Johnny Nash born August 19, 1940

Johnny Nash (August 19, 1940 – October 6, 2020) was an American singer and songwriter, best known in the United States for his 1972 hit "I Can See Clearly Now". Primarily a reggae and pop singer, he was one of the first non-Jamaican artists to record reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica.

John Lester Nash Jr., was born in Houston, Texas, to Eliza (nee Armstrong) and her husband, John Nash, a chauffeur. A sweet-mannered, good-looking and well-behaved child, though a little shy, Johnny went to Jack Yates high school and was brought up on gospel music at the Progressive New Hope Baptist Church in the city, where he soon became renowned for his beautifully smooth voice, which also made an impact at talent shows. At 13, after Nash had been caddying at a golf course for a retired businessman, Frank Stockton, he was urged to get up and sing in the clubhouse. Stockton was so impressed that he arranged an audition for a local afternoon TV programme on KPRC-TV, and for the next three years the young Nash earned more money than his father by singing regularly on the show after school.

From 1956 he sang on Arthur Godfrey's radio and television programs for a seven-year period. Signing with ABC-Paramount, Nash made his major label debut in 1957 with the single "A Teenager Sings the Blues". Although it made little impact, his next single, A Very Special Love, made it to 23 in the US charts, his first album, Johnny Nash, was issued in 1958. Nash won a Silver Sail Award for his performance from the Locarno International Film Festival. Nash continued releasing singles on a variety of labels such as Groove, Chess, Argo, and Warner Bros. The song "The Teen Commandments" by Paul Anka, George Hamilton IV, and Johnny Nash reached #14 on Canada's CHUM Charts, December 15, 1958. Marketed as a rival to Johnny Mathis, he even began a film career at 18 years old with 1959's Take a Giant Step, also appearing in 1960's Key Witness before his career flagged with a series of little-noticed singles for Warner Bros., Groove, and Argo. As a church-going youth and former boy scout, he preferred to ignore rock’n’roll, which in any case did not suit his vocal style. But as a result his relevance and popularity began to wane, and in the years after his 1961 album, Let’s Get Lost, his impetus and direction foundered.

Bob Marley & Johnny Nash

In 1964, Nash and manager Danny Sims formed JoDa Records in New York. JoDa released The Cowsills' single "All I Really Want to Be Is Me". Although JoDa filed for bankruptcy after only two years. After selling off his old entertainment assets in New York, Sims opened a new music publishing business in Jamaica, Cayman Music. Nash planned to try breaking the local rocksteady sound in the United States. Around 1966 or 1967, Neville Willoughby took Nash to a Rastafarian party where Bob Marley & The Wailing Wailers were performing. Members Bob Marley, Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh, and Rita Marley introduced Nash to the local music scene. Nash signed all four to an exclusive publishing contract with Cayman Music for J$50 a week. In 1967, Nash, Arthur Jenkins, and Sims collaborated to create a new label, JAD Records (after their first names Johnny, Arthur, and Danny), and recorded their albums at Federal Records in Kingston. 

                                  

Inspired by the new possibilities, in 1968 he wrote You Got Soul, a fine, fully-fledged rock-steady tune that was issued in the UK by Trojan Records and reached No 5 in the singles charts. Among the first of Trojan’s British reggae releases to experiment with the addition of pop instrumentation and strings, it helped to crystallise a winning formula in the UK that appealed to the masses and paved the way for Desmond Dekker’s Israelites to become the UK’s first reggae No 1 shortly afterwards. Later in the year Nash followed up with Hold Me Tight, in similarly rich rock-steady vein: it got to No 6 in the UK and was among the first Jamaican records to cause a stir in the US, making No 5.

In 1970 Nash was invited to Sweden to write the soundtrack for a film, Love is Not a Game, in which he also acted opposite Christina Schollin. Nash took Marley and Sims with him, and they were away from Jamaica for the best part of a year. The film was a damp squib – it had only a brief run in Sweden in 1971 and plans to release the soundtrack as an album were ditched. But the sojourn in Scandinavia brought Nash and Marley into a musical collaboration that bore fruits in Nash’s 1972 album I Can See Clearly Now, to which Marley contributed Stir it Up, Guava Jelly, Comma Comma and You Poured Sugar on Me, the last of which they jointly wrote. The album, and its title track in particular, established Nash as a household name. Marley was left in his friend’s professional wake, but the relationship had been useful for both, giving Nash a new direction and grooming Marley for his eventual hook-up with Island Records and superstardom.

As it turned out, Nash had essentially begun to abandon the music business by the time Marley came to global attention. He decided to move back to Houston in 1974 for a quieter life, buying a ranch there and embarking on his third marriage, to Carlie Collins. Meanwhile in the UK, his biggest hit was with the song "Tears on My Pillow" which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in July 1975 for one week. The album Tears on My Pillow came out later in the year. After a cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" in 1976 and "Let's Go Dancing" in 1979, for many years Nash seemed to have dropped out of sight. By 1980, though he was still only 40, his recording activity had ground to a halt, and though there was one more album, Here Again, in 1986,which included the minor UK hit, "Rock Me Baby".

Much of his attention was by then focused on family life, church activities and helping local causes. A keen horse rider since his youth, in 1993 he set up the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena in Houston, where he financed weekly rodeos for youngsters who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to get on a horse. For many years he politely refused all interview requests. Younger audiences were introduced to Nash's music with the appearance of Jimmy Cliff's cover of "I Can See Clearly Now" in Disney's 1993 film Cool Runnings. Nash's version of the song appeared over the opening scene of John Cusack's 1997 film, Grosse Point Blank. In May 2006, Nash worked with SugarHill Recording Studios chief engineer Andy Bradley and Tierra Studios' Randy Miller to transfer analogue tapes of his songs from the 1970s and 1980s to Pro Tools digital format at Tierra Studios in his native Houston. Intensely private, he stayed out of the public eye except for occasional tours as the 21st century deepened.

After a period of declining health Johnny Nash died of natural causes at his home in Houston, Texas, on October 6, 2020; he was 80 years old.

(Edited from The Guardian, Wikipedia & AllMusic)