Easy is an album recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and released by Motown Records on September 16, 1969 under the Tamla Records label. One song on the album, "Good Lovin' Ain't Easy To Come By", was a hit single and remains popular to this day. Terrell had been ill, suffering from complications caused by a brain tumor, since the fall of 1967. Marvin Gaye later claimed that as a result, most of the female vocals on this album were performed by Valerie Simpson, who served as co-songwriter and co-producer for the LP with her boyfriend and future husband Nickolas Ashford.
Ashford & Simpson were an American husband-and-wife songwriting-production team and recording duo of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson.
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" is a pop/soul song written by Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson in 1966 for the Tamla label, a division of Motown. The composition was first successful as a 1967 hit single recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, and became a hit again in 1970 when recorded by former Supremes frontwoman Diana Ross. The song became Ross's first solo number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
"Reach Out and Touch " is the debut solo single of singer Diana Ross, released in April 1970 as the first single from her solo self-titled debut 1970 album by Motown Records.
Diana Ross is the eponymous debut studio album by American singer Diana Ross, released on June 19, 1970 by Motown Records. The ultimate test to see if the former Supremes frontwoman could make it as a solo act, the album was overseen by the songwriting-producing team of Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, who had Ross re-record several of the songs the duo had recorded on other Motown acts. Johnny Bristol, producer of her final single with The Supremes, contributed on The Velvelettes cover "These Things Will Keep Me Loving You."
Diana & Marvin is a duets album by American soul musicians Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, released October 26, 1973 on Motown. Recording sessions for the album took place between 1971 and 1973 at Motown Recording Studios in Hollywood, California. Gaye and Ross were widely recognized at the time as two of the top pop music performers.
Diana Ross & the Supremes Join the Temptations is, as the title implies, a collaborative album combining Motown's two best selling groups, Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations. Issued by Motown in late 1968 to coincide with the broadcast of the Supremes/Temptations TCB television special, the album was a success, reaching #2 on the Billboard 200. Diana Ross & the Supremes Join the Temptations spent four weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart.
Love Child is the fifteenth studio album released by Diana Ross & the Supremes for the Motown label in 1968. The LP was the group's first studio LP not to include any songs written or produced by any member of the Holland–Dozier–Holland production team, who had previously overseen most of the Supremes' releases.
Sugar 'n' Spice is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas on the Gordy (Motown) label in 1969. The album was released during a troubling and downward time for the lead singer, Martha Reeves, who was now heavily addicted to painkillers. Like many Motown albums of the late sixties, the album was produced by several in-house producers including Ashford and Simpson, Frank Wilson and Deke Richards. Two tracks were in the can from Holland Dozier Holland. The modest R&B hit (#44), "Taking My Love " is featured on this album. Although new member and former Velvelettes member Sandra Tilley is featured on the album cover, her vocals do not appear on the album. Instead, tracks were used with Rosalind Ashford, Lois Reeves with additional vocals accompanied by The Andantes and Syreeta Wright.
Black Magic is a soul album released by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas on the Gordy (Motown) label in 1972. It is the last studio album issued by the group after ten years with the label. The album is significant for featuring the group's biggest hit of the decade with the Jackson 5-esque "Bless You". The track returned the Vandellas to chart success briefly in the US reaching number fifty-three pop, number twenty-nine R&B and reaching number thirty-three on the UK pop singles chart. It was also a top twenty hit in Canada reaching number sixteen on the chart, and a top ten single in Puerto Rico, where it reached the number two position. Two other subsequent singles, "In and Out of My Life" and "Tear It on Down", were the trio's last Billboard charted hits reaching the top 40 on the R&B charts. "No One There" was released in the UK as a solo single for Reeves. The album has become a cult classic amongst the group's hard core fans.
