User:Stevie Stewart

Born Steven Patrick Stewart in Minneapolis Minnesota in 1962 to the parents Ray Stewart and Beth Mary Spear Quiggle Stewart. Beth was born from a very long line of musically talented people. She remembers being a very young girl living at her grandmothers after her father had died at her age 3. She would sit on the upstairs and peek down on the adults singing and playing music and dancing and having fun. Beth herself was a trained pianist from a very young age. Stevie grew up in Fridley Minnesota until his parents divorced and both remarried. During early childhood Stevie was so extremely overly hyperactive that he was sent to the washburn clinic in Minneapolis to have studies conducted. After initial studies the doctor recommended that Stevie be placed in the basement with pots and pans and various silver wear to act out his hyper actions. Stevie would place these pots and pans in a circle around him and pound out the beats that were playing on the record player near him. It was very soon discovered that the hyper action in his mind was extremely active musical rhythms and beats in his mind. Stevie would sit in between speakers and rock back and fourth to music for hours on end. Stevie recalls: "Sitting between the speakers and disappearing into the music playing on the record player was my very favorite activity. I remember sitting there rocking back and fourth and gathering every beat in my mind. " Stevie's mother placed him in a musical drum lesson class at the age 4 at a little music store in Fridley. He moved very fast through the material but had much difficulty with holding on to the reading skill because of his fast ability to play whatever he heard. This allowed him to trod through his piece of music and then just play it without ever looking at the music. This drum teacher was the first person to realize that Stevie was perhaps prodigious. Stevie's mother then tried teaching Stevie a song on the piano. She would show him her hands playing something and Stevie would just nearly instantaneously repeat it.