Stevie Wonder – "I Was Made to Love Her" (1967)

You know my papa disapproved it

My mama boo-hooed it

Lula Mae Hardaway – who was born in Eufala, Alabama, in 1930 – didn't have an easy life.

Her unmarried teenaged mother gave her to a sharecropping uncle and aunt to raise.  When they died, she lived with various relatives before moving to Saginaw, Michigan.  There she married a much older man who physically abused her and forced her into prostitution for a time.

Lula Mae Hardaway with
her son, Stevie Wonder

Her third child – who she named Stevland – was born prematurely, and became blind when he was given too much oxygen while in an incubator.  His mother believed at first that his blindness was God's way of punishing her for her sins.

Stevland’s blindness didn’t prevent him from becoming a musical prodigy who was offered a recording contract by Motown Records when he was just 11 years old.   As "Little Stevie Wonder," he became the youngest recording artist to ever have a #1 hit single when "Fingertips" made it all the way to the top of the Billboard "Hot 100" when he was only 13.

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Lula Mae Hardaway co-wrote several of her son’s other hits – including "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" and "I Was Made to Love Her," which today becomes a member of the 2 OR 3 LINES "GOLDEN DECADE" HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.

Hardaway died in 2006 at age 76.  She was survived by five children and 20 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

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Click here to listen to "I Was Made to Love Her," which peaked at #2 on the "Hot 100" in July 1967.  (The Doors' "Light My Fire" kept the record out of the top spot.)

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.