Never Has It Been So Good As Ashford & Simpson (and sometimes Armstead)

New York of the 1960’s brought us the power of love in the writers booth in a profound way. The Brill Building gave young Jewish Newlyweds like Goffin & King, Greenwich & Barry and Mann & Weil lots of money and respect as they churned out hits for people coast to coast and even overseas.

Given that a great majority of the artists they wrote for before the British Invasion were Black, it’s been repacked as an integrationist fantasy without consideration of intersectionality. While Carole King lives comfortably with her middling singing ability in her 70’s, many of the voices that took her melodies to the Pop Top 40 so she’d stay rich in royalty returns barely make ends meet, if they’ve even survived to be her peers in age.

One married duo from those same hallways started to have an impact in 1964. Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson met at a Harlem Church, and soon fell in love and married. At first they tried their hand at being a singer-songwriting duo, releasing the bubbling under “I’ll Find You” in that year. Although they had promise with their early recordings, they also were an ultra productive pairing in terms of tunesmiths.

Valerie Simpson, left, singing backgrounds with Jean Thomas, Ellie Greenwich and Beverly Warren

They also made fast friends with former Ikette Josephine Armstead, who was trying to cut her teeth under the stage name Deena Johnson. To keep the money flowing for all three, they oft sat down at the piano together. Distinctive from the start, the trio of writers really excelled at churning out intense “Big City” soul that was a natural extension of the “Uptown Soul” created by their contemporaries in the Brill Building, while adding melodic sophistication and a streetwise sense of gossip, celebration and frankly, soulfulness to the genre.

They started to fill a strategic hole as the white Brill Building writers started to drift away from providing their prime material from the Black artists as they had done in the early 60’s. Where Carol King gave material to The Shirelles, Burt Bacharach to Maxine Brown, Ashford, Simpson & Armstead had sparkling numbers ready for the charts for those artists.

It did take a while, however, given that most labels save Motown and Chess were on a more white artist centric track by mid-1964. Their first success was the multiple competing versions of “The Real Thing” (a zesty and joyful update that has the spice of Martha & The Vandellas “Heatwave” flavoring the melody). Betty Everett, The Chiffons and Tina Britt all released versions in early 1965. The Chiffons withdrew their version, and Tina Britt bought in a Top 20 R&B hit for the songwriting team.

By the end of 1965, they had another R&B hit with Ronnie Milsap’s version of “Never Had It So Good” and finally broke into the Pop Hot 100 with Maxine Brown’s original take of “One Step At A Time.” 1966 brought them the success they needed to be a force to be reckoned with, when Ray Charles’s version of “Let’s Go Get Stoned” topped the R&B Charts and made the Pop Top 40.

At that point however, Ashford, Simpson & mostly Armstead had written the majority of the songs that appear on this mix. Although Josephine Armstead chose not to join them at Motown to pursue reviving her solo career on various Chicago labels, she would join her old friends from time to time on moonlighting projects away from Motown.

Indeed, I wanted to shine a spotlight on how accomplished their catalog was before they joined Motown records at the end of 1966. The efforts of The Apollas (“You’ll Always Have Me”) & Mary Love (“Baby, I’ll Come”) on this list are the first songs issued *after* they recorded “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” with Tammi Terrell (alone, Marvin Gaye overdubbed his vocals later).

When they arrived at Motown, the timing couldn’t have been any more perfect, as Holland-Dozier-Holland started their work slowdown and A&R Director Mickey Stevenson left the label as well. Granted, I stayed away from the huge studio hits that they were known for with Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell. To the extent of their early Motown efforts, I focused on forgotten gems scattered on B-sides, by lesser known artists and album tracks.

While Nick Ashford passed from this plane 7 years ago, we still have the blessing of both Valerie Simpson and Jo Armstead with us. So sit back, relax and take in this splendid collection of Soul.