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Welcome to Sound Projections
I'm your host Kofi Natambu. This online magazine features the very best in contemporary creative music in this creative timezone NOW (the one we're living in) as well as that of the historical past. The purpose is to openly explore, examine, investigate, reflect on, studiously critique, and take opulent pleasure in the sonic and aural dimensions of human experience known and identified to us as MUSIC. I'm also interested in critically examining the wide range of ideas and opinions that govern our commodified notions of the production, consumption, marketing, and commercial exchange of organized sound(s) which largely define and thereby (over)determine our present relationships to music in the general political economy and culture.
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Saturday, July 9, 2016
Donny Hathaway (1945-1979): Legendary, iconic, and innovative composer, arranger, singer, songwriter, lyricist, orchestrator, ensemble leader, and teacher
SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER ONE
MARY LOU WILLIAMS
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of: JULIUS HEMPHILL June 18-24 ARTHUR BLYTHE June 25-July 1 OSCAR BROWN, JR. July 2-July 8
DONNY HATHAWAY July 9-July 15
EUGENE McDANIELS July 16-July 22
ROBERTA FLACK July 23-July 29
WOODY SHAW July 30-August 5
FATS DOMINO August 6-August 12
CLIFFORD BROWN August 13-August 19
BLIND WILLIE McTELL August 20-August 26
RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK August 27-September 2
CHARLES BROWN September 3-September 9
DONNY HATHAWAY (1945-1979) Artist Biography by Steve Huey
Donny Hathaway
was one of the brightest new voices in soul music at the dawn of the
'70s, possessed of a smooth, gospel-inflected romantic croon that was
also at home on fiery protest material. Hathaway achieved his greatest commercial success as Roberta Flack's
duet partner of choice, but sadly he's equally remembered for the
tragic circumstances of his death -- an apparent suicide at age 33. Hathaway
was born October 1, 1945, in Chicago, but moved to St. Louis when he
was very young, and began singing in church with his grandmother at the
scant age of three. He began playing piano at a young age, and by high
school, he was impressive enough to win a full-ride fine arts
scholarship to Howard University to study music in 1964. While in
college, he performed with a cocktail jazz outfit called the Ric Powell
Trio, and wound up leaving school after three years to pursue job
opportunities he was already being offered in the record industry.
Hathaway first worked behind the scenes as a producer, arranger, songwriter, and session pianist/keyboardist. He supported the likes of Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler, and the Staple Singers, among many others, and joined the Mayfield Singers, a studio backing group that supported Curtis Mayfield's Impressions. Hathaway soon became a house producer at Mayfield's Curtom label, and in 1969 cut his first single, a duet with June Conquest
called "I Thank You Baby." From there he signed with Atco as a solo
artist, and released his debut single, the inner-city lament "The
Ghetto, Pt. 1," toward the end of the year. While it failed to reach the
Top 20 on the R&B charts, "The Ghetto" still ranks as a classic
soul message track, and has been sampled by numerous hip-hop artists.
"The Ghetto" set the stage for Hathaway's acclaimed debut LP, Everything Is Everything,
which was released in early 1970. In 1971, he released his eponymous
second album and recorded a duet with former Howard classmate Roberta Flack,
covering Carole King's "You've Got a Friend." It was a significant hit,
reaching the Top Ten on the R&B charts, and sparked a full album of
duets, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway,
which was released in 1972. The soft, romantic ballad "Where Is the
Love?" topped the R&B charts, went Top Five on the pop side, and won
a Grammy, and the accompanying album went gold.
Also in 1972, Hathaway
branched out into soundtrack work, recording the theme song for the TV
series Maude and scoring the film Come Back Charleston Blue. However, in
the midst of his blossoming success, he was also battling severe bouts
of depression, which occasionally required him to be hospitalized. His
mood swings also affected his partnership with Flack, which began to crumble in 1973. Hathaway released one more album that year, the ambitious Extension of a Man, and then retreated from the spotlight; over the next few years, he performed only in small clubs. In 1977, Hathaway patched things up with Flack and temporarily left the hospital to record another duet, "The Closer I Get to You," for her Blue Lights in the Basement
album. The song was a smash, becoming the pair's second R&B number
one in 1978, and also climbing to number two on the pop charts. Sessions
for a second album of duets were underway when, on January 13, 1979, Hathaway
was found dead on the sidewalk below the 15th-floor window of his room
in New York's Essex House. The glass had been neatly removed from the
window, and there were no signs of struggle, leading investigators to
rule Hathaway's death a suicide; his friends were mystified, considering that his career had just started to pick up again, and Flack was devastated. Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway
was released in 1980, and both of the completed duets -- "Back Together
Again" and "You Are My Heaven" -- became posthumous hits. In 1990, Hathaway's daughter Lalah launched a solo career.
A singer/songwriter/keyboardist best known for his
duets with Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway fused R&B, gospel, jazz,
classical, and rock strains in a modestly successful solo career. He was
raised in St. Louis by his grandmother, Martha Pitts, a professional
gospel singer. From the age of three, Hathaway accompanied her on tours,
billed as the Nation's Youngest Gospel Singer. He attended Howard
University in Washington, DC, on a fine-arts scholarship.
One classmate was Roberta Flack, and in the early '70s, shortly after
Flack started her solo career, the two began singing together. Their
hits included Carole King's "You've Got a Friend" (Number 29, 1971) and
"Where Is the Love" (Number Five, 1972), which established them as a
duo. Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway was a gold album, but due to
personal problems both the partnership and Hathaway's solo career were
put on hold for several years. When they reunited in 1978, they had
their biggest hit, the gold single "The Closer I Get to You" (Number
Two, 1978). Hathaway was working on Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway
when he died after falling from his 15th-floor hotel room of the Essex
House. (The police called it suicide; close friends refused to believe
it.) The LP, released posthumously, hit Number 25 and went gold; a
single, "You Are My Heaven," reached Number 47.
At the time of his death, Hathaway had released five solo albums in
addition to his discs with Flack. He had recorded briefly for Curtom
Records with June Conquest as June and Donnie, and got his first solo
contract with Atlantic in 1970 under the patronage of King Curtis.
Hathaway enjoyed R&B chart success in the early '70s with singles
like "The Ghetto, Part 1" (Number 23 R&B, 1970), "Little Ghetto Boy"
(Number 25 R&B, 1972), "Giving Up" (Number 21 R&B, 1972), "I
Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" (Number 20 R&B, 1972), and
"Love, Love, Love" (Number 16 R&B, 1973).
