Hebb's parents, William and Ovalla Hebb, were both blind musicians. Hebb and his older brother Harold performed as a song-and-dance duo in
Nashville, beginning when Bobby was three and Harold was nine. Hebb performed on a TV show hosted by country music record producer
Owen Bradley. Hebb wrote the song after his older brother, Harold, was stabbed to death outside a Nashville nightclub. Hebb was devastated by the event and many critics say it inspired the lyrics and tune. According to Hebb, he merely wrote the song as an expression of a preference for a
"sunny" disposition over a
"lousy" disposition following the murder of his brother. Events influenced Hebb's songwriting, but his melody, crossing over into R&B (#3 on
U.S. R&B chart) and Pop (#2 on
U.S. Pop chart), together with the optimistic lyrics, came from the artist's desire to express that one should always "look at the bright side". Hebb has said about "Sunny":All my intentions were to think of happier times and pay tribute to my brother – basically looking for a brighter day – because times were at a low. After I wrote it, I thought "Sunny" just might be a different approach to what
Johnny Bragg was talking about in "
Just Walkin' in the Rain".
Chord progression's legacy Its sixteen-
bar form starts with two repeats of a four-bar phrase starting on the song's
E minor tonic i
chord followed by a iii7–VI and a ii–V7 in the last bar to return to the first i chord:𝄆 Em7 𝄀 G7 𝄀 Cmaj7 𝄀 Fm7 B7 𝄇The third four-bar phrase's last bar is
substituted with F7 (the
tritone sub of the B7
dominant chord):𝄀 Em7 𝄀 G7 𝄀 Cmaj7 𝄀 F7 𝄀The fourth and final four-bar phrase is a ii–V7–i that settles on the song's tonic:𝄀 Fm7 𝄀 B7 𝄀 Em 𝄀 𝄎 𝄂Elements of this "Sunny" chord progression are found in some later
jazz and
pop songs, notably: • "Red Clay" (title track of
Freddie Hubbard's 1970 album
Red Clay) loops the "Sunny" progression's first four bars for
soloing (but modifies the first V7–I into a full ii–V7–I and modifies the ii–V7 in the last bar into a
iiø–V7) • "
If You Want Me to Stay" (from
Sly and the Family Stone's 1973 album
Fresh) • "
Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" (from
Stevie Wonder's 1973 album
Innervisions) • "Angela" (the
theme song from the TV series
Taxi by
Bob James and released in his 1978 album
Touchdown) • "
Electric Lady" (from
Janelle Monáe's 2014 studio album
The Electric Lady) • "
Just the Two of Us" (by
Bill Withers, William Salter, and
Ralph MacDonald released in 1981 as a
single recorded by
Grover Washington Jr.) has a
double-time reordering of the "Sunny" progression's first four bars. Subvariants of this progression can be found, for example, in: • "
Thank U, Next" (from
Ariana Grande's 2019 album
Thank U, Next) can be thought of as a
half-time variant. ==Bobby Hebb versions==