My Guy (2:51)

“My Guy” is a 1964 number-one hit single recorded by Mary Wells for the Motown label. Written and produced by Smokey Robinson of The Miracles, the song is a woman’s dedication to the goodness of her man (“There’s not a man today who could take me away from my guy”).

The single became the biggest hit ever for Wells, Motown’s first female star, and reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart. The song led the Cashbox magazine R&B chart for seven weeks [1]. “My Guy” also happened to be Wells’ last hit single for Motown, excepting duets she recorded with label mate Marvin Gaye.

An option in her recording contract allowed Wells to terminate the contract at her discretion after she reached her twenty-first birthday on May 13, 1964.

Encouraged by her ex-husband, Wells broke her Motown contract and signed with 20th Century Fox in hopes of higher royalties and possible movie roles. However, Wells’ career never again reached the heights it had at Motown, and she never again had a hit single as big as “My Guy”.

As one of Motown’s signature hits, “My Guy” has been covered often, with versions by The Supremes, Sister Sledge, Petula Clark, Claudine Longet, Aretha Franklin, Margo Smith, and more having been recorded over the years. The cover version of the song with the biggest chart impact in the United States was by Sister Sledge in 1982 (#23). One notable cover, used in the Whoopi Goldberg film Sister Act, substitutes “My Guy” with “My God”, transforming the song into a faux-gospel number. In 1980, Amii Stewart and Johnny Bristol recorded it as a duet in a medley with another Motown classic, the Temptations’ “My Girl”; it reached only #63 in the U.