Late last month singer/songwriter, Nick Ashford passed away after battling throat cancer at age 69. He was buried in New York this week. I take note of Mr. Ashford because he, along with wife of 38 years, Valerie Simpson, wrote love songs that were intended to be sung as a duet.
Ashford and Simpson wrote for some of the biggest names in music to include Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Diana Ross, Smoky Robinson and the Miracles and many more. Their music has been licensed and shows up daily (literally) as part of many TV commercials for numerous products. They were, perhaps, one of the most successful husband and wife song writing team of all time. This is in addition to a stellar career as performers.
While the division of responsibilities wasn’t always clear cut, generally Nick Ashford wrote the words and Ms. Simpson wrote the music. That means all the songs that expressed the power of love and the strengthening of relationships came from Ashford’s poems.
The wordsmith who penned, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” for Gaye & Terrell and wrote “California Soul” for the 5th Dimension left a legacy of love songs that still strum the heart strings. Nicholas Ashford’s talent will be missed, but not forgotten, because his poetry was as solid as a rock.