Genre
Soul and Motown pop. "My Cherie Amour" demonstrates the then-19-year-old Wonder's eagerness to push beyond the parameters of the Motown sound and pursue a more singular creative vision, building a programme of love songs around the album's title track and ranging from Wonder originals to standards and a cover of "Light My Fire" by The Doors, here recast as a funk-inflected soul number with James Jamerson dominating on bass.
Release
My Cherie Amour is the eleventh studio album by Stevie Wonder, released on the Tamla (Motown) label on August 29, 1969. It was his last album of the 1960s, recorded at Hitsville USA, Detroit, Michigan.
Production
Produced by Henry Cosby. The instrumental backing was provided by the Funk Brothers, with James Jamerson on bass guitar and Benny Benjamin on drums. Wonder played keyboards, harmonica, and lead vocals, with background vocals by the Andantes on several tracks. Complex arrangements were employed under Cosby's direction, deepening the album's emotional resonance without abandoning Motown's polished accessibility.
Reception
The album yielded a pair of top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: the title track (No. 4) and "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday" (No. 7). It reached No. 12 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 34 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart. Critics have described the album as a transitional work between Wonder's Motown formula and the creative independence he would achieve with Music of My Mind (1972).
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950, Saginaw, Michigan), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer, one of the most celebrated and creatively influential figures in the history of popular music. Blind from shortly after birth, he was signed to Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven. After a run of eleven albums under the direct control of the Motown production system, he renegotiated his contract in 1971 and entered his most celebrated creative period, producing Talking Book (1972), Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974), and Songs in the Key of Life (1976) - four albums that each won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, an achievement without precedent. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide, won 25 Grammy Awards, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Kennedy Center Honors.
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