Sylvia Moy - A Profile

Sylvia Rose Moy (15 Sep 1938 - 15 Apr 2017) would have been 84 today.  She as born in Detroit and came to the attention of Marvin Gaye and Mickey Stevenson performing in a club in 1963. They invited her to join  Motown, originally as a singer, and was given recording and songwriting contract and became the first woman to write and produce for artists at Motown.

In his autobiography, Berry Gordy attributes her directly responsible for keeping Stevie Wonder at Motown after his voice broke as he was planning to let him go until Moy approached him asking him if he would reconsider if  she could write a hit for him. That hit was perhaps one of the greatest Motown songs ever "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" co-written with Henry "Hank" Cosby which was his second R&B chart #1 (after Fingertips (1963)) and reached #3 on Billboards Hot 100 in 1966. She would write another two R&B #1 hits for him "I Was Made To Love Her" (1967) and "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day" (1968) along with several other top 10 hits.

She also wrote another Motown classic, although initially uncredited, "This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You)" with Holland, Dozier, Holland for The Isley Brothers.

Moy won six Grammy Awards, twenty BMI awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006 and has 289 songs credited to her on BMI. She died of complications from pneumonia in Dearborn, MI on 15 Apr 2017 aged 78.

Here's a playlist of some of her biggest hits at Motown with one (a Northern soul classic written with George Kerr and Mike Valvano) not released by Motown.

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