Uptight

Recorded in Detroit at Motown’s Hitsville U.S.A. with Stevie Wonder, Sylvia Moy, Henry Cosby, and Motown’s house musicians. The single was built around a Wonder riff and was shaped in the studio by Moy and Cosby. Issued in 1965 on Tamla, it restored Wonder to the upper reaches of the pop and R&B charts after his voice changed and he had been struggling for a follow-up hit. It became his first major single co-written by Wonder himself and reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song remained one of Wonder’s signature early Motown hits and was later reworked by Bill Cosby into the Top 5 novelty hit “Little Ole Man (Uptight, Everything’s Alright).” It has also stayed in circulation through later Motown retrospectives and continued performances.