| Steveland Morris is a household name in
America. Ask Steveland Morris and he'll tell you that blindness is not
necessarily disabling. Steveland was born prematurely(过早地，不到期地) and totally
without sight in 1950s. He became Stevie Wonder—composer, singer, and pianist.
The winner of ten Grammy awards, Stevie is widely acclaimed(喝采) for his
outstanding contributions to the music world. As a child, Stevie learned not to think about the things he could not do, but to concentrate on the things that he could do. His parents encouraged him to join his sighted brothers in as many activities as possible. They also helped him to sharpen his sense of hearing, the sense upon which the usually disabled are so dependent. Because sound was so important to him, Stevie began at an early age to experiment with different kinds of sound. He would bang things together and then imitate the sound with his voice. Often relying on sound for entertainment, he sang, beat on toy drums, played a toy harmonica(口琴), and listened to the radio. Stevie soon graduated from toy instruments to real instruments. He first learned to play the drams. He then mastered the harmonica and the piano. He became a member of the junior church choir(唱诗班) and a lead singer. In the evening and on weekends, Stevie would play different instruments and sing popular rhythm and blues tunes on the front porches (走廊)of neighbors' homes. One of Stevie's sessions was overheard by Ronnie White, a member of a popular singing group called The Miracles. Ronnie immediately recognized Stevie's talent and took him to audition(试听) for Berry Gordy, the president of Hitsville USA, a large recording company now known as Motown. Stevie recorded his first smash hit "Fingertips" in 1962 at age twelve, and the rest of Stevie's story is music history. |