Today's hot story: A student at the esteemed Stuyvesant High School has reportedly made more than $72 million while playing the stock market during his lunch break. The Queens resident, who is being referred to as the "Teen Wolf (of Wall Street)" is also rumored to have already bought a BMW with the payouts, although he doesn't have a license to drive it. It's tough to compare big time investors such as this prodigy will probably become with musicians, because investors just make more money. Period. We can compare this young man to those in the music industry who got their starts at an incredibly young age.
Check out this group of performers and when they hit no. 1 for the first time.
Helen Shapiro and "You Don't Know" (Age: 14)
Pop and jazz vocalist Helen Shapiro was 14 when her second single, "You Don't Know," topped the British charts and made her the youngest female in the country's history to do so. She narrowly missed with her first single, the appropriately titled "Don't Treat Me Like A Child." Her advanced chart topping might have been due to her deep timbre, an unusual voice quality for someone so young (which reportedly led to her being nicknamed "Foghorn" at school). She had some big-name (literal) support: Her first band featured Marc Bolan on guitar before he found fame with T-Rex and The Beatles first British tour was as her supporting act.
Donny Osmond and "Go Away Little Girl" (Age: 13)
Donny Osmond was the most famous member (perhaps with competition from his sister Marie) of the second most popular act in the oddly large "brother pop group" subcategory. The Osmonds group, featuring all (then) seven siblings, hit the big time after appearing on The Andy Williams Show during the '60s, which opened up the way for the individual members to create solo careers for themselves as well. "Go Away Little Girl" was also Osmond's second single (and it would be his only one to peak at no. 1). Perhaps he was trying to show some early teenage spunk by labeling others as "little" despite his own age.
Stevie Wonder and "Fingertips - Part 1 & 2" (Age: 12)
If you thought you-know-who was the only boy wonder working under the Motown label, you'd be incorrect. Stevie (then under his legal surname "Morris") Wonder was signed by Berry Gordy to the label at the age of 11, where producer Clarence Paul dubbed him "Little Stevie Wonder" for his prodigious skills. His unusually young age led to Motown setting up a system where he and his mother would be paid a weekly stipend and his royalties would feed into a trust fund that he could access when he turned 21. In short, he had a massive amount of money to pay for the bar tab at his 21st birthday. His first single to crack the Hot 100 was "Fingertips - Part 1 & 2," which went to the top. It wouldn't be until the classic '72 single "Superstition" that he would hit the top spot again (admittedly a lot would follow after that). The best part about this single? Wonder still looks about as cool as a cat can get on the album art at age 12, wearing his trademark shades.
Michael Jackson and "I Want You Back" (Age: 11)
Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5 make up the aforementioned Motown you-know-who and the aforementioned brothers pop group bigger than The Osmonds. The group was especially interesting that the headliner was youngest brother Michael from the get-go. Another thing this group has on the other acts on this list: They didn't peak with a no. 1 and then wait for a decade for another. The vocal group's first four singles all went to no. 1, beginning with "I Want You Back" and continuing with "ABC," "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There." It would;t be too long before they were the main draw over Diana Ross, who's listed as "presenting" the band on its first album for commercial purposes.
Little Jimmy Osmond and "Long Haired Loved from Liverpool" (Age: 9)
You thought Donny was going to be the only wunderkind coming out of the Osmond clan on this list? The former may have been the hit in the United States but Jimmy, the youngest of the nine Osmond children, gathered fame abroad. Somehow his mother thought that "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool" sounded like an okay track for a nine year-old to sing, so "Little Jimmy" took a crack at it before he and his brethren went on a European tour in 1972. The song went crazy on the UK, which led to Osmond still having the record today for the youngest performer ever to chart in the commonwealth. That's nothing compared to his first solo single, "My Little Darling," which earned him a gold record in Japan at the age of five.
