Ain't No Mountain High Enough - 2025-10-20
Good evening everyone and welcome to another week with splendid music. Let's take a journey a few decades back to the year 1970 when Diana Ross, after leaving The Supremes, releases her first solo album.
Good evening everyone and welcome to another week with splendid music. Let's take a journey a few decades back to the year 1970 when Diana Ross, after leaving The Supremes, releases her first solo album.
Ain't No Mountain High Enough is here by no accident. Motown records hired Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson (he powerhouse songwriting duo who wrote the original Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell version in 1967) to produce her debut solo album, Diana Ross.
They wanted a big, cinematic moment for her — something that would both honor Motown’s roots and announce Ross as a sophisticated, independent star.
It’s structured more like a spoken-word symphonic piece than a pop song. It’s slow, grand, and theatrical — think more Barry White or Nina Simone meets Broadway than Motown hit, and the actual sung “Ain’t no mountain high enough” refrain doesn’t even come in until about halfway through.
A truly wonderful, powerful and moving version of the all-time classic.
Another notable mention on our list is "P Funkentelechy" by Jay Worthy, George Clinton and Leven K. It's a modern homage to a true legend's legacy.
George Clinton is the architect of the P-Funk (Parliament/Funkadelic) universe — the lush, cosmic, humorous, deeply funky sound that dominated late 60s/70s funk.
One of his notable tracks is Funkentelechy (by his band Parliament) released in 1978 — the title playing on Aristotle’s notion of entelechy (realization of potential) and applied to a funk-universe context.
Appearance of Jay Worthy and Leven Kali bring in modern influences from hip-hop and R&B/funk.
I'm going to stop myself here and let you listen to the rest of the tunes because as always I'd like the music to shine.
Have a great week,
xoxo
