THERE'S ABILITY IN DISABILITY.

The Story of Stevie Wonder 

Most a times people believe that blind men and women are more likely to have a gift for music that sighted people, and it's true that many blind musicians have become international starts. For example, both Mariam Doumbia and Amadou Bagayoko, the Malian man and wife musical partnership who are famous for their 'Afro Blues' music, have been blind since childhood. 

Other famous blind singers are Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, both Afro-American blues and soul musicians. 

This is the story of one of them.

Singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder was born Steveland Judhkins on May 13th 1950 in the American state of Michigan. He was the third of six children and he has been blind since soon after birth, but has never looked upon his blindness as a handicap. "I did what all the kids my age were doing, I played games, rode bikes and climbed trees," he said.

Once, when he was a little boy, he decided to jump from the roof of the shed in his back yard. He wanted to take risks, live a little, like other kids.

His brother warned him that his mother was coming, and I'd she saw him jump she'd beat the stuffing out of him. Steveland jumped, and at that moment his mother walked past and miraculously caught him in her arms. "I knew I would be OK. I always had faith," he said

Stevie Wonder's interest in music began when he was very small. "I remember when I was three or four listening to music on the radio and being curious about how to worked," he said. Then when his mother brought a TV he was amazed. "I said, 'Man, you can see people on this thing?' I held my ears to the speaker and Imagine what was being shown on the screen."

Steveland Judhkins become Steveland Morris when his mother, who till then had brought her children up single-handedly, remarried. However, when Steveland Morris was spotted by a record company boss at the age of 10, he was named 'the boy wonder' - and so 'Little Stevie Wonder' was born. Later 'little' Stevie grew very tall, discarded the 'little' and became just Stevie Wonder - and in a very short time he was one of the world's top music stars.

As a small boy Stevie was always listening to the musicians of the day on the radio, and his hero was Ray Charles. 

 If Ray Charles, black, Blind and poor, could make it, so could Stevie. "The two advantages I had at birth were to be born wise, clever and into poverty." he once said.

By the time Stevie was four he could play piano, organ, drums, bongo and harmonica. By nine he was singing regularly in church. At twelve, as Little Stevie Wonder, he was at the top of the US music chart with his third single, Fingertips part 2. Then his voice 'broke', but he continued to have many hits in the late 1960s and also wrote many songs for other singers. And year by Year his music continued to evolved.

Stevie Wonder's most accomplished music was produced in the seventies, and his most famous album is called 'Song in the Key Life'. These songs are full of light and happiness, a mixture of gospel and soul music.

His singing and playing, finger clicking, foot tapping, smiling and laughing, make everyone in his audience feel happy and joyful.

Does he ever cause his blindness? "No. I've never felt, 'Oh My God - why did you do this to me, God?'"

In fact a few years ago he once visited an eye specialist who offered him an operation to make him see and Stevie refused it. He said that he was happy as he was.