Ain't No Mountain High Enough

On May 29, 2026, the Gay Men's Chorus of Tampa Bay flung open its "Love in Technicolor" concert at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg with a song built to lift a room: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson and made immortal by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1967, the Motown anthem arrived here in Kathleen McGuire's full-throated TTBB arrangement, with soloists Jason Fields and Gene Webster-English trading the call-and-response lines that give the song its heartbeat.

McGuire's setting leans into the joyous, gospel-tinged Sister Act 2 reading rather than the original's tender duet, opening room for ad lib solo flourishes and a propulsive Motown groove beneath the choral writing. The arrangement stacks the men's voices into bright, syncopated backing figures that answer the soloists like a vocal horn section.

Fields and Webster-English handled their exchanges with warmth and easy showmanship, one voice gritty and grounded, the other soaring into the upper register on the title hook. Around them the chorus delivered crisp diction and tight rhythmic blend, the basses anchoring the backbeat while the upper voices snapped the offbeat "ooh" responses cleanly into place. Dynamic shaping built steadily toward a roof-raising final chorus.

Allendale's generous acoustics gave the sectional harmonies real bloom, the church's stone-and-wood resonance rounding the consonants without smearing the groove. The audience caught the spirit immediately, clapping along well before the last chorus and rising into a roar as the final chord rang out.

As an opener for the "Love & Heartbreak" act, the choice was canny: a song that insists love can cross any distance, sung by a chorus whose very existence is an act of devotion, visibility, and chosen family. There was no mountain, no valley, and certainly no river wide enough to keep this room from one another.