Fingertips

Clarence Paul and Henry Cosby wrote Fingertips, and it began as a jazz instrumental on Wonder's first studio album, The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie. The version that became a hit was recorded live during a Motortown Revue performance at the Regal Theater in Chicago. It has only a few stanzas of improvised lyrics and is essentially an instrumental meant to show off Wonder on bongos and harmonica.

The single split the performance into two parts. Part 2 begins when Wonder shouts for the audience to say yeah, and it includes an encore nobody expected. Wonder had started to leave the stage and the band went into its exit music, and the bass players had changed over for the next act, Mary Wells. When he came back, the new bass player, Joe Swift, can be heard shouting What key? What key?

The single came out on 21 May 1963 with Part 2 on the B-side, and by August that side had reached number one on both the Billboard Pop and R&B singles charts. It was Motown's second number one pop hit, after the Marvelettes' Please Mr. Postman. In Canada it reached number six. Marvin Gaye played drums on both the studio and live versions, and the bass credits list James Jamerson, Larry Moses and Joe Swift.