Sylvia Moy, Motown Songwriter and Stevie Wonder Collaborator, Dead at 78
hits like “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” and “My Cherie Amour,” died Saturday at the age of 78.
Moy’s sister Anita told the Detroit Free Press that the producer-songwriter died at a Dearborn, Michigan hospital of apparent complications from pneumonia.
Marvin Gaye, then a Motown artist, discovered Moy while she was singing at a Detroit club in 1963. The label signed Moy to a dual songwriting/performing deal, although her talents were largely focused on penning songs for Motown’s stable of artists, which included Little Stevie Wonder.
“Motown came forth with a recording contract for me, a management contract and a songwriter’s contract — which shocked me,” Moy told the Free Press in 2016. “Then I was told, ‘Sylvia, we’ll get to you as a singer. But in the meantime, we’ve got all these artists and they have no material. You’re going to have to write.’ I said OK. Because I was kind of shy anyway. And so that’s what I started doing. I got into it, and…
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