"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" is a 1973 single released by Stevie Wonder. The song became Wonder's third #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his first #1 on the Easy Listening chart.[1] It won Wonder a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. This song was the second single released from the 1972 album entitled 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 two lines of the song are sung, not by Wonder, but by Jim Gilstrap and with Lani Groves singing the next two lines.[2] The single version of the song differs from the album version with the addition of horns to the mix.
Cover versions[]
"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" has been covered countless times in various languages, and by the following artists:
- Cold Blood
- 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
- Macy Gray
- 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
- T. Graham Brown
- Esther Satterfield in her album "Once I Loved" 1974,produced by Chuck Mangione
- Chris Colfer as Kurt Hummel in Stevie Wonder's tribute episode of Glee called Wonder-ful.