*June is Black Music Month, and few stories demand to be told more urgently than the one Dr. Margena Christian spent years uncovering.
Her new book, “It’s No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy,” published by Da Capo, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing from Hachette Book Group, restores a pioneering woman to her rightful place in music history. Sylvia Moy was Motown’s first certified female in-house songwriter and producer, and without her, the world might never have known Stevie Wonder as we know him today.
Christian first encountered Moy’s story during the pandemic in 2021, when a social media post showed a striking image of a woman in the studio alongside a young Stevie Wonder and three members of the Funk Brothers. “Everyone said the same thing,” Christian recalled. “Why have we never heard of her story?” That question set off years of investigative research that became “It’s No Wonder.”
The trail was not easy to follow. Christian, a former longtime editor at both Ebony and Jet magazines, went straight to her archives expecting to find coverage of a woman with Moy’s accomplishments. She found almost nothing.
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“Out of more than 50 books written about Motown throughout the years, no one ever took the time to tell her story,” Christian said. What she eventually pieced together through interviews with Motown colleagues, family members, music scholars, and recorded interviews with Moy herself painted a picture of genius that had been quietly buried.
At the center of that story is the song “Uptight,” the 1965 hit that saved Wonder’s career at a critical moment. Wonder’s voice had changed, his hits had dried up, and Motown was seriously considering letting him go. “She begged Mickey Stevenson, ‘Can I keep him if I write a hit song for him?’” Christian said. Moy not only wrote “Uptight,” she produced it. She received the songwriting credit. She did not receive the producing credit.
Christian said that erasure was not unique to Moy but was systematic across the industry and especially brutal for women. “Just because your name isn’t on it didn’t mean you had nothing to do with it,” she said. “And just because your name is on it didn’t mean that you had anything to do with it.” Motown’s male-dominated culture in the 1960s often denied women producer credit, leaving many of their contributions unrecognized.
Among Christian’s most significant findings is evidence suggesting that Moy contributed to songs that did not officially credit her. Her investigation turned up material pointing to Moy’s involvement in the Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours).”
“I found that this industry rewards silence,” Christian said. “And she was a quiet person. But just because you’re quiet doesn’t mean you have nothing to say.”
Christian argues that industry resistance to fully crediting Moy reflects the broader implications of recognizing her contributions. “To talk about her and to really be honest about who she was and what she did is to face the reality that there would be no Stevie Wonder without Sylvia Moy,” she said. Motown had let go of major artists before, including Gladys Knight and the Pips and the Spinners, so the idea that a young, unproductive Wonder was at risk was not far-fetched. “Nobody wants to hear the reality,” Christian said. “But Stevie himself knew.”
Christian points to Wonder’s own concert performances as quiet confirmation of that history. The music icon has long joked about the people who did not believe in him early on, never calling anyone out by name, but never letting the memory go either. “The best revenge is success,” Christian said. “But the fact that he always brings it up shows that it was something that bothered him.” A child who is not believed in, she said, carries that with them.
Dr. Margena Christian’s path to completing “It’s No Wonder” was itself a story of resilience. In the final stages of writing the book, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer. After seven months of aggressive chemotherapy and major surgery, she finished the book and is now a cancer survivor. Her determination to see Moy’s story in print mirrors the very subject she spent years championing.
“It’s No Wonder” is available now everywhere books are sold. For a woman who spent decades shaping Motown’s sound from the shadows, Sylvia Moy’s moment has finally arrived.
Watch our conversation below with Dr. Margena Christian.
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