You Are the Sunshine of My Life

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
Single by Stevie Wonder
from the album Talking Book
B-side	"Tuesday Heartbreak"
Released	March 1973
Format	7" 45 RPM
Recorded	November 1972
Genre	R&B
Length	2:58
Label	Tamla
Writer(s)	Stevie Wonder
Producer	Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder singles chronology
"Superstition" (1972) "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" (1973) "Higher Ground" (1973)

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" is a 1973 pop single released by Stevie Wonder. The song became Wonder's third number-one pop single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his first number one on the easy listening chart. It won Wonder a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. This song was the second single released from the album Talking Book. The song opened 194 Radio City on 21 October 1974.

Rolling Stone ranked the song #281 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The first four lines of the song are sung, not by Wonder, but by James Gilstrap and Lani Groves. The single version of the song differed from the album version with the addition of horns to the mix.

Cover versions

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" has been covered more than twenty-five times, including versions by

• Wencke Myhre
• Sacha Distel & Brigitte Bardot, in French as "Tu Es Le Soleil De Ma Vie"
• Acker Bilk
• Anita O'Day
• Engelbert Humperdinck
• Morgana King
• Ferrante & Teicher
• Ray Conniff
• Stephane Grappelli
• Frank Sinatra
• Liza Minnelli, on her 1973 album The Singer
• Mel Tormé
• Perry Como
• Petula Clark
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Richard Clayderman
• Shirley Bassey
• The Ventures
• Pauline Wilson
• Tom Jones
• Ken Hirai
• Khalil Fong, in his album Timeless released in August 2009
• Andy Williams
• Esther Satterfield in her album "Once I Loved" 1974,produced by Chuck Mangione

See also

• List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 1973 (U.S.)
• List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1973 (U.S.)

References

• Hogan, Ed. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", AllMusic.com.