Like my last post in this series, Frank Wilson, don't kick yourself if you've never heard of Moy. And like Wilson, she was one of the hidden talents behind the massive success of Motown Records in the 1960s.
Moy grew up in Detroit, the home of Motown, and studied jazz and classical music in high school. She was discovered by Marvin Gaye singing in a local nightclub, and signed to Motown as a performer. Again, she parallels Wilson in that it seemed she had the talent (and looks) to be a star in her own right. However, Motown had lots of talented singers but very few talented songwriters, so once her songwriting talents were revealed, she moved into songwriting and production, and no records with her singing were ever released.
In so doing, she became the first significant female songwriter writing for Motown. Motown certainly wasn't free of sexism in the 1960s, but they were better than most companies at the time. By the end of the decade, females would hold many important positions in the company.
It seems Moy specialized more in writing lyrics than melodies, and she seemed to always write songs with others. She had a big role in Stevie Wonder's success in the 1960s in particular. Note that seven of the 19 songs here were hits for Wonder. She was particularly instrumental for saving Wonder's career in Motown in 1965. Wonder had a huge hit with "Fingertips, Part 2" in 1963, but only minor hits since then. Worse, he reached puberty and his voice changed drastically. Motown head Berry Gordy decided to drop him from the label as a result. Moy heard about this and asked if he would reconsider if she came up with a hit song for him. Gordy gave her a chance. Moy had heard Wonder playing around with a new riff on the piano, and asked him for some words. All he could come up with was the phrase that led to the title: "Uptight (Everything's Alright)." Together with another behind-the-scenes Motown songwriter, Henry Crosby, Moy finished the song. It turned out to be a huge hit. Although it "only" reached Number Three on the U.S. singles charts, it was one of the best selling singles of 1965.
Moy left Motown in 1973, around the time that Motown (stupidly) moved its operations to Los Angeles and let much of its best talent go. She tried singing, songwriting, and production at another record company, but didn't have much success compared to before. She later moved into writing music for films and TV shows. She died in 2017 at the age of 2017.
Here's her Wikipedia entry:
Here also is an interesting New York Times article I found about her. It features a cool photo of her with Stevie Wonder and the Funk Brothers back in 1967:
Sylvia Moy, Motown Songwriter Who Worked With Stevie Wonder, Dies at 78 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
All the songs here are in rough chronological order by year, as is the usual case for this series. Most of the songs are the original hit versions. One exception is the last one, "This Old Heart of Mine." That was originally a hit for the Isley Brothers in 1966. But I didn't want to use that version, since Moy wrote the song with the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team, and I'm including them in the Covered series too. So I went with a Rod Stewart version instead, which was a hit in 1975.
This album is 56 minutes long.
01 Uptight [Everything's Alright] (Stevie Wonder)
02 One Track Mind (Marv Johnson)
03 My Baby Loves Me (Martha & the Vandellas)
04 Nothing's Too Good for My Baby (Stevie Wonder)
05 Think It Over Before You Break My Heart [Reconsider] (Brenda Holloway)
06 These Things Will Keep Me Loving You (Velvelettes)
07 I Was Made to Love Her (Stevie Wonder)
08 Honey Chile (Martha & the Vandellas)
09 I'm Wondering (Stevie Wonder)
10 It Takes Two (Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston)
11 Love Bug, Leave My Heart Alone (Martha & the Vandellas)
12 Ain't No Sun Since You've Been Gone (Temptations)
13 Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day (Stevie Wonder)
14 Forget Me Not (Martha & the Vandellas)
15 My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder)
16 I Had a Dream (Supremes & the Four Tops)
17 Never Had a Dream Come True (Stevie Wonder)
18 And This Is Love (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
19 This Old Heart of Mine [Is Weak for You] (Rod Stewart)
https://www.upload.ee/files/17282872/COVRDSYLVIAMY19651975_atse.zip.html
alternate:
https://pixeldrain.com/u/bi3eMnYi
As with Frank Wilson, there are very few photos of Moy when she was young. But I managed to find a black and white one. I colorized it using the Palette program, then enhanced it using the Krea AI program.
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