Dusty Springfield Wanted to Record This Future 1967 Hit, but the Songwriters Refused: “We Knew It Was a Hit”

Songwriters are in the business of giving their songs away, but that doesn’t mean they have to hand them over to the first person who asks. For the creative team of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, they knew that one song of theirs in particular could be their golden egg—that is, a hit song that kept on giving. That’s why when Dusty Springfield asked for it, they said no.

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We suppose it just goes to show: some mountains are too high to climb.

Why the Songwriting Team Said No to Dusty Springfield

Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson were still struggling to break into the Motown scene when they wrote “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. The songwriters had a strong suspicion that this duet could be their key to writing for bigger artists, like Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Their hopes came true when the two singers released their rendition of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” in April 1967. But if Ashford and Simpson hadn’t stuck to their guns when Dusty Springfield came knocking, that might’ve never happened.

“Dusty Springfield had just come to town and wanted to meet with us for material,” Simpson later recalled to the Chicago Tribune. “We played that song for her, but wouldn’t give it to her because we wanted to hold that back. We felt like that could be our entree to Motown. Nick called it the golden egg.”

Simpson continued, “We knew that it was a hit. Sometimes, you have a real gut feeling about something. Then, it becomes a question of, ‘What do you do with it?’ and ‘Who can carry it the furthest?’, and you start designing how you can get it to as many people as possible.”

In hindsight, it doesn’t take much to imagine Springfield’s smoky, lovesick vocals on a track like “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. Her rendition would have been different, certainly. But it wasn’t an unreasonable request on her part. Nevertheless, Gaye and Terrell’s version would be the one to launch the song to the rest of the world. A few years later, Diana Ross would release a rendition that went straight to the top of the Billboard Hot 100—her first solo track to hit No. 1.

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns