The Wonder Of Music

Stevie Wonder says he was "overjoyed" Monday night as he was honored by the Grammys as the MusiCares Person of the Year, reports CBS This Morning Contributor Eleanor Mondale.

He was recognized not only for his professional accomplishments, but for his work to raise awareness about drunk driving and for championing civil rights in South Africa.

"Everyone in the music business adores Stevie Wonder as much as the public adores him," says singer Tony Bennett who, with Gloria Estefan, serenaded Wonder Monday night.

Past MusiCares honorees have included Luciano Pavarotti, Phil Collins, Quincy Jones, and David Crosby.

Songs like Superstition, You Are the Sunshine of My Life, and I Just Called To Say I Love You are among the songs that have given Wonder 25 No. 1 singles. But when CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen asks Wonder to name his own favorites, his first choice is Love's in Need of Love Today.

"I felt it made a statement," Wonder says. "When I first wrote the songÂ…I knew what I wanted to say. But I didn't have all the things in between."

When he was in the studio working on the song, Wonder says, he was thinking about the late singer Sam Cooke. "I almost imagined he was in the studio with me," Wonder recalls.

Wonder has been nominated 59 times for Grammys, and has won 19 times. This year, he's up for two more, in the categories of pop collaboration with vocals and male R&B vocal performance.

Wonder won his first Grammy in 1974, with You Are the Sunshine of My Life.

How did winning a Grammy change his life? "Big head. Ego. Major ego," Wonder quips. "I told people to stop talking to me."

On the day of the Grammy awards ceremony all those years ago, Wonder wasn't sure he would even attend the event. But then he heard that, in a pre-show ceremony, his album won an engineering award.

"So I said, 'You know what? Maybe I need to go there and check it out. There may be something in it for me, kid'," Wonder says. "And so I went, and I was utterly shocked. I was totally shocked."

The song that most changed his career, says Wonder, is My Cherie Amore, which he wrote for a girl named Marcia when he was about 16 years old.

"Now what happened was, Marcia and I broke up. And I saidÂ…'Okay, I'm gonna change some words to the song.' So Oh My Marcia turned into My Cherie Amore."

As a performer, Wonder often uses his music to comment on social issues.

"God has blessed me with an opportunity to express [myself] not only from an African-American point of view but from the humankind point of view, which is everyone, whatever ethnicity you are. wherever you're from, whatever the color of your skin," he explains. "I think that we have far more in common with each other than those who try to divide us would like to believe."

One of his first "social sngs" was Living For the City, which was inspired by the urban settings of New York and Detroit. Wonder wrote the song on a Saturday in New York City. But he says the tune really was inspired by the mood of another song: Summer in the City.

"I rememberÂ…riding around Detroit, hanging out as a teen-ager and stuff, and I used to like the song," he says. "It was the energy of the song that I liked a lot. And so that was something in my brain."

The Grammy Awards ceremony will be televised live on CBS Wednesday night.