Originally Posted by
benross
While Diana Ross delivered what many considered to be an absolutely eye-opening, extraordinary performance with Ain't No Mountain High Enough, her triumph came almost exactly one year after Peggy Lee delivered what many considered to be a totally stunning, extraordinary performance with Is That All There Is?
Peggy recorded her song on January 24, 1969, and it was released that August. In part because of its message and its unusual arrangement as well as Peggy's perfect, precise performance, it was a curiosity that won massive, wide-spread attention. It garnered airplay slowly, building steadily, and it became her first single in nearly a dozen years to reach the Top 40 charts. In consequence, Peggy earned and received her "Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Female" award March 11, 1970.
Diana recorded her song March 13, March 14 and March 18, 1970, and it was released as a single July 16, 1970. It found its market [[which overlapped only in part Peggy's market), and it found the top of the charts [[which overlapped only in part the charts on which Peggy's sales/airplay were tracked). Eventually, Diana's song, too, would be nominated for a Grammy.
Both performances were moving and majestic, structured with alternating sung and spoken passages. Although the latter recording swept to a much more dynamic orchestral finale, each had its drama and its diva moments.
And there would be another similarity: Motown was trying to establish Diana Ross as an enduring solo attraction, like Peggy Lee, for example, and as if to prove that point, Diana included a [[comedy version of) Peggy's song in her first solo concert tour, which would debut in the summer of 1970, encouraging, emphasizing and establishing this precise comparison long before nominations for the 1971 show would be decided upon.
Perhaps too many Grammy voters saw the connection and decided that, as fresh and exciting as it was and still seems to be, Diana's version of Ain't No Mountain High Enough was not "original" or "creative." It was a recycled, reconstructed piece -- part Marvin and Tammi; part Diana, The Supremes and The Temptations, for heaven's sake; and part Peggy -- arranged and assembled by Nicholas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Perhaps it was perceived to be a pastiche, and perhaps Diana's part in the process was deemed to be as essential as, merely, that of the third-chair violinist at one point or another in the six-minute recording.
So, while I was disappointed along with [[Diana and) many others, there was some logic in the choice of Dionne's song, not Diana's, never mind the fact that Dionne was almost as dependent on the Bacharach/David machine as Diana was on the Motown assembly line. And it may have presaged the reasoning for not nominating Diana's Lady Sings The Blues album in the years to come; Motown over-promoted the movie and Diana's Oscar-worthy performance in it, and articles at the time and since noted that Hollywood types were not overly enamored as the advertising campaigns unfolded.
