent instrumental talent while remaining a charismatic singer all at the same time. Wonder’s young age was certainly a novelty, but his musical abilities were anything but. Wonder was sharing the stage with established hitmakers like Smokey Robinson and Mary Wells while holding his own. It was one the Motortown Revue tour that Wonder recorded what would be his first number one single.
‘Fingertips’ was originally written by Motown staff writers Clarence Paul and Henry Cosby, who produced Wonder’s first album, The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie, and wrote most of his material. On that album, ‘Fingertips’ was a jazzy instrumental track featuring Wonder on bongos. In the live setting, Wonder added an extended solo on harmonica and improvised audience participation, including a call-and-response section toward the song’s ending. That part of the track, ‘Fingertips Pt. 2’, was eventually released as a single in 1963.
‘Fingertips Pt. 2’ was unique for a number of reasons. Wonder improvised the ending of the song each night, with the single version featuring Wonder adding a musical nod to ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ before the band behind him signals for the song’s end. MC Winehead Willie got the crowd to give Wonder a departing message, but Wonder returned to the microphone for a coda. Joe Swift, the bassist who backed up Wells, had already taken his place at the amplifier and had to call out to the other musicians what key the song was in to keep it going.
The raw excitement and energy of ‘Fingertips Pt. 2′ propelled Wonder into the national spotlight. It became Motown’s second number one pop hit after The Marvelettes’ ‘Please Mr. Postman’ and strongly deviated from Berry Gordy’s immaculately supervised assembly line style of artist management. At just 13 years old, Wonder had become the youngest artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to score a number one hit.
Wonder used his new clout to forge his own path in Motown. He dropped the “Little” from his name and began pushing for his material. However, Motown was more concerned with conforming to the sounds and styles of the day that white audiences would accept. Wonder recorded an album of standards and an album of lounge music before appearing in two different surf-centric beach movies throughout 1963 and 1964. All the while, his voice began to change as he hit puberty, concerning the executives at Motown.
After going two years without another major hit, Wonder pushed to have ‘Uptight (Everything’s Alright)’, the first single that he co-wrote himself, be released at the end of 1965. The track was a breakthrough for Wonder, landing at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1966. Now fully removed from his status of a child prodigy, Wonder got down to the business of writing and recording music on his own terms.
