Unit 3

Text A

Listening

First Listening
Before listening to the tape, have a quick look at the following word.

amaze
使惊羡

drum
鼓

harmonica
口琴

rock and roll music
摇滚乐

porch
门廊

audition
试唱

hit
轰动一时的人（或事、物）

album
集锦密纹唱片

influential
有影响的

encounter
遭到

charts
排行榜

Second Listening
Listen to the tape again. Then, choose the best answer to each of the following questions.

1. The main purpose of the listening passage is________.
A) to give an overview of Stevie Wonder's life and career
B) to analyze Stevie Wonder's most popular albums
C) to discuss different types of music in the U.S.
D) to discuss the status of blind people in the U.S.
2. Stevie's career as a pop musician can be described as________.
A) a long struggle to gain fame
B) great success from a young age on
C) a long but unremarkable career
D) early popularity that didn't last
3. Which of the following problems did Stevie NOT have to overcome?
A) Being born poor and blind.
B) An unhappy childhood.
C) A serious car accident.
D) Both A) and B).
4. Which of the following best describes Stevie Wonder?
A) A musician who sings mostly about love and romance.
B) A musician who is popular because he is blind.
C) A man who has been very successful despite many obstacles.
D) A typical poor black person in the U.S..

Pre-reading Questions

1. Do you know who Stevie Wonder is? What do you know about him and his accomplishments?
2. Besides Stevie Wonder, what other people with physical disabilities do you know about who have achieved fame and success? Describe who they are and what they have done.
3. How do you think you would feel if you became blind? How would it affect your life?

Stevie Wonder: Sunshine in the Shadow

When Stevie Morris was born, on May 13, 1950, the doctors shook their heads and told the mother that her son was born blind and likely would always be that way. She broke into tears.
Blind and black and poor — what kind of life could this new infant have? In her wildest dreams, Mrs. Morris could never have imagined that her new baby would become a famous musician called Stevie Wonder. At the time, all she could do was pray — and worry.
Stevie himself didn't worry at all. Life was too full. He was brought up among church-going people whose faith helped them bear the poverty. He loved music and would pound spoons or forks on any surface that faintly resembled a drum.
He even ran and played with sighted children. "I didn't realize I was blind until I was about four," he says. That might sound strange. To a small child just learning about the world, it wasn't strange at all. Stevie heard and smelled and touched. As far as he knew, that was all anyone could do. That was life.
When Stevie's mother got tired of her tables being used for drums, she bought him a toy set. He played so hard that he had actually worn the toy out within a few weeks. Other toy sets followed; then an uncle added a toy harmonica, and Stevie learned to play it so quickly that everyone was amazed.
Stevie taught himself to play the piano as quickly as he had once learned the harmonica. With friends, he began playing rock and roll music. They performed on the front porch of Stevie's apartment building, drawing crowds of neighbors to watch and listen and clap time to the beat.
"I loved that beat," Stevie says. He not only loved the beat, he was very good at making it.
Ronnie White, of the Miracles singing group, heard Stevie and promptly took him down to his recording company, Motown Records.
"Give him an audition," Ronnie said. They did. All the top people at Motown got together to hear a little blind boy who wasn't even ten years old yet. At first, they were being nice. Poor kid. They didn't want to hurt his feelings.
Then they heard Stevie sing and play, and nobody said "poor kid" anymore. They were too busy congratulating themselves on finding a youngster who could be the musical talent of the decade. "He's a wonder boy," somebody said as they watched little Stevie dart from one instrument to the next, playing each one with ease.
"Wonder," somebody else said, "Little Stevie Wonder."
The new name stuck and Stevie Morris became Little Stevie Wonder. He had his first hit when he was twelve years old. It was called "Fingertips" and it was a smash.
Over the following years, Little Stevie Wonder became one of the top recording artists at Motown, producing one hit after another. But as he grew into adulthood, Stevie began to get tired of the way the Motown company controlled all aspects of his career. He wanted to write and produce his own songs, but the Motown company thought it was unwise to change a winning formula.
When he turned 21, Stevie finally got his freedom. Against Motown's wishes he started exploring: he made records that combined gospel, rock and roll, and jazz and which used African and Latin American rhythms. To the record company's surprise, Stevie's new albums such as "Music of My Mind" and "Innervisions" were even more popular than his early ones. Stevie Wonder had become a mature man and an independent musical artist.
Just after this success, however, tragedy struck. In August of 1973, Stevie was involved in a serious car accident. For nearly a week he lay in a coma, unable to speak or walk. "We don't know when he'll be out of danger," the doctor said. Everyone waited and prayed. Suddenly, it didn't matter that Stevie was a musical genius or that he had conquered blindness and poverty. All he had left was his faith and strong will.
That turned out to be enough. Stevie fought back from the shadow of death as he had once fought out from the shadow of blindness. He went on to give more performances, make more hit records.
The car accident changed Stevie by making him reevaluate his goals in life. He still loved to make music, but he also started to pay more attention to the world outside. He worked to create a national holiday to honor the civil rights leader Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.. He recorded songs urging racial harmony and raised money to end world hunger. Recently, Stevie was honored by South African president Nelson Mandela for his work against that country's system of racial apartheid.
Stevie Wonder has faith and fame, wealth and love. He has not only conquered his own darkness, but through his music and his social activities he has been able to bring sunshine to the shadow of many other lives.
(834 words)

New Words

sunshine
n. the light and heat of the sun 阳光

infant
n. a very young child 婴儿

musician
n. a person who performs on a musical instrument, or who writes music 乐师，作曲家

pray
vi. (for, to) speak to God in order to give thanks or to ask for help 祈祷，祈求

spoon
n. 匙，调羹

faintlh
ad. slightly; mildly 轻微地；微弱地