Mitch Albom writes a touching, sad story about Margaret Terry Glover and her brother John Glover and Stevie Wonder.
Back in the day, the Free Press columnist writes, Wonder was a blind kid named Stevie Judkins. His mother would drop him off at the Glover's small house on 25th Street on Detroit's west side.
John Glover, now 66, played guitar. Margaret, now 72, would teach Stevie, now 64, piano chords, Albom writes.
“He played a lot with one finger, and I showed him how to use two hands to make it sound better,” Margaret says. “After that, all he wanted to do was music. He said if he could beat me playing piano one day, that would be the best thing in the world.”
Wonder went on to become a musical sensation. The Glovers live on a fixed income in a broken down house -- the same one they grew up in. John was Wonder's earliest musical partner, Albom writes.
John Glover wrote the No. 1 hit song "You Don’t Have to Be a Star (To Be In My Show) in the 1970s for Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Albom writes. Glover says he also wrote for the Jackson 5, Tom Jones, the Supremes, and Donny and Marie. Margaret had a record that never took off.
John talks about in a video about how he blew his money, mismanaging it, investing in businesses, failing to pay taxes, buying homes and cars and helping out folks.
Albom writes:
The piano they gathered around, a Wurlitzer upright, still sits in the corner, yellowed and dusty. It was the launching pad for a Motown legend.
But that rocket took off long ago.
“I was hoping we could sell it,” Margaret says now, her hands clasped in front of her. “I don’t know who would want it, but if someone would — you know, a piano Stevie Wonder learned to play on? — maybe it could help us.”
