Stevie Wonder Later career, 1991–present
 In 1962, at the age of 12, Morris was introduced to Ronnie White of the popular Motown act The Miracles. White brought Morris and his mother to Motown Records. Impressed by the young musician, Motown CEO Berry Gordy signed Morris to Motown's Tamla label with the name Little Stevie Wonder.
At the age of 13, Little Stevie Wonder had his first major hit, Fingertips (Pt. 2), a 1963 single taken from a live recording of a Motor Town Revue performance. The song, featuring Wonder on vocals, bongos, and harmonica, and a young Marvin Gaye on drums, was a #1 hit on the US pop charts and launched him into the public consciousness. Dropping the Little from his moniker, Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s, including Uptight (Everything's Alright), With a Child's Heart, and Blowin' in the Wind, a Bob Dylan cover which was one of the first songs to reflect Wonder's social consciousness. He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his labelmates. One such example is Tears of a Clown, the number one hit performed by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.
In 1968, he recorded an album of instrumental jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the pseudonym (and title) Eivets Rednow, which is Stevie Wonder spelled backwards. The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of Alfie, only reached number 66 on the US Pop charts and number 11 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. It was reissued briefly on compact disc in 1995, and is now a much sought-after collectible.
By 1970, Wonder had scored more major hits, including I Was Made to Love Her, For Once in My Life, My Cherie Amour, and Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours. Besides being one of the first songs on which Wonder serves as both songwriter and producer, Signed, Sealed, Delivered is one of the main showcases for his backup group Wonderlove, a trio which included at various times Minnie Riperton, Deniece Williams, Lynda Laurence, and Syreeta Wright, whom Wonder married on September 14, 1970. Wonder and Wright divorced eighteen months later, but they continued to collaborate on musical projects. Wonder also played drums on the Jimi Hendrix cover of I Was Made to Love Her on the BBC Sessions album.
Along with Marvin Gaye, Wonder was one of the few Motown stars to contest the label's factory-like operation methods: artists, songwriters, and producers were usually kept in specialized collectives with little or no overlap, and artists had no creative control. Wonder argued with Berry Gordy over creative control a number of times. As a compromise, Motown released an album under the name Eivets Rednow (Stevie Wonder backwards). These arguments continued, and Wonder allowed his Motown contract to expire. He left the label on his twenty-first birthday in 1971. His final album before his departure was Where I'm Coming From, which Gordy had strongly fought against releasing.
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