Concurrently, Hathaway worked as a producer and composer for others,
including Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler, and the Staple Singers. He also
did freelance production work for Chess, Uni, Kapp, and Stax, and
served as arranger for Curtom Records and band director for the
Impressions. Quincy Jones hired Hathaway to score the 1972 film Come Back Charleston Blue. He also sang the theme song for the television series Maude.
By the mid-'70s, he had formed his own independent production company.
Hathaway's daughter Lalah came out with her debut album in 1990.
This biography originally appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
To remember the soul genius, who jumped to his death 35 years ago this
month, here's a piece that singer-songwriter Kandia Crazy Horse wrote in
1999 – from
Rock's Backpages
by Kandia Crazy Horse theguardian.com 8 January 2014
Soul man … Donny Hathaway in 1972. Photograph: Stephen Verona/Getty Images My recent theory is that if the late soul man and scribe Donny Hathaway had been white he would be as (cult) famous as Cosmic American Gram Parsons; mentioned in the same breath as the prematurely departed mystic Nick Drake. Twenty years since Hathaway leaped to his death from the 15th floor of Manhattan's Essex House hotel, he's neither.
And yet, that Voice, that sweet mountain honey of a tenor caresses like a lullaby. A voice simultaneously neonatal and ancient. Eternal even. To convey sunshine to the blind, just play his records.
Today, there are multitudes of whippersnappers pretending to the throne; it's become de rigueur to cite Hathaway as an influence on one's hip hop or soul project. At the vanguard are D'Angelo – the best of the canny crooks, who cops the legendary Hathaway "look" which my father remembers as the mo of brothers looking to step to the soul sisters in Chocolate City at the turn of the 70s – and Jamiroquai's Jason Kay, who gets likened to Stevie Wonder, but is more akin to Donny with his heavy Fender Rhodes and string arrangements, and his messianic composition style. Neither, though, has yet delivered a masterpiece on par with any Hathaway composition. And given their current directions, they may never do so.
Among the retro-nuevo soul cats and Cosmic Negro rock'n'rollers coming up now, only the largely-ignored Marc Dorsey begins to approach Hathaway's vocal majesty. And Atlanta's David Ryan Harris, of the defunct Follow for Now, also mines a fusion of Hathaway and Wonder phrasings, rendered raw on the black rock tip. But truth is, the St Louis blues brother's sound is unique throughout the history of race records, if not further.
Hathaway's slave narrative is common to many African American youth of his generation; virtually cliche next to his contemporary R&B and country and western musicians. Still, it seems young Donny survived his broken home upbringing intact – as he'd later hint in Put Your Hand in the Hand. If anything, being reared by his gospel-singing grandmother, Miss Martha Cromwell, was a literal godsend: her spiritual and piano teachings proved an essential 50% of her grandson's singular soul music. Indeed, the sense of long-ago inherited Sudanese metaphysics couched in traditional black Christian love imbues Hathaway's singing and songs throughout his sadly brief recorded output.
Donny Hathaway's four solo recordings, Everything Is Everything, Extensions of a Man, the self-titled and live albums – plus his collaborations with Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin, and the lost classic soundtrack Come Back, Charleston Blue – are an open secret at the end of the century. Sure, some know to cite him in their litany of forebears, but aside from the TV historians who recall he sang the theme to Maude, the wider populace and – most lamentably, young black kids – barely know him.
Click here to watch video:
That's probably because Hathaway was not the pre-eminent soul stirrer during his lifetime. The 70s, a golden era of black music, was also the period that yielded the last of the classic male soul singers. There was the great Al Green, followed by the newly emancipated Motown kings Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Eddie Kendricks, as well as Teddy Pendergrass, Maurice White, the peerless Curtis Mayfield (for whom Donny arranged Choice Of Colors) and many others. True, Hathaway's Someday We'll All Be Free became something of a black national anthem (to his own annoyance), and his 1969 hit The Ghetto (Part 1) is a pan-black bottom hit that resonates to this day, and his succession of duets with Flack – You've Got a Friend, Where Is the Love and so on – reanimated Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell for the 70s. Still, Hathaway seems perennially overshadowed by fellow piano-men proselytisers, Wonder and Sly Stone. And that's the great musical mystery of the last three decades, frustrating and unfathomable: Why, given his ghostly presence in the New Soul, hasn't he been spotlighted in the contemporary black music canon? Atlantic Records' legendary producer Jerry Wexler, for one, immediately appreciated Hathaway's talent the moment he heard him (on a tape King Curtis had given him), and soon became the singer's surrogate father and confidante.
"He was the most brilliant musical theorist I ever encountered," Wexler said recently on the phone from his home in Florida, as he described the metaphysics of harmony, rhythm and melody embodied in Hathaway's songcraft. Not only did Hathaway "play with so much depth," Wexler recalled, he was a chordal master who spent a lot of time in rehearsal and in the studio pursuing his songs' self-evident harmonic complexity. An apt student of street, classical and Sunday music, Hathaway the singer and arranger created an amalgam that was unequivocally Soul, for there was no separation of those disparate essences. Wexler also remembers his cursed protege's depression, poor self-image and sense of alienation.
Hathaway's solo and duet albums have been, for the most part, made available on CD during this decade (though they haven't quite flooded the market). However, the never-on-CD soundtrack Come Back, Charleston Blue – its arrangements supervised by Quincy Jones – is Hathaway's true masterpiece. This aural accompaniment to the film version of Chester Himes' great crime novel is some of the heaviest blues around.
It's also the album that best demonstrates Hathaway's range as a composer, his absorption of styles from ragtime through big band and bossa nova. A score simultaneously groovy and elegiac, Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong and – in light of his encroaching shadows – the equally tortured prodigy Charles "Buddy" Bolden, call down to Donny, whether tickling his tack piano or dropping heartbreaking phrasing on Little Ghetto Boy. In a just world, Charleston Blue should be top on the list of priorities for the reissue folks at Rhino.
Yep, it's an old tired tale: brilliant black boy bursts with promise, presents his rimshot to the cosmos and disappears (often violently) from the proscenium too soon. Like Hendrix, Hathaway heard vast continents of sound in his head and struggled to make them corporeal for the waking world. And the Parsons comparison lingers: Hathaway, too, was a riveting interpreter of other people's material, able to scorch the blueprints of the originals. And was, like Drake, doomed by his own demons.
Yet here is the hour of Hathaway's stealthy return, if only in that he haunts the dreams of clever coloured composers hoping to restore the soul to the hip-hop nation (and I, for one, eagerly await the day Donny's vocalist daughter Lalah Hathaway finally decides to stage a concert series of her dad's four-part concerto Life). "I'm depending on you, little brother/ We need your help, little brother" Hathaway pleads at Little Ghetto Boy's coda. Today, his soul – and perhaps ours – depends on us revitalising the people's muse by honouring one of the supreme artists of our age.
