Between and , the Four Freshmen won the DownBeat magazine Readers Poll as best vocal group of the year five times. Full obituary Notable deaths of Full obituary Notable deaths of John Scarpati. He also wrote tunes for the Tonight Show Band. Full obituary Notable deaths of Associated Press.
Full obituary Notable deaths of Mischa Richter. Full obituary Notable film and television deaths of She had suffered a brain hemorrhage in January Raised in poverty in the West Virginia coal country, she formed a popular bluegrass singing duo with Alice Gerrard before continuing as a solo artist.
She was a lifelong advocate for miners, the poor and women, causes that were infused into her music. Full obituary Notable deaths of Tom Hindman. Full obituary Notable deaths of Michael Manning.
The entertainer who came out of Bakersfield helped open doors for a California strain of country music. He charted more than 50 country hits from the s to the s.
He created the template for the Nashville Sound, according to one music historian. So he and I, you know, took to each other and started writing these songs.
How long had you and Nick been writing together, before you had this hit? Simpson : It was about a year. Actually, we were just trying to get an advance, not so much a hit. We just wanted to make a little money laughs.
I was busy doing jingles at the time, which was very lucrative laughs. So Nick went up with our little demos and played them for Holland-Dozier-Holland. They were impressed—we almost had a real production in our demos…we had drums, guitars, voices and everything.
So they offered us a contract at Motown, and we were like over the moon! Is that right? We never stayed in Detroit. But we always lived in New York and we would do our work here in the city, and then fly in to Detroit for about a week, to go over the songs with the artists or produce somebody.
This relationship with Motown was nice—we were always like guests, as opposed to somebody they got tired of seeing. Simpson : At Motown, they were producing Tammi Terrell as a solo artist, and then they decided that it would be stronger if she would team up for duets with Marvin. This was with Johnny Bristol and Harvey Fuqua producing them. How did you and Nick come up with the idea for this song?
He told me he was walking down Central Park West in Manhattan , and looking at the buildings and seeing them as mountains, and what he had to overcome. It made me realize I was going to lose my writing partner if I didn't take my work with Nick more seriously.
But it was such easy work and such good money, high six-figure money. I was a good sight reader and I could sing two or three of these jingles a day. An orchestra would come in for half an hour, and then the singers would come in and knock 'em out, and go on to the next one.
I was the voice of Budweiser "When you say Bud, you've said a lot of things nobody else can say" , and Almond Joy "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't". Do I cringe when I hear them now? No, but I realized it was taking away from my dream of wanting to be a respected writer, so I cut back. Q: You transitioned from being behind the scenes in the '60s and early '70s as songwriters and producers to performing and recording as Ashford and Simpson in Was performing your own material always the goal?
A: No, the goal was to be songwriters first. We did a public-television show called "Soul! They got so many letters, which clued us in that maybe we should try this. The timing was right. Our contracts at Motown, which were for seven years, were up around We asked them about being recording artists, and they were going to placate us, string us along, but they wanted us to remain a writing machine for the acts they had.
They weren't taken with us as artists. I had done two solo albums for them, which they didn't do much to sell or promote.
So the handwriting was on the wall to go somewhere else and do it. That's when we signed to Warner Bros. Q: You come from an era where you had to write no matter how you felt.
How did you keep it from feeling like work? A: We knew we could write decent songs, but then there are inspired songs. There are songs you don't even think you wrote because they're so good. There is a formula that allows you to write a decent song.
I usually just start playing and he'd start singing, his words would fall down on the chords, I'd join in, and we'd find the harmonies, the hook. You don't talk or fix anything at first.
You want to ride that mist as long as you can before you interrupt. Q: You have to play a long time to get to that intuitive place as a musician and artist, I'd imagine. You started playing as a child, right? A: Yes, there was always a piano in the house. Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music.
I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once, and I could play it. Eventually she caught on and I learned to read music. That made me a good jingle singer, because they throw the notes up cold and you just have to sing it. Q: What's next for you? A: I have an interesting situation. Pura Vida!! Til we meet again! In a third post, Nicole shared a collage picture of herself and her husband publicly displaying their affection at different instances.
She captioned it by saying they are living their best lives. The song became a No. It also became a hit for Whitney Houston. In a chat with People, Simpson reflected on writing the song with Nick and revealed she told him to dig into his feminine side. She also said she instantly knew the song's title was great and said it was one of those things that came together.
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