Don Nix born 27 September 1941

Donald Nix (September 27, 1941 – December 31, 2024) was an American musician, songwriter, and producer. Nix, who was best known for his song "Going Down," was described by AllMusic as "one of the more obscure figures in Southern soul and rock."

The Mar-Keys

William Donald Nix was born into a musical family in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended Messick High School with Donald "Duck" Dunn and Steve Cropper of the famed Stax house band Booker T. & the MG's. After graduation, Nix spent a short stint in the Army before returning to Memphis, where he joined Dunn and Cropper, along with Wayne Jackson, Packy Axton, Terry Johnson, and Smoochy Smith, as a saxophonist in the Mar-Keys. The group scored a smash hit with the instrumental "Last Night" on the Satellite label (later Stax/Volt).After the success of "Last Night" fizzled, Nix returned to Memphis and spent the next several years as a horn for hire, occasionally playing gigs with a re-formed version of the Mar-Keys or backing Stax stars such as William Bell and Carla Thomas. 

He relocated to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s to visit Leon Russell and Carle Radle, friends he'd met through touring. The friendship with Russell, a big producer at the time, landed Nix a position in Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars backing one of Russell's acts, Gary Lewis & the Playboys. Their friendship also provided Nix the opportunity to see how a session was put together, and he began engineering and producing at studios around Memphis such as Stax and Ardent. 

Nix's best known composition, "Going Down," was originally released by the band Moloch on their eponymous album in 1969, and has become a blues-rock standard, having been covered by Freddie King, J.J.Cale the Jeff Beck Group, the Who, and the Rolling Stones. 

                                    

Nix spent the next several years writing and producing for artists such as Freddie King, Albert King, Sid Selvidge, and Charlie Musselwhite. In 1970, he signed a recording deal with Shelter Records (co-owned by his old friend Leon Russell) and released a solo album, In God We Trust and followed it a year later with Living by the Days. Neither album sold very well, and after a few more attempts, Nix returned to recording other artists, producing records for John Mayall and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. In 1971, Nix made the acquaintance of George Harrison, leading to Nix organizing the backup vocalists for the Concert for Bangladesh. 

George Harrison and Tom Nix

After having been absent from record industry throughout most of the '80s, Nix relocated to Nashville and began writing and producing again. He published a book about his experiences titled Road Stories & Recipes, and re-recorded many of his classic tracks with musicians such as Brian May and Steve Cropper for 2002's nostalgic Going Down. He followed this with I Don't Want No Trouble in 2006, and Passing Through -- both on his Section Eight Productions label -- and in 2009, he released Hobos, Heroes and Street Corner Clowns for Concord's revitalized Stax imprint. In 2013, Real Gone Music reissued Living by the Days.

Nix had been suffering from the effects of macular degeneration and had lost his sight in recent years. He died in his sleep at his home in Germantown, Tennessee, on December 31, 2024, at the age of 83. 

(Edited from AllMuisc & Wikipedia)