A testament to his amazing talent, many of today's musicians have
drawn from his legacy, his songbook, his vocal approach, and his
emotional fervor.
Few artists in Soul music incorporated the rhythms, technological
interventions, and spiritual ethos of American jazz more fully than the
late Donny Hathaway. Over the course of his recording career, the
Chicago soul legend produced music which reminded many listeners of the
fusion work of Donald Byrd, Bobbi Humphrey, Archie Shepp, Alice
Coltrane, and Yusef Lateef. Connecting Hathaway with these and other
jazz artists of the late sixties and seventies was his efforts to
provide an aural landscape of black inner city life, his explicit
spirituality, and his embrace of various musical genres. An ambitious
artist constantly searching for new ways to articulate musically the
complexity of the human spirit, Hathaway was never afraid to stretch
rhythm and blues into previously unheard shapes, textures, and sounds.
Schooled in the rich traditions of African American music, the gifted
musician fused jazz, classical, gospel, and of course the blues into his
particular brand of soul music. Far too often, jazz critics interested
in 1970s fusion focus solely on jazz musicians' forays into rock, soul,
and funk, but Hathaway's career forces us to consider the ways in which
the black musical landscape was enriched as a result of rhythm and blues
musicians' borrowing of jazz styles and idioms. Sixty-one
years ago, on October 1, 1945, Donny Hathaway was born in the culturally
vibrant city of Chicago, Illinois. Moving to St. Louis, Missouri as a
young child, Hathaway was steeped in the religious tradition of the
black church. A fine arts scholarship eventually led the Chicago native
to Howard University, where he benefited immensely from the rich musical
scene on campus and in the city's black enclaves. Anyone strolling down
the popular streets of DC could enjoy the sounds of Edward Kennedy "The
Duke Ellington, Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Julian "Cannonball"
Adderley, among other frequent visitors to the thriving metropolis.
Quite possibly, Hathaway also absorbed the sounds of the Ramsey Lewis'
Trio, which contributed significantly to the popularization of cocktail
lounge jazz during the sixties. Only one year after Hathaway's arrival
in DC, Lewis recorded The In Crowd at the Bohemian Caverns in
May, 1965. Serious about honing his talent, Hathaway started playing in a
trio led by another Howard student, Ric Powell. Eventually, Hathaway's
reputation as an incredibly gifted musician extended beyond the nation's
capital. Leaving Washington, D.C, for Chicago in 1968, Hathaway
distinguished himself as an excellent pianist and arranger on recording
sessions for Phil Upchurch, Jerry Butler, and of course, the prodigious
singer-songwriter, Curtis Mayfield. Fully immersing himself in Chicago's
music scene, Hathaway arranged Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions' Young Mod's Forgotten Story,
which was released in 1969 and climbed to #21 on the Rhythm and Blues
charts. The recording benefited immensely from Hathaway's strong
harmonic sense, and Mayfield was definitely impressed by the young man's
talent: "This fella, you could just talk to him over the phone and play
him a piece of music, and he could call out every chord and every
movement and where the fifth was and the augmented and tell you what key
it was in. Self-taught, Mayfield had a tremendous amount of respect for
Hathaway's expansive musical knowledge. "He really baffled me, Mayfield
later admitted. "I always admired people that could do that because I
never had that kind of learning. It was just amazing. Even though
Hathaway was classically trained, the soul singer never underestimated
the power of emotion and feeling. "He had a lot of learning in him,
Mayfield perceptively noted, "but he was instilled with a lot of depth
of the religious feeling of black music.
Such depth and brilliance brought the twenty-four year old to the
attention of record executives and musicians at Atlantic Records. Signed
to Atlantic's subsidiary, Atco, in 1969, Hathaway excelled as a singer,
arranger, producer, and session player. Over the period between 1970
and 1973, Donny Hathaway released five albums: Everything is Everything , Donny Hathaway, Donny Hathaway Live, Comeback Charleston Blue , and Extension of A Man. None were more impressive than his debut release, Everything is Everything. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/12/donny-hathaways-way-underrated-tragically-brief-soul-catalog/282046/ Donny Hathaway's Way-Underrated, Tragically Brief Soul Catalog
Depression derailed his career (and claimed his life), but a new box set reminds that Hathaway's eclectic, politically charged soul music deserves a spot among 1970s R&B greats.
Prolific
isn’t the same as great, but for a soul singer, it’s very difficult to
achieve the latter without some of the former. More work makes it harder
for history to forget you, and less likely for a valuable release to be
considered an aberration.
Consider the “classic” singers of soul
and funk. The Motown crew knew the importance of ubiquity: Marvin Gaye
put out five studio albums, a movie soundtrack, and a collaboration with
Diana Ross in the ‘70s; Stevie Wonder did eight records in that decade
(two were double albums), and Diana Ross’s total exceeded Wonder’s.
After breaking into the big time in 1967, Aretha Franklin released more
than an album a year through the ‘70s. Al Green had 11 secular LPs from
1970 to 1977. James Brown and George Clinton put out albums like they
were going out of style—long before they did, in fact, go out of style.
Clinton needed more than one band so people didn’t get tired of his
name. The singer Donny Hathaway has an impressive resume,
playing political soul before Gaye, recording remarkable covers of songs
by the likes of Nina Simone and John Lennon, arranging albums for
diverse talents including Willie Nelson and Curtis Mayfield. Despite
this, Hathaway is rarely mentioned in the same breath as other great
‘70s R&B singers—possibly because most of his creative output can be
fit on four discs.
Hathaway released just three solo studio albums, a record of duets, and the movie soundtrack Come Back Charleston Blues before
his death—ruled a suicide—in January of 1979. The first of these albums
came out in 1970, the last in 1973; after that, depression crippled
Hathaway’s musical output. Some additional duets he recorded with the
singer Roberta Flack were put out posthumously. So Hathaway may not have
produced at a high volume. But, as shown in the new box set Never My Love, he was efficient.
The album that marks Hathaway’s clearest stake to excellence is 1970’s Everything Is Everything,
a tightly unified work that adeptly mixed a gritty funk low end,
soaring gospel ballads, and orchestrated soul. It included political
commentary (almost a year before What’s Goin’ On), impressive originals, and formidable covers of standards—“Misty”—and
songs by Ray Charles and Nina Simone. Hathaway had some of the vocal
gravity of Stevie Wonder, and believed firmly in the power of call and
response. When he wasn’t singing opposite Roberta Flack, he often stood
out against a large cadre of backing vocalists.
Six of Everything Is Everything’s 10 tracks make it on to Never My Love.
