Stevland Hardaway Judkins, better known as Stevie Wonder, signed with Motown records in 1961 at the age of 11. By 13, he had his first major hit, "Fingertips, (Part 2)", which was a live recording of a Little Stevie Wonder performance during one of the famous Motown road shows, the "Motortown Revue".
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(a jam session at Motown: berry gordy on the piano, marv johnson at far left, smokey robinson in rear, kim weston on microphone and stevie wonder at right)
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The song, which also featured a young Marvin Gaye on drums, hit the #1 spot on this day, August 24, in 1963. The accompanying album, "Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius", had already been #1 on the album charts, which meant that Little Stevie Wonder became the first artist to have an album and single to hit #1 at the same time. Wonder also created a record unbroken to this day, that being the youngest artist to have a #1 album. The album went on to sell a million copies and made Little Stevie Wonder a teen idol.
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Today is also notable in music history for being the day that Queen began recording one of their most famous songs, "Bohemian Rhapsody". Freddie Mercury wrote the song, a strange mix of hard rock, opera and pop balladry, and after a three week rehearsal, the British rock group headed for the recording studio. Little did they know they would be there for three weeks, singing and playing for 10-12 hours per day. Lead guitarist Brian May related in a recent interview with National Public Radio that the recording tape had to be overdubbed so many times to carry all the multi-layered vocals of the quartet that the tape was worn almost through.
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After the single's release in 1976, it went to #9 in the U.S. but it hit #1 in Great Britain and stayed there for nine weeks. In 1991, after Mercury's death, it hit #1 in the U.K. again for another five weeks, which made it the third best selling single of all time in the U.K. The song also had a rebirth in the U.S., climbing to #2 on the pop charts after it was featured prominently in the 1992 Mike Myers film, "Wayne's World". Rolling Stone Magazine ranked "Bohemian Rhapsody" as the 163rd greatest song in their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Queen recorded a promotional video to accompany the song, which wasn't completely new, other artists, including Queen, had filmed videos of their songs before. But after the popularity of the video for "Bohemian Rhapsody", record companies for the first time began to see the value of making videos for their own artists, which, of course, paved the way for a little network which would come along five years later called MTV.
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Much as been made of the odd lyrics in the song, particularly in the opera section, and the song's overall meaning. Many feel that lead singer Freddie Mercury, who was struggling to become open about his homosexuality, wrote the lyrics of a young man crying "Let me go", to describe his desire to be freed from "the closet" of his secret gay identity. Others see the song as the straightforward telling of the story of a man who has killed another man and is begging to be freed from his impending execution. Whatever the song means, we would guess that everyone agrees that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is one of the greatest songs in rock history from one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
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