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Sylvia Moy's role at Motown is reassessed in 'It's No Wonder'.
Summary
Margena Christian's book 'It's No Wonder' profiles Sylvia Moy, who helped write multiple Motown hits in the 1960s and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006.
Content
Margena Christian's book 'It's No Wonder' offers a careful, celebratory account of Sylvia Moy, based largely on interviews with Moy's family and Motown colleagues conducted after Moy's death in 2017. Moy emerged as a leading woman songwriter at Motown in the 1960s and is credited with work on numerous gold and platinum hits. The book highlights her songwriting and production work and revisits disputed memories about who received credit for key songs. It follows Moy's later return to Detroit, where she ran a studio and a mentorship program while living more privately in later years.
Key points:
- Sylvia Moy was one of Motown's most successful woman songwriters in the 1960s, with credits on 15 gold and platinum hits.
- Moy was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, becoming the second Black woman so honored after Valerie Simpson.
- Margena Christian's book is based largely on interviews conducted after Moy's 2017 death and seeks to correct omissions in Motown histories.
- The book recounts disputed accounts about songwriting and production credits, including Moy's reported work on Stevie Wonder's "Uptight (Everything Is Alright)" and her family's assertions about revisions to "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."
- After leaving Motown and a brief move to Los Angeles, Moy returned to Detroit, founded a media-focused mentorship program, converted a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house into Masterpiece Sound Studios, and later lived privately while receiving royalties.
Summary:
The book foregrounds Moy's contributions and underscores that Motown's history includes competing memories and contested credits. Undetermined at this time.