This includes “The Ghetto,” a radical take on political soul:
electric-keyboard-driven, Latin-inflected, relentless. The lyrics mainly
consist of Hathaway repeating “The Ghetto”
over and over. Curtis Mayfield or Gaye linked their politics to stories
of drug-dealers and veterans; Hathaway eschewed narrative in favor of
repetition, one of pop’s most effective weapons, demanding notice
through single-minded focus. Funk draws much of its potency from
recurring themes as well, and Hathaway just fused medium and message.
The live version—one of the four discs is devoted to a performance in
New York—stretches “The Ghetto” out to more than 14 minutes, as Hathaway
solos furiously, and the audience joins in clapping in double time.
The
‘70s was also a fertile period of interplay between funk, soul, and
jazz, as the giants of R&B drew on the looser, longer, more
improvisatory textures of jazz—and used jazz players—when making their
own music. (Jazz also found influence in funk; see Miles Davis.)
Hathaway’s “Come Back Charleston Blue,” all smooth keys, shows Hathaway ably taking a turn into bluesy-jazz vocals, while “Valdez in the Country,” mulls over a riff again and again, happily undecided as to how it should be played best.
What if Hathaway hadn’t suffered from brutal bouts of depression that
eventually took his life? The unreleased material shows a few possible
trajectories for the artist. In “A Lot Of Soul,” Hathaway applies his
skills to country. He arranged Willie Nelson’s funkiest album, Shotgun Willie, and it’s too bad that some smart producer didn’t encourage Hathaway to record a full-length in Nashville.
“After
the Dance Is Done” and “Always the Same” find Hathaway in charging
love-man mode instead, singing praises to a lady as he sweeps her off
her feet. “Don’t Turn Away” also offers an up-tempo plea to a lover,
with the assistance of a massive horn section that might be lifted from
the big-band era. These songs are fast and free, Hathaway at his most
unencumbered. If he’d worked a little more on “The Sands Of Times And
Changes,” and tacked on a vocal, it might have morphed into a monster
cross-over piano ballad. The ‘70s were full of those, and Hathaway is
fluent in the genre, as he shows in this compilation’s live performance
of Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”
Then there’s the “Zyxygy Concerto,”
which Hathaway wrote in 1973. A piece for a full orchestra, exceeding 20
minutes in length, it’s overwrought and overlong. But it shows a singer
unafraid to push further, to ignore the soul compositions that came to
him with ease in search of something else entirely. It’s a shame we
never got to hear him find it.
Donny Hathaway: We Didn’t Want the Music to End
On the 35th anniversary of his untimely death, a look at this brilliant musician’s legacy of uplifting and encouraging music.
DONNY HATHAWAY(b. October 1, 1945--d. January 13, 1979)
Thirty-five years ago today we lost the great American soul singer Donny Hathaway. Best known for “A Song for You,” “This Christmas” and classic duets with Roberta Flack,
Hathaway was a church-trained singer, pianist, producer and composer
who recorded three solo albums, scored a film and conducted orchestral
symphonies.
His preternatural genius was a music-industry cliché. In 1973 he
told an interviewer that he was studying composition with Yusef Lateef
and drawing ideas from Stravinsky and the blues to enrich his music; he
had just moved to New York and was looking forward to making his name
there. He was 26 at the time and would be dead by 33, falling from a
15th-story window of New York City’s Essex House Hotel in an apparent
suicide.
It is impossible to hear that interview without thinking of the end
that was racing much too fast toward this young artist. It is hard to
see the red Essex House sign at the south edge of Central Park without
remembering. In fact, it can be hard to hear Hathaway’s music without
also hearing his impending death. There’s that rich, hooded vocal sound,
that depth of feeling, that lyric “I hear voices, I see people,”
hinting at his mental illness—“the blast of voices inside,” as poet Ed Pavlic writes, that Hathaway channeled through his music with massive care.
The conventional way to tell Hathaway’s story is not to dwell on the
loss but to move past it and end on a positive note: to describe his
impact on soul legends like Stevie Wonder, to say that his music lives
on in countless artists, such as his phenomenal daughter, Lalah Hathaway.
This is all true. But I want to linger on the matter of endings. Doing
so is instructive with Hathaway, because he was a master of them.
He sang each line like its own statement, from the opening breath to the last stylized sound. In “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,”
he trades his signature full-voiced legato for a spacious, quiet
approach: “I am strong enough to carry him.” He floats the word “strong”
across the measure and lets the line down gently. When the phrase ends,
he has recast strength as supreme tenderness.
His version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”
sinks the song into a mean funk groove and shakes it up with creepy
drama. Lennon demurely apologizes to a lover: “I didn’t mean to hurt
you, and I’m sorry I made you cry … I’m just a jealous guy.” Hathaway
steadily builds the intensity as if telling the story makes him mad all
over again. What starts as an apology ends with a demand: “I don’t want
nobody lookin’ at you!”
His 1972 live album
also features two long soul-jazz jams that resist closure or
containment. “Are you ready for a party, y’all?” Hathaway calls, before
hosting a Wurlitzer-driven celebration of the style, glamour and fun of “The Ghetto,”
a song meant to counter dire portraits of urban black life. He puts the
idea of cherished community into action as he proudly introduces his
band on “Voice Inside (Everything Is Everything).”
Each musician takes a solo, the crowd joins in with a soul clap and
still, 13 minutes later, you can tell no one wants it to end.
The reluctance to end is sometimes part of the story. “Givin’ up
is so very hard to do,” Hathaway sings in stretched-out gospel style,
“when you really love someone.” Never mind giving up—he doesn’t even
want to get going.
He was unafraid to be dramatic, gorgeous and sincere. Listen to his 1971 live performance of “A Song for You.”
In the oasis of an interlude he sings, “I love you,” suspending the
phrase up out of time and turning it through an impossibly lovely
melisma; studding the pathway to the ending with gems of rich blues
chords: “And when my life is over, remember when we were together. We
were alone and I was singing this song to you.”
He could end an argument before it even started. For
anyone who might resent black people’s desire to affirm themselves
among themselves, when it came to “Young, Gifted and Black,” he sang this: “I’m not tryin’ to bring down nobody else, but it’s sure young, gifted and black.” Case closed.
He wanted to encourage black people through his music, and some
people tried to encourage him. Edward Howard wrote the lyrics to
Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free,”
he says, as a message to Hathaway himself. Hathaway was then plagued by
schizophrenia, and the song was all his friend could give him: “Hang on
to the world as it spins around, just don’t let the spin get you down.”
He wasn’t going to make it. But he held on long enough to turn a song
meant for him into a song for everyone else.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Emily J. Lordi is an assistant professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and the author of the new book Black Resonance: Iconic Women Singers and African American Literature.
