While Ashford and Simpson may have grown to become an R&B institution over the years, in the beginning there was only one.
Whenever the name Valerie Simpson has been invoked,
it is often in concert with that of her life partner and collaborator Nick Ashford.
For nearly 40 years, Ashford and Simpson have written, produced and performed
some of the most memorable love ballads ever recorded. As songwriters and producers,
Nick and Val (as we've come to lovingly think of them) were the inspirational
forces behind the great love songs sung by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in
the late 1960s. Songs like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Ain't
Nothing Like the Real Thing," "If This World Were Mine," "Your
Precious Love" and the stirring "You're All I Need to Get By"
are now a part of the great American songbook. In the mid-1970s Ashford and
Simpson went on to establish themselves as one of the great acts of their generation,
recording now classic recordings like "Send It," "Love Don't
Make it Right," "Street Corner" and of course their chart topping
1984 single "Solid."
But before Ashford and Simpson established themselves as artists, the duo
collaborated on two little known solo albums by Valerie Simpson. Exposed (1971)
and Valerie Simpson (1972) represented the cutting edge of a generation of black
women artists that harkened back to great Blues Women of the 1920s like Bessie
Smith, Mamie Smith, Ethel Waters and Ma Rainey, who all used their music to
speak forcefully about the realities of being black women.
Perhaps because Motown was conflicted as to how to market her, Valerie Simpson's
solo recordings didn't garner as much attention as some of her more well known
peers. In the aftermath of Aretha Franklin's great crossover success in the
late '60s, the recording industry was primed for the emergence of a new generation
of black women musicians and singers. Thus artists such as Roberta Flack (First
Take, 1969), Minnie Riperton (Come to My Garden, 1969), Patti Labelle (Moon
Shadow, 1972) Betty Davis (Betty Davis, 1973) and Esther Phillips (From a Whisper
to Scream, 1972) all released groundbreaking albums suggesting that black women
were artistic geniuses in their own right and more than simple "eye-candy"
(no dis to The Supremes or The Ronettes). Perhaps because Motown, her label
at the time, was conflicted as to how to market her or more likely didn't have
faith that her music was commercial enough, Valerie Simpson's solo recordings
didn't garner as much attention as some of her more well known peers, though
the single "Sinner Man" from Exposed was nominated for a Grammy Award
in 1972.
A native of the Boogie-down Bronx, New York, Valerie Simpson came up "church"
(she and Nick met at the White Rock Baptist Church in Harlem in 1964 when she
was still a teenager) and like many black artists from that era, she had no
choice but to musically reference the spiritual power she was exposed to sitting
in those pews as a child. Though many will cite Mahalia Jackson's appearance
at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 or Sister Rosetta Thorpe's forays into
jazz clubs, it was really with the huge popularity of Aretha Franklin that the
black gospel tradition became accessible to mainstream audiences. Thus many
secular artists from that era — Donny Hathaway being the most pronounced
— were comfortable making that tradition an integral part of their music.
Simpson's "church" up bringing is written all over Exposed, particularly
on tracks like "I Don't Need No Help," which Simpson sings a capella
for the first two minutes with a hint of hand-clapping and foot stomping in
the background. On her brilliant and innovative remake of Lennon and McCartney's
"We Can Work It Out" (sis even outdid Stevie in this regard), the
song is transformed into an introspective blues groove only to explode into
a revival like frenzy. Fans of Simpson may also remember her show stopping gospelized
vocals on a version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" that was featured
on Quincy Jones's Gula Matari (1970).
With the exception of "Sinner Man," a driving funk number, much of
the rest of Exposed falls firmly in the tradition of sweet soul that Ashford
and Simpson were known for producing. Tracks like "Love Woke Me Up this
Morning" (originally recorded by Marvin and Tammi and later by The Temptations)
"Now That There's You," and the oh so sweet "Silly Wasn't I"
are clear evidence of the duo's maturing musical sensibilities and Simpson's
increased confidence as a vocalist (As Tammi Terrell's illness made it too difficult
to complete her vocals towards the end of her short life, Simpson's vocals were
purportedly mixed with Terrell's on some of the later Marvin and Tammi recordings).
Another one of the gems on Exposed is the moody and plaintive "World without
Sunlight."
Simpson's self-titled follow-up to Exposed, was just as provocative as her
debut, but a little more socially conscious. Thus on a song like "One More
Baby Child Born," Simpson sings of both the possibilities and dangers of
black children who are born in the "ghetto" ("He may grow up
to be your president, but then again you might find him stuck in the ghetto
cement") and the anguish that black mothers may experience wishing a better
world for their children ("His mama look down on him with a tender smile/she
just want to hold him and keep him safe/cause he'll only be a baby for a little
while"). Written at the early stages of the post-Civil Rights era, when
songs like Nina Simone's "Young, Gifted and Black" struck a particular
chord of hope, "One More Baby Child Born" was a stark reminder that
some folk wouldn't be leaving the poverty stricken areas of the innercity. Ashford
and Simpson's politics are even more explicit on "Genius Part I,"
as they mock the never-ending quest for development and modernization. At one
point Sister Val sings "Man made clouds floating through space/called it
pollution 'cause it killed the human race/Took a piece of paper and painted
it green/And with the right number on it, it'll buy anything," effectively
linking the willingness to defile the environment with greed. Though the song
is essentially about mankind, it's not difficult to see the song as also a critique
of patriarchy. Though "Genius I" is plodding and sparse, "Genius
II" is performed as a dance-floor anthem, where the lyrics seem to have
an added sting as Simpson sings in the chorus "what a little genius…is
he!"
Valerie Simpson was one of the last projects Ashford and Simpson did for Motown
before breaking out on their own with Gimme Something Real in 1973. Though the
act got off to a slow start with their new label Warner Brothers, by the time
they settled at Capitol at the end of the decade they were bankable stars and
also in demand as producers, notably behind the boards on Diana Ross's The Boss
(1979). In recent years Motown has embarked on an ambitious project of releasing
the full sessions of some of their great recordings — the re-issues of
Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Let's Get It On and I Want You have been nothing
less than extraordinary — and the label would serve its legacy well by
making the full versions of Valerie Simpson's Exposed and Valerie Simpson available
in the digital age.
First published: March 17, 2004
About the Author
Mark Anthony Neal is the author of three books including the
recent Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation
(Routledge, 2003) and co-editor (with Murray Forman) of the forthcoming That's
the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (June 2004). Neal's next book NewBlackman
will be published in the Spring of 2005. He teaches in the Department of American
Studies and the Center for African and African-American Studies (CAAAS) at the
University of Texas at Austin.
