Two notable losses this week.
Songwriter Nick Ashford, who with Valerie Simpson, his songwriting partner and later wife, wrote some of Motown’s biggest hits and later recorded their own hits and toured as a duo, has died from complications related to throat cancer.
In 1966, after Ray Charles sang “Let’s Go Get Stoned,” a song Ashford & Simpson co-wrote, the duo signed on with Motown as staff writers and producers. They wrote for virtually every major act on the Motown label, including Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell (“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Your Precious Love,” “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” and “You’re All I Need to Get By”), Diana Ross (“Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”), Gladys Knight and the Pips (“Didn’t You Know You’d Have to Cry Sometime”) and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (“Who’s Gonna Take the Blame”), Whitney Houston and Chaka Khan. The couple later toured on their own and had a string of minor hits on the R&B charts.
Ashford was 70 years old, survived by his wife and two daughters.
Jerry Leiber, one of the most important songwriters in the history of rock & roll – whose 60-year partnership with Mike Stoller produced dozens of hit records has died of cardiopulmonary failure.
The duo penned hit after hit between the 1950s and the 1970s, including:
"There Goes My Baby" (with Ben E. King, Lover Patterson, and George Treadwell)
"Hound Dog"
"Riot in Cell Block #9"
"Kansas City"
"Along Came Jones"
"Smokey Joe's Cafe"(the title tune of the longest running Broadway jukebox musical)
"Yakety Yak"
"Poison Ivy"
"Charlie Brown" (They wrote over 20 chart hits for the Coasters)
"Ruby Baby"
"Stand By Me" (with Ben E. King)
"Jailhouse Rock"
"King Creole"
"Love Potion No. 9"
"Searchin'"
"Young Blood" (with Doc Pomus)
"Is That All There Is?" (Peggy Lee)
"I'm a Woman"
"Lucky Lips"
"On Broadway" (with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil)
"Spanish Harlem" (with Phil Spector).
They also produced dozens of hit records, notably, "She Cried", "Tell Him" and "Stuck in the Middle With You", by Stealer's Wheel.
Lieber was 78 years old, survived by three sons.
Very unfortunate indeed. Some absolutely great songwriting there.
