Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

This episode reads the songs of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson as a running diary of their relationship. Ashford came out of the gospel tradition at Christ Temple Baptist Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan, while Simpson studied classical piano in the Bronx. They met at Harlem’s White Rock Baptist Church in 1964 and recorded I’ll Find You as Valerie and Nick, which failed to catch on. Writing with Jo Armstead for Scepter/Wand, they built interlocking, call and response vocal parts for other singers, and the 1966 Ray Charles hit Let’s Go Get Stoned led Berry Gordy to bring them into Motown.

Paired with Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, they wrote duets such as Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and Your Precious Love as conversations between a man and a woman. Accounts conflict over Terrell’s final album Easy: Gaye wrote that Simpson sang most of the female parts, while Louvain Demps of the Andantes said she saw Terrell record, and Simpson has said her parts may have been guide tracks. After launching Diana Ross’s solo career in 1970, the couple were refused a duets album of their own hits, left Motown for Warner Bros. in 1973, married, and raised two daughters while scoring hits like Found a Cure, Street Corner and Solid.

• Their first duo record, I’ll Find You, was released in 1964 under the name Valerie and Nick.
• For Diana Ross they turned Ain’t No Mountain High Enough from a dialogue into a solo monologue.
• Sugar Bar, opened in 1996, gave stage time to Queen Latifah, Vicki Natale and Felicia Collins.
• Ashford died in 2011 at 70, four days before Valerie’s 65th birthday.
• Valerie’s 2012 album Dinosaurs Are Coming Back Again included an instrumental Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.