Gimme Something Real is Ashford & Simpson's first album to be released featuring them as singers as well as songwriters and producers (an album recorded last year and including their own versions of earlier A&S hits is still to be released by Motown). It isn't Marvin and Tammi, but it's certainly the only thing to come close to their standard of class romance in years. There are fewer just-you-and-me love songs here than I'd like, possibly because Ashford & Simpson aren't particularly interested in projecting themselves as the True Love Duet (remember Peaches and Herb?) or even the Cute Couple of the year. They are simply a fine team and this is their most impressive effort so far.

The production has their characteristic lightness and vibrancy. Instead of the densely compacted, hard-driven sound so popular with most black producers today, Ashford & Simpson's music has space and a delicious airiness. No nasty bumps here, this is another kind of heaven. And if Nick Ashford doesn't have a voice anybody'd go crazy over—it's raw, sometimes strained, decidedly unpolished—and even Valerie is less than extraordinary—a sort of rough-cut Diana Ross—together they're magic. They're so attuned to each other, the songs and the music that after repeated listenings, they sound like the only people you'd want to hear at that moment.

And the songs—well, here's where I want to quote seven verses and string together ecstatic exclamation marks. Even when they rhyme "desire" with "satisfy ya" (on the opening cut, "Bend Me"), they make it work.

Standouts: "Time," which begins with only the "ticking" of a clock and a delicate electric piano (Leroy Pendarvis, excellent throughout), and is one of Ashford & Simpson's trademark good hurt songs—sad but somehow uplifting. The song is about separation and Nick sings two of its sharpest lines: "Seems like my sense of balance is gone/And I can't stand alone." The chorus: "Since you've been gone/The world is so big/Time—all I have is time/Time is the space between me and you."

"Anywhere" opens slowly with separate verses from Valerie and Nick, blends the two voices, builds to a shimmering peak, then breaks completely to dip into the beat of the song itself in one of those sudden reversals that never fails to thrill me. Nick and Valerie sing lovingly of each other's uniqueness: "A thousand voices may call my name/Out loud in a crowd/But I'd know you by the melody/That flows from you to me."

"Bend Me" is total submission and one of the album's most exuberant cuts. And "Gimme Something Real" is the appropriate key track, giving both Ashford and Simpson time for spoken "personal testimonies" within their most forceful production, building to what sounds like a full gospel chorus close (though the only voices are those of Nick, Valerie and their friend and sometime collaborator, Joshie Armstead). Two lines sum it and the album's feeling up perfectly: "Hey baby, I've had enough thrills/Now I need something real." Here it is. (RS 147)

VINCE ALETTI