Her music reviews have appeared in NewBlackMan (in Exile), the Feminist
Wire and the New Inquiry. She is working on a book about soul. Emily J. Lordi’s book Donny Hathaway Live will be published by Bloomsbury in the fall of 2016.
Singer-composer-arranger Donny Hathaway is perhaps best known for his duets with singer Roberta Flack,
but the body of solo work he left behind when he died 30 years ago is
part of the foundation of American soul music. His songs have influenced
performers from R&B singer Alicia Keys to rapper Common to singer-guitarist George Benson. Hathaway's
voice was clear and powerful, and his piano-playing was remarkable in
its own right. He exercised uncanny control over both of his
instruments. Contemporary singer-songwriter Raul Midon — often compared to Hathaway — says Hathaway not only had an incredible voice, but also the technique of a classical singer.
"He's just the strongest soul singer that ever existed," he says.
"Call it gospel. Call it soul. Call it whatever you want. That tradition
of singing… black singers, African-American singers. He came from that
tradition."
Hathaway was born October 1, 1945 in Chicago I.L.,
but was raised by his grandmother in a St. Louis public housing project.
By the age of three, he was already a professional gospel singer. His
piano chops earned him a scholarship to attend Howard University and
eventually landed him work as a producer and arranger for the likes of Aretha Franklin and the Staple Singers. In 1969, he signed with Atlantic Records and released his first single, "The Ghetto, Pt. 1." "When I hear him, it's like somebody who has something to say, and you must hear it," says producer and arranger Joe Mardin.
A League Of His Own
Mardin
was still a child when he met Hathaway. His father, Arif, produced many
of singer's albums and was responsible for the lush arrangement that
cradles Hathaway's voice in "A Song For You." He scoffs at the number of
people who claim they were influenced by Hathaway. Not that it isn't
nice to see Hathaway get some props, he says. It's just that most
singers and musicians just aren't in Hathaway's league. "I
think there are very few people that come even close to singing the way
Donny did," he says, "or having the depth of sound and emotion in his
singing."
Mardin says many don't realize that in addition to
Hathaway's extraordinary voice, he was a skilled writer, arranger and
conductor. He points to "I Love The Lord; He Heard My Cry (Parts 1 and
2)" — with its symphonic arrangement — from Hathaway's final solo album,
Extension Of A Man.
"Nobody could write a song like
that," says legendary guitarist Phil Upchurch. "You receive it. You wake
up in the middle of the night, and God talks to you and says go write
this down."
Upchurch often performed with Hathaway and says he's never met another musician that touched his heart and sensibilities more.
"The
clarity and feeling could actually raise the hair on your arms and make
you cry and give you chill bumps all at the same time," he says.
Lost Soul
The
eclectic range of Hathaway's final solo album extended beyond his soul
and gospel roots to include Latin jazz and honky-tonk. Such breadth may
have been difficult to grasp for a music industry used to selling
strictly segregated genres. Hathaway's range is also remarkable
considering that — by this point in his career — he was battling
depression and schizophrenia.
Producer Eric Mercury was with Hathaway in January 1979 for what
would become his last recording session. Mercury still speaks reverently
of Hathaway's talent, and the rare ability he had to hear a piece of
music as a completely finished work — in his head.
"He hears
the music, he hears the strings, he hears the production, he hears the
drums, he hears the lyrics all at the same time," Mercury says. "Donny
Hathaway intimidated famous singers."
In a 1973 interview included on an album called, These Songs for You, Live!, Hathaway himself spoke of the way he viewed music.
"When
I think of music, I think of music in its totality, complete," he said.
"From the lowest blues to the highest symphony, you know, so what I'd
like to do is exemplify each style of as many periods as I can possibly
do."
But Hathaway never got the chance. On January 13th, 1979,
his body was found outside New York's Essex House below his 15th floor
hotel room. His death was ruled a suicide. He was just 33 years old.
Let's hear, now, one of NPR's 50 Great Voices. (Soundbite of song, "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know")
Mr. DONNY HATHAWAY (Singer/Songwriter/Musician): (Singing) When I
wasn't making too much money, you know where my paycheck went. I
brought it all home to you, baby, and I never spent one red cent.
MONTAGNE: Donny Hathaway may be forever linked to songstress
Roberta Flack for the duets they sang back in the 1970s. But his music
has influenced performers from George Benson to Alicia Keys to rapper
Common. And the body of work he left behind, when he died in 1979, can
be said to be part of the very foundation of soul.
Here's NPR's Allison Keyes.
ALLISON KEYES: The thing about Donny Hathaway's voice is its
clarity. It has power and strength, but it glistens like a waterfall of
moonlight.
(Soundbite of song, "For All We Know")
Mr. HATHAWAY: (Singing) For all we know, we may never meet again...
KEYES: Hathaway's voice, his skills on the piano, and his control over his instruments take your breath away.
Contemporary singer and songwriter Raul Midon is often compared
to Hathaway. He says Hathaway not only had an incredible voice, but the
technique of a classical singer. Mr. RAUL MIDON (Singer/Songwriter): He would do...
(Singing)
Mr. MIDON: ...you know, stuff like that. But it was always right on.
(Soundbite of song, "For All We Know")
Mr. HATHAWAY: (Singing) ...goodnight until the last minute...
Mr. MIDON: Obviously, the other great practitioner of that is
Stevie Wonder. And there are some others, but they weren't coming from
that tradition of singing.
(Soundbite of applause)
KEYES: Midon is talking about Hathaway's roots in what he calls the soul way of singing.
Mr. MIDON: Call it gospel. Call it soul. Call it whatever you
want, but that tradition of singing, you know, for lack of a better
term, you know, black singers or African-American singers. You know, he
came from that tradition. (Soundbite of song, "What's Going On)
Mr. HATHAWAY: (Singing) Mother, mother, there's too many of you
crying. Brother, brother, brother, there's far too many of you dying.
You know...
KEYES: Donny Hathaway was born October 1st, 1945, in Chicago, but
raised by his grandmother in a St. Louis public housing project. By the
age of 3, he was already a professional gospel singer. His piano chops
got him into Howard University on a scholarship, and landed him work as a
producer and arranger for the likes of Aretha Franklin and the Staple
Singers.
In 1969, he signed with Atlantic Records and released his first single.
(Soundbite of song, "The Ghetto")
Mr. HATHAWAY: (Singing) I, I, oh, yeah.
CHORUS: The ghetto. The ghetto...
Mr. JOE MARDIN (Producer/Arranger): When I hear him, it's just
sort of like, you know, it's like somebody who has something to say -
and you must hear it.
