Ain't No Mountain High Enough

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" was a very popular recording for soul music legends Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell when it was originally released in 1967 by Motown. It was turned into a hit once again three years later in 1970 when fellow Motown artist and soul music legend Diana Ross re-recorded it and turned into a Grammy-nominated #1 pop single for Ross as a solo artist.

History

1967 original

The original 1967 version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" was the first Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet to be recorded. According to Gaye and the song's producers Ashford & Simpson, Terrell was a little nervous and intimidated of recording because she hadn't rehearsed the lyrics to the song and during her first verse, she looked at the lyrics as she sung "no matter where you are" but then got comfortable thanks to Gaye's lead. The song peaked at #19 on the Billboard pop charts and went as high as #3 on the R&B charts. The original version was a care-free, danceable, and romantic love song.

Related Topics:
Ashford & Simpson - Billboard

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The Gaye/Terrell version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Related Topics:
Grammy Hall of Fame - 1999

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1970 version

Three years later, things had changed: Terrell was dead due to a brain tumor, Gaye was going through a change in his life that happened around the same time of Terrell's death, and now Diana Ross had left The Supremes to begin her solo career. After the initial ho-hum success of her first single, "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)", Ross recorded the remake to "Enough" as part-spoken word as she soulfully cooed and hummed throughout the song with The Andantes, Jimmy Beavers and Ashford & Simpson as backup singers.

Related Topics:
Brain tumor - The Supremes - Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand) - The Andantes - Ashford & Simpson

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Ross' version was a very dramatic six-minute opus and is considered to be one of Ross' most notable songs. It rose up to #1 on both the pop and R&B singles chart and got Ross nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

Related Topics:
Grammy - Best Female Pop Vocal Performance

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Notable covers

In 1991, Australian Rock legend Jimmy Barnes released a Motown-style album, titled "Soul Deep" with twelve covers; one of them was his uniquely rock version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough".

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In 1994, at the end of the movie ', Whoopi Goldberg and most of the cast of the movie, including future hip-hop/soul superstar Lauryn Hill, sung most of Gaye & Terrell's version and sung the Ross version near the end of the song mixing the two songs together. The Gaye/Terrell version also frequently turns up, often as part of a sing-along, in "feel-good" movies, such as Remember the Titans.

Related Topics:
1994 - Whoopi Goldberg - Hip-hop - Soul - Lauryn Hill - Remember the Titans

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