Stevie Wonder Trivia
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49 free Stevie Wonder trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
47 free Stevie Wonder trivia questions with answers. Stevie Wonder signed to Motown at 11, topped the Hot 100 at 13 and then, in the five years after his 21st birthday, made a run of albums that many musicians consider the greatest sustained streak in pop history. This quiz covers the whole story: the Saginaw birth and the incubator that cost him his sight, Little Stevie and 'Fingertips', the flop years and Sylvia Moy's rescue, the synthesizer partnership behind Music of My Mind and Talking Book, the 1973 car crash, three Album of the Year Grammys in a row, and the 1980s hits with McCartney, the Oscar and the Martin Luther King Day campaign. The easy questions ask what he won the Oscar for and which holiday 'Happy Birthday' fought for. The hard ones want his first Motown stipend, his 1971 royalty rate, who blocked 'Sir Duke' from No. 1 in Britain and which Detroit street now bears his name. It suits a Motown-themed pub round, a soul playlist night or a birthday party for anyone who owns Innervisions on vinyl. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on Wonder, his albums and his songs, and each question shows the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Michigan city was Stevie Wonder born in 1950?
Saginaw
Saginaw: when he was four, his mother moved the family to Detroit, where he sang in a church choir.
Q 02What condition left Stevie Wonder blind in infancy?
Retinopathy of prematurity
Retinopathy of prematurity, in which abnormal vessel growth detaches the retinas, was worsened by the oxygen-rich incubator air given to the six-weeks-early newborn.
Q 03Which Motown label signed the 11-year-old Stevie Wonder in 1961?
Tamla
Tamla: Ronnie White of the Miracles had heard the boy sing and brought him to audition at Motown.
Q 04Stevie Wonder cleared his song for which 1995 rap hit only after the rapper removed the swearing?
Gangsta's Paradise
Gangsta's Paradise: it reworks his 'Pastime Paradise', and Wonder joined Coolio to perform it at the 1995 Billboard Music Awards.
Q 05Stevie Wonder's first hit, 'Fingertips', was recorded live at which Chicago venue?
The Regal Theater
The Regal Theater: Motown split the long live track across both sides of a single, and radio stations chose Part 2, the B-side.
Q 06Which future Motown star played drums on 'Fingertips'?
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye: before his own hits took off, he was one of Motown's house drummers, backing Wonder and other acts.
Q 07On the live recording of 'Fingertips', a replacement bassist is heard shouting what during the encore?
What key? What key?
What key? What key?: the bass players had just swapped over for the next act, Mary Wells, when Wonder came back for an unplanned encore.
Q 08Which Motown songwriter saved Stevie Wonder from being dropped, then co-wrote 'Uptight (Everything's Alright)'?
Sylvia Moy
Sylvia Moy persuaded Berry Gordy to keep the teenager whose voice was changing, then co-wrote 'Uptight (Everything's Alright)', which reached No. 3 in early 1966.
Q 09Under what pseudonym did Wonder release his 1968 instrumental album?
Eivets Rednow
Eivets Rednow, his name spelled backwards, fronted a mostly harmonica album whose 'Alfie' single peaked at No. 66 on the Hot 100 in 1968.
Q 10Which was Stevie Wonder's first-ever self-produced single?
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: taking charge as producer, he swapped Motown's usual backing singers for a vocal trio he chose himself.
Q 11Which former Motown secretary and songwriter did Stevie Wonder marry in 1970?
Syreeta Wright
Syreeta Wright: they divorced in 1972, yet he kept working on her records, including Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta in 1974.
Q 12Stevie Wonder's early 1970s synthesizer co-producers had recorded together as which electronic act?
Tonto's Expanding Head Band
Tonto's Expanding Head Band: Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil brought their custom TONTO synthesizer, which shaped several of his celebrated 1970s albums.
Q 13Which March 1972 album began Wonder's synthesizer partnership with co-producers Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil?
Music of My Mind
Q 21Which Wonder song did the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover on their 1989 album Mother's Milk?
Higher Ground
Higher Ground: after his 1973 crash, his road manager sang it into Wonder's ear as he lay in a coma, and his fingers began moving in time.
Q 22Which 1979 release was Stevie Wonder's first new album in three years?
Secret Life of Plants
Secret Life of Plants: to score the documentary, he had the film's producer describe each scene to him in detail.
Q 23Wonder's single 'Happy Birthday' was a vehicle for his campaign to create which national holiday?
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Music of My Mind: it peaked at only No. 21 on the pop chart, but the same team went on to make Talking Book later that year.
Q 14Which rock band did Stevie Wonder open for on their 1972 American tour?
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones took Wonder out as the opening act on their 1972 American tour, exposing his new synthesizer-driven music to white rock audiences.
Q 15Which guitarist was originally meant to release 'Superstition' before Wonder?
Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck was promised the song for helping at the Talking Book sessions, but Motown rushed out Wonder's version, which hit No. 1; Beck's own version followed in 1973 on Beck, Bogert & Appice.
Q 16Wonder was nearly killed in a car crash three days after releasing which album?
Innervisions
Innervisions: surviving the crash deepened his faith and his sense of purpose; he said God had given him life to do more.
Q 17Which sense did Wonder partially lose as a result of his 1973 car accident?
Smell
Smell: doctors suggested plastic surgery for the scar the crash left on his forehead, but he chose to keep it as a reminder.
Q 18Which 1976 Album of the Year winner jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder for going a year without an album?
Paul Simon
Paul Simon: Wonder had won Album of the Year the two previous years, and he won it again the year after.
Q 19Songs in the Key of Life was the first American album to do what on the Billboard chart?
Debut at No. 1
Debut at No. 1: its release ran so late that Motown put out T-shirts joking that it was nearly finished.
Q 20Stevie Wonder played the harmonica solo on 'I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues' by which star?
Elton John
Elton John: within weeks of his near-fatal 1973 car crash, Wonder was back onstage jamming with him.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day was the goal; 'Happy Birthday' (1980) became the anthem of the campaign, and the holiday was signed into law in 1983 and first observed in 1986.
Q 24Which 1982 No. 1 duet paired Wonder with Paul McCartney?
Ebony and Ivory
Ebony and Ivory: they recorded it together on Montserrat, but clashing schedules meant they filmed their parts of the video separately.
Q 25Wonder wrote the lyrics to 'Stay Gold', the theme for which 1983 Francis Ford Coppola film?
The Outsiders
The Outsiders: the song's title echoes Johnny's parting words to Ponyboy, 'stay gold', a callback to the Robert Frost poem Ponyboy recites.
Q 26'I Just Called to Say I Love You' won an Academy Award as the theme of which film?
The Woman in Red
The Woman in Red: songwriter Lloyd Chiate later sued, claiming he had written it, but a jury sided with Wonder in 1990.
Q 27Which Chaka Khan hit features Stevie Wonder on harmonica alongside rapper Melle Mel?
I Feel for You
I Feel for You: Prince wrote it and offered it to Patrice Rushen, who turned it down, before recording it himself in 1979.
Q 28On 'We Are the World', Stevie Wonder shared a featured duet passage with which artist?
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen: the recording could gather so many stars because they were already in town for the American Music Awards.
Q 29For which Spike Lee film did Stevie Wonder record a full soundtrack album in 1991?
Jungle Fever
Jungle Fever (1991) got a full Wonder album, with singles 'Gotta Have You' and 'Fun Day'; he later wrote two songs for Lee's Bamboozled (2000).
Q 30Which Latin pop star co-headlined the 1999 Super Bowl halftime show with Wonder?
Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan: the show even featured a cameo by E.T., there to plug its sponsor, Progressive auto insurance.