stevie wonder

11.28.09

Stevie Wonder: Geek Musician

Tech-savvy artist pushes for gadgets that everyone can use

By Sean Captain Posted 01.13.2009 at 8:12 am 1 Comment

High-Tech Musician: Stevie Wonder, a voracious consumer of technology, wants manufacturers to make their products accessible to everyone. Lamar Mitchell

Twenty-two-time Grammy winner Stevie Wonder has created new sounds, even genres, by absorbing and reshaping every musical and audio technology he's encountered.

"He's always the first," says Lamar Mitchell, one of Wonder's technology assistants. "He was the first one to have a sampler…He was one of the first guys messing with drum machine technology." The distinct sound of Wonder's 1972 blockbuster hit, Superstition, came from a novelty piano/electric guitar hybrid instrument called the Höhner Clavinet. "It was meant to be an electric harpsichord," said Mitchell. "And then something happened when Stevie got it."

Though blind, Wonder has mastered the visually-oriented personal computer—both PCs and Macs.

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