Ross is the ninth studio album by American singer Diana Ross, released on September 3, 1978 by Motown Records. The album served as a new album and a compilation, as it was a mixture of old and new songs. Side A consisting of four new tracks recorded in 1978, and Side B of material recorded by Ross between 1971 and 1975, but remixed and/or extended by Motown in-house producer Russ Terrana specifically for the Ross album. Ross peaked at number 49 on the US Pop Albums chart, and number 32 on Black Albums. The album failed to chart in the UK. Its final US sales figures stood at around 150,000 copies. The cover illustration was by Rickey Ricardo Gaskins. A different album also titled Ross was released on the RCA label in 1983.
An Evening with Diana Ross is a 1977 live double album released by American singer Diana Ross on the Motown label. It was recorded live at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles during the international tour of Ross' one-woman show, for which she was awarded a special Tony Award after the show's run at Broadway's Palace Theater, followed by an Emmy-nominated TV special of the same name. The album reached #29 in the USA . The album showcased her live performances for the second time as a solo performer, following 1974's Live At Caesars Palace. It was the last live album Ross released until 1989's Greatest Hits Live.
Greatest Hits Live is a 1989 live album released by Diana Ross in the UK on the EMI label. The album saw Ross performing material from throughout her career, from The Supremes days up to several tracks from her recent album Workin' Overtime.
All The Great Hits is a compilation album by American singer Diana Ross, released in October 1981 by Motown Records. It was the second Motown compilation set to capitalize on the success of 1980's diana produced by Chic. Her duet "Endless Love" with Lionel Richie was from the film of the same name, Endless Love and, just like 1980's "It's My Turn", had already been released as a single and on a soundtrack album.
"The Boss" is a 1979 song written and produced by Ashford & Simpson and recorded by American singer Diana Ross, who released it as a single on the Motown label. It was the first release from the album of the same title (1979). The song was released on May 22, 1979, a day before the album release.
Forever Diana: Musical Memoirs is a four-CD box set of recordings by the singer Diana Ross released by Motown in 1993.
Diana Ross & the Supremes: The No. 1s is a 2003 compact disc collection of the number-one singles achieved by The Supremes led by Diana Ross and Jean Terrell in addition to solo Diana Ross singles on the American and United Kingdom pop charts. The album features 23 tracks and a bonus remix.
20 Golden Greats is a 1977 compilation album by Diana Ross & the Supremes, released on the Motown label in the United Kingdom. The release spent seven weeks at number one on the UK Albums Chart, selling over 1,000,000 copies. Despite the album's title and that Ross & the Supremes had scored 21 UK chart hit singles, the compilation included two tracks that had never been hit singles in the UK: "My World Is Empty Without You" and "Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart", which were top 10 hits on the US Hot 100. All the other 18 tracks had made the UK singles chart. The three other hits scored by the group in partnership with The Temptations, were all excluded.
Paul Riser is an American trombonist and Motown musical arranger who was responsible for co-writing and arranging dozens of top ten hit records. His legacy as one of the "Funk Brothers" is similar to that of most of the other "Brothers", as his career has been overlooked and overshadowed by the stars of Motown that became household names. Some of the Funk Brothers he worked with include: Earl Van Dyke, Johnny Griffith, Robert White, Eddie Willis, Joe Messina, Dennis Coffey, Wah Wah Watson, James Jamerson, Bob Babbitt, Eddie Watkins, Richard "Pistol" Allen, Uriel Jones, Andrew Smith, Jack Ashford, Valerie Simpson, Eddie "Bongo" Brown, Benny Benjamin, Cornelius Grant, Joe Hunter, Richard "Popcorn" Wylie, Marcus Belgrave, Teddy Buckner and Stevie Wonder.
Four In Blue is a 1969 album by the Motown R&B group The Miracles, issued on the label's Tamla Records subsidiary in the U.S., and the Tamla-Motown label elsewhere in the world,, and was the final Miracles album of the 1960s. It reached #78 on the Billboard pop album chart, and reached the Top 10 of Billboard's R&B Album chart, peaking at #3, despite the fact that no singles were released from this album in the U.S. or the UK.
