Uptight (Everything's Alright): A Stones-Inspired Riff and No Braille Sheet

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By 1965 Stevie Wonder was 15, two years past the No. 1 live recording of Fingertips, and his voice was dropping from a boy soprano toward a tenor. Berry Gordy, who ran Motown like a Detroit auto assembly line and had branded the act as Little Stevie Wonder, questioned whether he had a future at the label. Producer Clarence Paul took the opposite view and found the deeper voice easier to work with. While playing tour dates with the Rolling Stones, Wonder absorbed the driving, repeating figure of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction and turned that momentum into an original keyboard riff with syncopated R&B rhythm.

He brought the riff and a few phrases built on the words "everything is alright" and "uptight" to songwriters Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby. Moy wrote a story about a poor young man whose wealthy girlfriend loves him regardless of money. She did not finish the lyrics in time to have them transcribed into braille, so during the session she sang each line a fraction ahead of the beat while the tape rolled, and Wonder echoed it straight onto the record. Released in late 1965, the single reached No. 3 on the Billboard pop chart and No. 1 R&B for five weeks in early 1966, and Motown rushed an album out behind it.

• Uptight was Wonder's first hit with an official co-writing credit, giving him a share of the publishing side.
• The song earned his first two Grammy nominations, for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance.
• In 1967 Bill Cosby, no relation to Henry Cosby, used the backing track for a comedy record that became a hit.
• British reggae artist CJ Lewis took a cover into the UK top 10 in 1994.
• Oasis interpolated the song on Step Out in 1995, and the track was moved to a B-side over copyright conflicts.