KEYES: Producer and arranger Joe Mardin was still a child when he
met Donny Hathaway. Mardin's father, Arif, produced many of Hathaway's
albums. And the younger Mardin scoffs at the number of people who claim
they were influenced by Hathaway. Not that it isn't nice to see Hathaway
get some props; it's just that Mardin thinks most singers and musicians
just aren't in his league.
Mr. MARDIN: I think there are very few people that come even
close to singing the way that Donny did, or having the depth of sound
and emotion in his singing.
(Soundbite of song, "A Song for You")
Mr. HATHAWAY: (Singing) I've been so many places in my life and
time. I've sung a lot of songs, I've made some bad rhymes. I've acted
out my life in stages, with 10,000 people watching. But we're alone now,
and I'm singing this song to you.
KEYES: Joe Mardin says many don't realize that Hathaway's skills
as a writer, arranger and conductor were another facet of his
extraordinary voice.
(Soundbite of symphony, "I Love the Lord, He Heard My Cry: Parts 1 and 2")
KEYES: Besides that lush orchestral piece that opens the album
"Extension of a Man," his final solo release ranges beyond Hathaway's
soul and gospel roots to include Latin jazz and honky-tonk. But the
eclectic direction his music took may have been challenging to promote
for an industry segregated into genres. And by this point in his career,
Hathaway was battling depression and schizophrenia. Producer Eric Mercury was with Hathaway in January 1979 for what
would become his last recording session. Mercury is still awed by
Hathaway's talent, and the rare ability he had to hear a piece of music
as a finished work with all the parts in his head.
Mr. ERIC MERCURY (Producer): You know, he hears the music, he
hears the strings, he hears the production, he hears the drums, he hears
the lyrics - he hears it all at the same time.
Mr. HATHAWAY: When I think of music, I think of music in totality, complete.
KEYES: In a 1973 interview included on an album called "These
Songs for You Live!" Hathaway himself spoke of the way he viewed music.
Despite his illness, Hathaway had visions of expanding his already
kaleidoscopic musical reservoir.
(Soundbite of Interview)
Mr. HATHAWAY: From the lowest blues to the highest symphony, you
know. So like what I'd like to do is to exemplify each style of as many
periods as I can possibly do.
KEYES: But he never got the chance. On January 13, 1979, his body
was found outside New York's Essex House, below his 15th floor hotel
room. His death was ruled a suicide.
Still, Hathaway's legacy, influence and voice live on. (Soundbite of song, "Someday We'll All Be Free")
Mr. HATHAWAY: (Singing) Brighter days will soon be here... KEYES: As does an idea he once said he hoped everyone could share.
Mr. HATHAWAY: (Singing) Take it from me, someday we'll all be free. Yeah...
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc.,
an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription
process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and
may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may
vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
October 1, 1945, Soul music came into the world kicking and screaming.
Donny Hathaway, singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and master of Soul, was, and continues to be, one the most underrated artists of his time —- the truly great ones usually are. His genius is one that burrows deeper into the crevices of my heart each time it beats. He didn’t have the fame of Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye; he was never the flower of soul music.
He was the root — earthy, resilient, timeless.
Donny’s soul was pain-stained and he didn’t mind sharing that with the world — didn’t mind crying over a record so others’ could recognize the depths from which Soul music was born:
You taught me precious secrets of the truth withholding nothing You came out in front and I was hiding But now I’m so much better and if my words don’t come together Listen to the melody cause my love is in there hiding
I was 15 when I first experienced those lyrics. His voice wept over the airways singing “Song For You” and I was spellbound by its sheer excellence. Later, I was introduced to his live recordings at the Troubadour Club in West Hollywood, where many people called him a young Nat King Cole, or a grittier Sam Cooke. Every emotion, every struggle, every insecurity poured from his body, and he exposed his core — raw and unsheltered. It was then that I understood what soul music really was; I had always enjoyed it, but it was only then that I knew it, recognized it, breathed in and let it settle into my lungs. The first day I opened my mouth to sing, I exhaled the spirit of Donny Hathaway.
Born into a Christian family, I found a kindred spirit in Donny. I lived his struggle to reconcile his faith with the song that was in his heart. Raised in the housing projects of St. Louis by his grandmother, gospel singer, Martha Pitts Crumwell, he had always been told that singing music that was not of God would lead him to hardship. Donny’s widow, Eulaulah Hathaway, once spoke of the turmoil that Donny felt trying to juggle both his internal and external expectations:
“He told me he’d tried to tell his grandmother what he was learning, but of course that wasn’t a liberty because her stance was firmly, ‘It is like I say it is, that’s the end of it, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.’ That bothered him.”
He struggled with the knowledge that the path he had chosen could potentially lead to his downfall; yet he pressed on, believing that Soul music was a spiritual experience that could only bring people closer to God. His conviction led him from touring the country with his grandmother as “Little Donny Pitts: The Nation’s Youngest Gospel Singer” to letting his words bleed on stages around the world with Roberta Flack.
Why did he leave us? Why would someone who embraced the nuances of life and all the pain and joy that it brings decide that death was the answer?
Many people say that his inner demons led him to end his life on January 13, 1979. Just recently reunited with Roberta Flack, after years of estrangement due to emotional and psychological issues, Donny was in the studio recording their second duets album when those demons came back to haunt him with a vengeance. Reports from the time claim that Donny “flipped out,” started making wild accusations that white people were controlling his brain, so that they could steal his music. In the full-blown stages of paranoid schizophrenia, his soul became his worst enemy.
Leaving the studio alone that night, he returned to New York’s Essex Hotel, where he removed the window-pane, and jumped 15 stories to his death. Rev. Jesse Jackson, who delivered Donny’s eulogy, was never convinced that it was suicide, saying at the time, “It appeared to be neither homicide nor suicide. It seems to have been an accident. Donny died with his coat, scarf and cap on, and it’s not likely that anyone would go through the preparation of putting on full attire just to jump out of a window.”
I understand his resistance to the truth. No one wanted to believe that Donny Hathaway — who had shared his pain with the world so freely — had become so isolated, so drawn into his inner torment, that he would rather die a painful death than continue to live in a world that selfishly craved his music, while ignoring the soul of the man himself.
Though it is only a mild comfort, as soon as Donny’s physical form hit that pavement, his music escaped in the psyche of Soul music, forever destined to blanket generations to come with its instinctive, magnetic mastery. People began to search for his music, hoping to be closer to him; tragically, his death led to the recognition that he craved his entire career.
