This Week in the Mercury
Monday, February 23, 2009
The Ashford & Simpson Challenge
Posted by Andrew Stout on Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 2:51 PM
This morning, while avoiding eye-contact on an unusually crowded and sensual Max ride through the rain, I stayed sane by trying to figure out how many Ashford & Simpson records I could buy for $10. And which ones I should choose.
My itch began last week when, via Sasha Frere-Jones's blog, I found six episodes of the legendary public television show Soul! archived at WNET Thirteen in New York. It took some time and sneaky feelings (as deadlines approached) to devour them whole but the pay-off was tremendous. This is thanks to the last, and best, episode presently available online—a full hour with Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson from 1972.
Today, A&S's legacy amounts to little more than '80s club hit "Solid (As a Rock)" and a glitzy New York eatery. Though a passing glance at their Wikipedia entry shows how monumentally they loom in the skyline of soul songcraft. As staff writers for Motown in the late '60s, they penned "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing." When they struck out as performers in the '70s, they recorded a string of earthy and tuneful albums that gracefully danced around the prevailing trends of the time (Is it Still Good To Ya is one of the most thoroughly satisfying long-players of the disco era). A&S even achieved the Mojo-approved, rockist feat of recording their most ambitious record and long-form masterpiece (1981's Street Opera, from which the above clip is taken), only to watch it tank in the charts and go out of print for over two decades.
My deep familiarity with them comes from two sources I don't presently have at hand: my parent's record collection and a certain college radio station's library—two riches located only in the Midwest. So, considering Portland's wealth of great vinyl bargain bins, the question is raised: how many Ashford & Simpson records can I buy for $10?
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