Stevie Wonder’s first studio album released under the name “Stevie Wonder” was “Up-Tight.”
Motown originally marketed the young performer as Little Stevie Wonder. The album “Up-Tight,” released in 1966, marked the transition to the shorter professional name that he would use for the rest of his career.
The record included “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” a major hit that helped establish Wonder as more than a novelty child performer. By this stage, he was increasingly involved in shaping his recordings and developing the distinctive soul style that defined his mature career.
Wonder had already released several albums under the Little Stevie Wonder name, including “The 12 Year Old Genius” and “Stevie at the Beach.” The naming change is therefore a useful way to distinguish his early child-star catalog from the adult period that followed. “Up-Tight” is also sometimes written with different capitalization in discographies.