When I hear the lyrics of “For All We Know” — a song that transcends time, space, religion and race — it is impossible not to feel Donny’s powerful spirit:
We won’t say goodnight
Until the last minute I’ll hold out my hand And my heart will be in it
For all we know This may only be a dream We come and we go Like the ripples of a stream
For all we know, Donny was a vivid dream, rippling through the music scene, then vanishing just as quickly. We continue to gravitate towards every sound he touched; knowing that 33 years on earth was not nearly enough. When I sit and think of what songs he had yet to sing, what words he yet to write, how many lives he had yet to touch, I am eternally grateful that his music found a way to seep into my own life. I hope that every time I sing a note, I’m doing his legacy justice and I continue to call on his wisdom whenever I question my path:
Hang onto the world as it spins, around.
Just don’t let the spin get you down. Things are moving fast. Hold on tight and you will last.
Keep your self-respect your very bright. Get yourself in gear, Keep your stride. Never mind your fears. Brighter days will soon be here.
Donny knew that “Someday We’d All Be Free.” As we celebrate the day of his birth, let’s all spin our favorite Donny Hathaway record and be glad that though his soul is at rest, it still lives on in each of us.
“This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” — Psalm 118:24 Donny Edward Hathaway (October 1, 1945 — January 13, 1979) FollowNateLarsononTwitter: www.twitter.com/natelarsonmusic
St. Louis native Donny Hathaway assisted in
building careers of his musical compatriots. He also had a successful
career that included a partnership with Roberta Flack.
Donny Hathaway was something of a musical bricklayer. Even though he
wasn't in the spotlight his entire career, he was still instrumental in
building up other musicians' careers and contributing mightily to the
sounds of 1970s.
And today - the 33rd anniversary of Hathaway's death - it's evident
that the St. Louis native not only helped others achieve musical
success, but also built up an impressive and inspirational path with his
own songs.
Born in Chicago, Hathaway grew up in the Carr Square neighborhood. Hathaway went to Vashon High School and spent his childhood singing in the church choir. After attending Howard University, Hathaway worked with a raft
of legendary artists - including Curtis Mayfield, the Staple Sisters and
Aretha Franklin. As Allmusic's Steve Huey [yes, the same Steve Huey who
starred in the ridiculously classic Yacht Rock series] noted,
Hathaway wore a number of proverbial hats in the beginning stages of
his career. He served as a producer, arranger, songwriter and session
pianist.
Hathaway struck gold later in 1970 with "This Christmas,"
a song that's become something of a staple during the holiday season.
It's also been covered by a multitude of artists, including Chris Brown, Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin.
Just around the time he hit his stride, Huey wrote that Hathaway
began battling severe depression. After staying out of public view for a
few years, Hathaway and Flack eventually reunited to record "The Closer I Get to You."
Even though the alluded to "Killing Me Softly With His Song" is much
more ubiquitous these days, "The Closer I Get to You" is actually
Flack's highest charting song.
On January 13, 1979, Hathaway died after he fell 15 stories from a New York City hotel room. From Huey's bio of Hathaway:
Sessions for a second album of duets [with Flack]
were underway when, on January 13, 1979, Hathaway was found dead on the
sidewalk below the 15th-floor window of his room in New York's Essex
House.
The glass had been neatly removed from the window, and there were no
signs of struggle, leading investigators to rule Hathaway's death a
suicide; his friends were mystified, considering that his career had
just started to pick up again, and Flack was devastated.
After Hathaway died, Flack released the second duet album featuring Hathaway. Simply titled Roberta Flack featuring Donny Hathaway, the 1980 album ended up going gold.
Donny Hathaway was a genius of music theory, a master pianist and songwriter, and possibly had the most beautiful male voice in soul music-EVER!
But just as in the other musical geniuses that I have written about in
past hubs, Mr. Hathaway was a troubled man who lived a very complex
life.
Born on October 1st, 1945 in Chicago, Illinois, Donny Hathaway had been interested in music for his entire life. As a young child Hathaway was raised by his grandmother, Martha Pitts (Cromwell) in the Carr Square housing projects of St. Louis, Missouri. Like most other soul artists of this era, Hathaway started singing in church and became known as "Donny Pitts The Nations Youngest Gospel Singer". His grandmother, Martha Cromwell, was very well respected professional gospel singer in the St. Louis area.
As well as singing in the church choir, he also played the ukulele. After becoming fascinated by Liberace, he became interested in learning to play the piano. Soon after, while in high school, he became known as a piano prodigy and won a scholarship to HowardUniversity; where he majored in music theory and met his future duet partner, Roberta Flack. While attending college he was part of a jazz trio called "The Rick Powell Trio".
Playing with "The Rick Powell Trio" resulted in Hathaway being offered
several jobs in his field. He soon left Howard University in pursuit of a career in music.
MR. HATHAWAY
Click thumbnail to view full-size
A SONG FOR YOU...
Donny Hathaway worked for several different record companies in the beginning stages of his career,such as: Twinight,Chess, Stax, and Curtom Records. He also participated in music projects with several recording artists such as: The Unifics, The Staple Singers, Carla Thomas, Jerry Butler, Aretha Franklin, and Curtis Mayfield.
While working at Curtis Mayfields record label "Curtom Records" as a house producer, Donny recorded a duet with June Conquest called "Thank You Baby" in 1969, which became the first hit record that Hathaway had ever sang on. He also did some recording as a member of "The Mayfield Singers". After meeting King Curtis at a music fair, Curtis took him to ATCO/Atlantic Records, where Hathaway was signed as a solo artist.
His debut album, "Everything is Everything" (1970) consisted of nine tracks:
1. "Voices Inside (Everything is Everything)" 2. "Je Vous Aime (I Love You)" 3. "I Believe to My Soul" 4. "Misty" 5. "Sugar Lee" 6. "Tryin' Times" 7. "Thank You Master (For My Soul)" 8. "The Ghetto" 9. "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" "The Ghetto" was a big hit on his debut album. He also released a holiday single in 1970 called, "This Christmas", which has become a holiday staple that has been covered by a plethora of artists and translated into many genres.
Donny Hathaway's second album, "Donny Hathaway" (1971) contained nine tracks:
1. "Giving Up" 2. "A Song for You" 3. "Little Girl" 4. "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" 5. "Magnificent Sanctuary Band" 6. "She Is My Lady" 7. "I Believe in Music" 8. "Take a Love Song" 9. "Put Your Hand in the Hand"
"A Song For You" was a big hit on his second album.
