Rock’s Superstar Songwriting Duos

Big hits often come from creative collaboration

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

During my previous career in marketing, I was fortunate to be a creative collaborator. As a copywriter, I was often teamed with a graphic designer. When we clicked, it was like magic, and the result was a combination of copy and graphics that melded beautifully.

I imagine that’s what it feels like to create a hit song together. Nothing could be better than melody and lyrics synching up in perfect harmony, right?

As music listeners, we may not always stop and think about who created the songs we love performed by the artists we adore. It turns out that a huge number of rock and pop hits were written by collaborators — two people who were not necessarily the performing artists.

Here are some of rock’s superstar songwriting duos. You may not recognize all of their names but you will surely know their songs.

Ashford and Simpson

Husband and wife Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson were songwriters as well as musical performers. Initially performing as a duo, they dropped their on-stage work for a while to write songs, first for the Scepter/Wand record label. In 1966, the duo joined Motown as songwriters where Ashford and Simpson wrote and/or produced all except one of the…