Mel Melton still remembers the first time he ever saw Stevie Wonder play, 40-some years ago. Melton was 14, just a bit older than Wonder himself, who was one of the opening acts on a bill headlined by James Brown -- and the kid pretty much stole the show.

"Here comes this kid in a white tuxedo and a red shirt, playing 'Fingertips' on a chromatic harmonica," says Melton, who leads the area blues group Wicked Mojos. "I'd been playing for fun, just a regular harmonica. But seeing Stevie inspired me to get a chromatic harmonica.

"Of course, I couldn't play it for a long time -- let alone sound anything like he did."

In that regard, Melton has lots of company. There is much to admire about Wonder, who plays Raleigh's RBC Center on Thursday. One of the past century's all-time great musical masterminds, Wonder is a virtuoso singer, player and songwriter responsible for dozens of classic songs, covered by everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Durham jazz singer Nnenna Freelon.

But most of all, Wonder has a signature harmonica style that might be the most recognizable sound in all of popular music. If you could hear a smile, you'd hear Wonder's wailing harmonica.

All it takes is a few notes and you know it's him -- an exuberant sound as bright as a cloudless spring day, joy personified. Remarkably, Wonder had a fully realized style worked out by the age of 12, when he recorded the chart-topping "Fingertips -- Pt 2" for the aptly titled album "The 12-Year-Old Genius."

Wonder's harmonica has also graced hits by Chaka Khan, Elton John, Eurythmics and Sting, among others. But if you were to try to duplicate that sound yourself, good luck.

For one thing, Wonder's primary harmonica is a chromatic rather than the diatonic harmonica typically heard in blues (although he occasionally plays diatonic, such as on 1974's "Boogie on Reggae Woman"). Chromatic has up to 16 holes compared to the 10 holes on diatonic harmonica, so it offers a wider ranger of sounds. But chromatic harmonica is also significantly harder to play.

"Chromatic has a scale set up like a piano keyboard, where regular harmonica is on a diatonic scale," Melton says. "So chromatic is a totally different monster, a lot harder to play. It takes a lot more oxygen. You really have to learn circular breathing."

Circular breathing involves breathing in through the nose and storing air in the cheeks to blow through the mouth. Once you have that down, you can start working on the particulars of the Wonder sound -- which owes more to jazz than blues and is almost impossible for mere mortals to duplicate. But it helps to know a few tricks.

Harmonica master Randy Singer says one key is in how you manipulate the chromatic harmonica's slide, which raises each hole's pitch by a half-step.

"One of Stevie's big characteristics is to jab the slide forcibly," Singer says by phone from his home in Florida. "He's also basically singing, but using a harmonica to sing with, putting vibrato on it. And if you do that and bend the note at the same time, you get a shifting effect. I think the last thing is he gets a sort of fluttering effect with his tongue. Combine all that and you get this, a Steve thing."

Singer puts down the phone and demonstrates a more-than-decent approximation of Wonder's solo on the 1968 hit "For Once in My Life."

"Using the slide with a jab, that's the secret," Singer concludes.

But, of course, you can diligently practice all that and you probably still won't sound anything like the master because ... well, he's Stevie Wonder and you're not.

"It sounds stupid to say he's a genius because it's so obvious," says Rick Estrin, who plays harmonica in the California blues band Little Charlie & the Nightcats. "He changed all of music probably as much as anyone other than James Brown, and his harmonica sound is very original. Nobody sounded like him before. He's an original. Unequivocally, without Stevie Wonder, music today would be unrecognizable."