Quote:Sadly, Jerry Leiber isn’t the only great songwriter to pass away today. Nick Ashford, who with his wife and musical partner Valerie Simpson penned some of the mightiest classics in the Motown songbook, also died Monday, of complications from throat cancer. He was 69. (Several sources insist he was 70, but he was born May 4, 1942.)

Ashford & Simpson, who were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002, began their career in the mid-’60s, initially gaining notice by crafting hits for Aretha Franklin (“Cry Like a Baby”), the 5th Dimension (“California Soul”) and most notably Ray Charles, whose version of their tune “Let’s Go Get Stoned” topped the R&B charts in 1966.

That same year Berry Gordy Jr. brought them onto his Motown songwriting staff, where they would soon concoct one enduring anthem after another, many of them duets for Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “You’re All I Need to Get By,” “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” “Your Precious Love.” In all, they wrote and/or produced all but one of the duo’s late-’60s singles.

They also crafted hits for Gladys Knight & the Pips, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Ronnie Milsap, Maxine Brown, the Shirelles, the Marvelettes, Teddy Pendergrass, Chaka Khan (“I’m Every Woman” is one of theirs) and, to a much greater extent, Diana Ross & the Supremes. Indeed, they were the principal writers for three of Ross’ biggest solo albums of the ’70s, including her self-titled debut — featuring one of her signature songs, “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” — as well as Surrender (1971) and The Boss (1979). (Ashford, working with Frank Wilson, also produced the 1968 smash “I’m Gonna Make You Love” that united the Supremes with the Temptations.)

“They had magic, and that’s what creates those wonderful hits, that magic,” Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire told the Associated Press after learning of Ashford’s death. “Without those songs, those artists wouldn’t have been able to go to the next level.”

Ashford & Simpson’s own recording career started in 1964, when they put out the song “I’ll Find You” as Valerie & Nick, after which Ashford cut several of his own singles, including his earlier versions of “California Soul” and “Let’s Go Get Stoned,” plus “It Ain’t Like That,” later a hit for Martha & the Vandellas. Simpson would eventually get a shot as a solo act on Motown, issuing Valerie Simpson Exposed in ’71 and an eponymous effort the next year, featuring the single “Silly Wasn’t I,” since sampled by 50 Cent and Murs.

But the duo left Motown in ’73, in part because the label refused to release an album of them performing A&S songs that had made other artists famous. In 1974 Ashford & Simpson married and launched a recording career with Warner Bros. via the album Gimme Something Real.

Minor hits followed, including “Don’t Cost You Nothin’” (1977), “It Seems to Hang On” and “Is It Still Good to Ya” (1978), “Found a Cure” (1979), “Street Corner” (1982) and their biggest single by far, “Solid” (1984), which nearly cracked the pop Top 10. The song and album of the same name topped respective R&B charts that year as well.

Four more discs followed, culminating in 1996′s The Real Thing, but by then Ashford & Simpson were more focused on charitable work and restaurant endeavors. Ashford had a small role in the 1991 film New Jack City, while the duo’s reputation got a shot of modernity late last decade, when “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was used as the template for Amy Winehouse‘s “Tears Dry on Their Own.”

Besides Simpson, Ashford is survived by two daughters, Nicole and Asia; his brothers Paul, Albert and Frank; and his mother, Alice Ashford.

RIP 2011:

Jerry Leiber
Jani Lane
Amy Winehouse
Clarence Clemons
Gil Scott-Heron
Nate Dogg
Gerry Rafferty