Stories of Standards: You Are the Sunshine of My Life – Stevie Wonder

Tune in to Jazz with Victor Cooper – weekdays from 6-9 a.m. MT – for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of this song all week long beginning Monday, January 21 presented by Rodney Franks!

Stories of Standards is sponsored by ListenUp - If you love music, you’ll love ListenUp.

“You Are the Sunshine of My Life” (1972) by Stevie Wonder was first released 10/28/1972 on the album “Talking Book”. Jim Gilstrap sang the first two lines; Lani Groves sang the following two lines; the two of them then sang backup on the rest of the song. In 2011 “Rolling Stone” magazine ranked “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” as #287 on its list of “500  Greatest Songs of All Time”. In 2016, Jack White performed a version of this song on the series finale of “The Muppets”.

Stevie Wonder’s birth name was Stevland Hardaway Judkins; he was born prematurely on 5/13/1950, in Saginaw, Michigan, with retinopathy of prematurity, an eye condition worsened by excessive oxygen in an incubator, which led to blindness. By the time he was 10 years old, he had taught himself to play harmonica, piano, and drums. Ronnie White of “The Miracles” discovered him when Stevie was 11 years old; an interview with Berry Gordy Jr followed, which resulted in a record deal and a new name “Little Stevie Wonder”. His first album was 1962’s “The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie Wonder”. This was followed by “Tribute to Uncle Ray”, covers of Ray Charles songs. “Fingertips, part 2” from that second album was released as a single and became Wonder’s first No. 1 song, at the top of both R&B and pop charts. He dropped “Little” from his name in the mid-1960s. He has recorded more than 30 top-ten hits and won 25 Grammy Awards, (the most ever won by a solo artist). Wonder was awarded the Gershwin Prize in 2009.