<\/b>Nickolas Ashford has become a music legend. He was 70 years old; songwriter of, among others, \u201cAin\u2019t No Mountain High Enough\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman,\u201d written and performed alongside his wife, Valerie Simpson. <\/p>\n
Born in 1941 in South Carolina, Ashford met Valerie in the early 1960s when he moved to New York.<\/p>\n
He sang to make ends meet while Valerie Simpson played the piano and sang in the choir at the White Rock Baptist Church. The two began dating and writing songs together. Their first success came in 1966, when Ray Charles recorded their track \u201cLet\u2019s Go Get Stoned.\u201d <\/p>\n
They married in 1974 and continued to write a string of hits for the prestigious Motown Records. The duo wrote numerous tracks, starting with \u201cAin\u2019t No Mountain High Enough,\u201d performed as a historic duet by none other than Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. They also sang \u201cYou\u2019re All I Need to Get By,\u201d which was later covered in 1968 by Dionne Warwick and two years later by Diana Ross. <\/p>\n
Gloria Gaynor also later lent her voice to this track composed by Ashford and Simpson.<\/p>\n
Nickolas\u2019s creative genius produced tracks such as \u201cAin\u2019t Nothing like The Real Thing,\u201d \u201cSend It,\u201d \u201cFound a Cure,\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Cost You Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notably, \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman\u201d was performed by Chaka Khan and later by Whitney Houston. It also served as the opening theme for the Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2002, Ashford and Simpson were rightfully inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. <\/p>\n
With the passing of Nickolas Ashford, the music world loses one of its most esteemed composers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nickolas Ashford has become a music legend. He was 70 years old; songwriter of, among others, \u201cAin\u2019t No Mountain High Enough\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icons-and-personalities","category-senza-categoria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n