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ABC/Fred WatkinsStevie Wonder has written a heartfelt tribute to his one-time Motown songwriting collaborator Sylvia Moy, who died Saturday at the age of 78.
The legendary artist talked to Rolling Stone about Moy, who along with Henry Crosby co-wrote such memorable early Wonder hits as “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” “My Cherie Amour,” and “I Was Made to Love Her.”
“How do you stop loving the ones you loved for a lifetime — you don’t! Sylvia Moy has made it possible to enrich my world of songs with some of the greatest lyrics,” says Wonder in a statement he sent to the magazine. “But, not only that, she, through her participation and our co-writing those songs, helped me become a far better writer of lyrics.”
Wonder also laments that he won’t have a chance to work again with Moy, whose final co-write with Stevie was “Never Had a Dream Come True,” a song on the 1969 album Signed, Sealed & Delivered.
“Even in these later years, I longed for us to collaborate again, yet who am I to fight with the Most High in His decision to making her one of his angels of song for eternity,” Wonder maintains. “Maybe someday in eternity, at its given time and space, we will write together again. I love you, Sylvia.”
Wonder ends his tribute by singing the wordless lead-in to “My Cherie Amour,” “La la la la la la, la la la la la la.”
In co-writing the 1965 tune “Uptight,” Wonder’s second top-five hit, Moy helped convince Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. not to drop a then-teenage Stevie from the label at a time when his voice had begun to change and he had experienced a lull in his successful singles.
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