Nick Ashford, husband and song-writing partner of Valerie Simpson, has died, aged 70. An Ashford/Simpson credit on a single or LP track has been a mark of quality in my record collection for years. There remain undiscovered gems in their catalogue of albums for Warner Brothers - now hard to get hold of, except in dodgy compilations. If you see any of these on the right in a car boot sale, get them, play them and let them grow on you.
More people have an Ashford/Simpson track in their favourites than might imagine - here's some famous and less famous.
- "Let's Go Get Stoned" Ray Charles 1966
- "California Soul" The Fifth Dimension 1968
- "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, 1967, Diana Ross 1970, and Amy Winehouse shared the credit with Ashford & Simpson in her 2006 re-write of a new tune to the same chord sequence, "Tears Dry On Their Own"
- "Your Precious Love" Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, 1967
- 10 of the 11 tracks on Diana Ross' first solo album, including "Reach Out and Touch Somebody's Hand", "You're All I Need to Get By" and "Remember Me"; Ashford & Simpson produced the whole thing, and sang background vocals
- "The Boss" and "No-one gets the prize" on the Diana Ross 1979 album, The Boss
- "Is It Still Good To Ya?" Teddy Pendergrass, 1970
- "I'm Every Woman" Chaka Khan 1978, Whitney Houston 1993
- "Is this what feeling gets ?" Diana Ross, 1978, in the film version of The Wiz, written with Quincy Jones
- "Still Such A Thing" Gladys Knight
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