Johnny Nash, a singer-songwriter, actor and producer who rose from pop crooner to early reggae valuable person to the creator and performer of the million-promoting anthem “I Can Gawk Clearly Now,” died Tuesday, his son mentioned.
Nash, who had been in declining health, died of pure causes at home in Houston, the metropolis of his initiating, his son, Johnny Nash Jr., mentioned. He become once 80.
Nash become once in his early 30s when “I Can Gawk Clearly Now” topped the charts in 1972 and he had lived lots of explain replace lives. Within the mid-1950s, he become once a young person covering “Darn That Dream” and other requirements, his gentle tenor likened to the recount of Johnny Mathis. A decade later, he become once co-operating a file firm, had change into a rare American-born singer of reggae and helped originate the profession of his friend Bob Marley.
Nash praised “the vibes of this minute island” when talking of Jamaica, and he become once among the major artists to raise reggae to U.S. audiences. He peaked commercially within the slack 1960s and early 1970s, when he had hits with “Resolve Me Tight,” “You Obtained Soul,” an early version of Marley’s “Trail It Up” and “I Can Gawk Clearly Now,” still his signature tune.
Reportedly written by Nash while recovering from cataract surgical operation, “I Can Gawk Clearly Now” become once a legend of overcoming laborious cases that itself raised the spirits of endless listeners, with its swelling pop-reggae groove, promise of a “intellectual, intellectual sunshiny day” and Nash’s gospel-styled exclamation halfway, “Look uncomplicated, nothing but blue skies!”, a backing chorus lifting the words into the heavens.
The rock critic Robert Christgau would call the tune, which Nash additionally produced, “2 minutes and 48 seconds of undiluted inspiration.”
Although overpassed by Grammys judges, “I Can Gawk Clearly Now” become once lined by artists ranging from Ray Charles and Donny Osmond to Soul Asylum and Jimmy Cliff, whose version become once featured within the 1993 movie “Icy Runnings.” It additionally become up in every single space from “Thelma and Louise” to a Windex commercial, and in latest years become once generally referred to on web sites about cataract procedures.
“I truly feel that music is universal. Music is for the ears and not the age,” Nash told Cameron Crowe, then writing for Zoo World Journal, in 1973. “There are some folk that command that they detest music. I’ve droop trusty into a pair of, but I’m not optimistic I imagine them.”
The dear person of “I Can Gawk Clearly Now” outlasted Nash’s own. He infrequently made the charts within the years following, even as he released such albums as “Tears On My Pillow” and “Celebrate Lifestyles,” and by the 1990s had if truth be told left the replace. His closing album, “Here Any other time,” got right here out in 1986, though in latest years he become once reportedly digitizing his extinct work, some of which become once misplaced in a 2008 fire at Universal Studios in Los Angeles.
Nash become once married three cases, and had two young folk. He had loved using horses since childhood and as an grownup lived with his family on a ranch in Houston, where for years he additionally managed rodeo shows at the Johnny Nash Indoor Enviornment.
Besides to to his son, he’s survived by daughter Monica and wife Carli Nash.
John Lester Nash Jr., whose father become once a chauffeur, grew up singing in church and by age 13 had his own explain on Houston tv. Within a pair of years, he had a national following via his appearances on “The Arthur Godfrey Existing,” his hit duvet of Doris Day’s “A Very Particular Like” and a collaboration with peers Paul Anka and George Hamilton IV on the healthful “The Teen Commandments (of Like).” He additionally had roles within the flicks “Resolve a Huge Step,” in which he starred as a excessive faculty pupil rebelling in opposition to how the Civil Battle is taught, and “Key Spy,” a criminal offense drama starring Dennis Hopper and Jeffrey Hunter.
His profession extinct at some stage within the major half of of the 1960s, but he stumbled on a contemporary sound, and renewed success, within the mid-60s after having a rhythm and blues hit with “Let’s Circulate and Groove Collectively” and meeting Marley and fellow Wailers Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston at some stage in a consult with to Jamaica. Over the following couple of years their careers will most likely be closely aligned.
Nash convinced his manager and replace associate Danny Sims, with whom he fashioned JAD Records, to register Marley and the Wailers, who recorded “Reggae On Broadway” and dozens of other songs for JAD. Nash introduced Marley to London within the early 1970s when Nash become once the larger valuable person internationally and with Marley gave an impromptu concert at a local boys faculty. Nash’s covers of “Trail It Up” and “Guava Jelly” helped explain Marley’s writing to a overall viewers. The two additionally collaborated on the ballad “You Poured Sugar On Me,” which regarded on the “I Can Gawk Clearly Now” album.
After the 1980s, Nash become a thriller to fans and extinct colleagues as he stopped recording and performing and infrequently spoke to the press or any individual within the music industry. In 1973, he told Crowe that he anticipated years of laborious work: “What I could perchance well truly like to assemble is be a allotment of this replace and to exact myself and receive some form of acceptance by making folk joyful.”
A quarter-century later, he defined to The Gleaner at some stage in a consult with to Jamaica that it become once “complex to provide main music tasks” without touring and promoting and that he most well-preferred to be with his family.
“I convey I’ve performed gratification during the folk I’ve had the likelihood to meet. I by no method acquired the Grammy, but I don’t put my religion in issues of that nature,” he added. “A lifetime physique of work I could perchance perchance even delight in with is extra valuable to me. And the actual folksy blend to the music I assemble, that’s what it is all about.”
