Ashford & Simpson ~ Solid 1984 Funky Purrfection Version

Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson were writers/producers for Motown records and had great successes throughout that career and felt that Motown was not ready to record their own songs. In 1973 they signed with Warner Bros. Records and immediately scored on the R&B charts ringing up a total of 22 R&B hit singles including the disco opus “Found A Cure“ in 1979. Their work with fellow label mate Chaka Khan for “I’m Every Woman“ was the smash hit that made her a solo superstar and is their second most popular single they produced throughout their career, the first was Diana Ross’s remixed version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough“. They moved to Capitol Records in 1984 and started work on a new album. Valerie had taken to walking the streets of her New York City neighborhood and picked up on the latest lingo. She relates “the song came from the streets, the brothers had this expression, “Yo solid“ and immediately related to it. Taking the idea to Nickolas, Valerie explained that she felt the word applied to the both of them together and the song came together in short order. The lead single was released November 10, 1984 and featured Valerie on synths, with Nickolas and Ray Simpson along with Ullanda McCullogh on backgrounds. On December 1, 1984 it began a four week run at the top of the R&B chart. I finally got around to finishing this one I started in May of 2012.