During this time Hathaway worked on production for the Jazz/Funk group Cold Blood, and extended the vocal range of lead vocalist, Lydia Pense. He also started recording a duet album with fellow Howard University alumnus, Roberta Flack entitled "Roberts Flack and Donny Hathaway". "Where Is the Love" was an R&B success and it also scored in the top five on the pop chart in 1972. In the same year, Hathaway also sang the theme song to the television series, "Maude"; composed the soundtrack to the motion picture, "ComebackCharleston Blue", and recorded a live album called "Donny Hathaway Live!".
"Donny Hathaway Live!!!!"
1. "What's Going On" 2. "The Ghetto" 3. "Hey Girl" 4. "You've Got a Friend" 5. "Little Ghetto Boy" 6. "We're Still Friends" 7. "Jealous Guy" 8. "Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)"
While
things appeared to be in an upswing for Hathaway, as his career was off
to a great start and he was married with two baby girls; Donnie began
to suffer from severe depression. He often spent time in hospitals
due to his condition. Because of his bouts of despair and melancholy
moods, his relationship with Roberta Flack had become strained and work
for next scheduled duet album was postponed for years until the 1978
release of "The Closer I Get ToYou". It would later be known that Donny Hathaway suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was often heavily medicated, taking up to 14 pills at different times of the day to control his ailment.
On January 13, 1979, Donny Hathaway was found dead on the sidewalk out side of the Essex House Luxury Hotel in New York City,
where he had been living. Since the glass from the window had been
carefully removed and there where no signs of struggle, his death was
ruled a suicide.
The last studio album that he recorded was "Extensions Of A Man" in 1973. "Extensions Of A Man" contained the single "Someday We'll All Be Free", which was written by EdwardHoward about the mental pain that
Hathaway was experiencing. After Hathaway recorded the song, he
listened to the play back of the studio cut. Hathaway cried as he
listened to the song for the first time. After Hathaway's death, this disclaimer was added to the liner notes of "Extensions Of A Man" by Edward Howard:
"Donny
is no longer here, but the song [Someday We'll All Be Free] gathers
momentum as part of his legacy... Donny literally sat in the studio and
cried when he heard the playback of his final mix. It's pretty special
when an artist can create something that wipes them out."
Howard also added:
"It
was a spiritual thing for me... What was going through my mind at the
time was Donny, because Donny was a very troubled person. I hoped that
at some point he would be released from all that he was going through.
There was nothing I could do but write something that might be
encouraging for him.'"
"Extensions Of A Man" 1. "I Love the Lord; He Heard My Cry, Pts. 1 & 2" 2. "Someday We'll All Be Free" 3. "Flying Easy" 4. "Valdez in the Country" 5. "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" 6. "Come Little Children" 7. "Love, Love, Love" 8. "The Slums" 9. "Magdalena" 10. "I Know It's You" 11. "Lord Help Me" Roberta
Flack, devastated by the death of her friend and duet partner, added
the duets that the couple had completed prior to his death to her latest
album "Roberta Flack featuring Donny Hathaway".
As I complete this hub I once again try to address the question of: can a person be "normal" and a musical genius? Most are very deep thinkers who are often labeled as introverts, eccentrics, and last but not least.....crazy.
I don't think these artists are crazy at all. I do believe that they
all took their art very seriously; and after they could not hear the
music any more, there was no more reason to live.
I have read
many articles about Donny Hathaway and they all end with a statement
that resembles; "If Hathaway had lived to reach his full musical
potential, who knows what he could have accomplished..." To that
statement I say, "Who says that he didn't?"
Talk to you all soon!! Wyldflow3r ethno-musicologist
THE MUSIC OF DONNY HATHAWAY : AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. HATHAWAY:
Donny Hathaway - Live (Full Album) 1972
DONNY HATHAWAY--' SONG FOR YOU'--1971
Donny Hathaway: Greatest Hits Full Album -
Best Songs Of Donny Hathaway
Tracklist:
1. A song for you 2. The closer I get to you 3. I love you more than You'll ever know 4. The ghetto 5. Where is the love 6. Back together again 7. This Christmas 8. What's goin' on 9. You were meant for me 10. For all we know 11. Someday we'll all be free 12. Giving up 13. To be young, gifted and black 14. You're got a friend 15. Voices inside 16. Je vous aime 17. I believe to my soul 18. Misty 19. Sugar lee 20. Tryin' times 21. Thank you master 22. A dream
0:00 I Love The Lord: He Heard My Cry (I&II)
5:33 Someday We'll All Be Free
9:49 Flying Easy
13:05 Valdez in the Country
16:40 I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know
22:05 Come Little Children
26:42 Love, Love, Love
30:09 The Slums
35:22 Magdalena
38:32 I Know It's You
43:47 Lord Help Me
Donny Edward Hathaway (October 1, 1945 – January 13, 1979) was
an American jazz, blues, soul and gospel singer, songwriter, arranger
and pianist. Hathaway signed with Atlantic Records in 1969 and with his first single for the Atco label, "The Ghetto", in early 1970, Rolling Stone magazine "marked him as a major new force in soul music."[1] His enduring songs include "The Ghetto", "This Christmas", "Someday We'll All Be Free", "Little Ghetto Boy", "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know", signature versions of "A Song for You" and "For All We Know", and "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You", two of many collaborations with Roberta Flack. "Where Is the Love" won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals in 1973. At the height of his career Hathaway was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was known to not take his prescribed medication regularly enough to properly control his symptoms.[2] On January 13, 1979, Hathaway's body was found outside the luxury hotel Essex House in New York City; his death was ruled a suicide.
Hathaway,
the son of Drusella Huntley, was born in Chicago but raised with his
grandmother, Martha Pitts, also known as Martha Crumwell, in the Carr Squarehousing project of St. Louis.
Hathaway began singing in a church choir with his grandmother, a
professional gospel singer, at the age of three and studying piano. He
graduated from Vashon High School in 1963.[3] Hathaway then studied music on a fine arts scholarship at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he met close friend Roberta Flack. At Howard, he was also a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha
fraternity. Hathaway formed a jazz trio with drummer Ric Powell while
there but during 1967 left Howard just before completing a degree, after
receiving job offers in the music business.[2]
Career
Hathaway worked as songwriter, session musician and producer for Curtis Mayfield's Curtom Records in Chicago. He did the arrangements for hits by the Unifics ("Court of Love" and "The Beginning of My End") and took part in projects by the Staple Singers, Jerry Butler, Aretha Franklin, the Impressions
and Curtis Mayfield himself. After becoming a "house producer" at
Curtom, he also started recording there. Hathaway recorded his first
single under his own name in 1969, a duet with singer June Conquest
called "I Thank You Baby". They also recorded the duet "Just Another
Reason", released as the b-side. Former Cleveland Browns
president Bill Futterer, who as a college student promoted Curtom in
the southeast in 1968 and 1969, was befriended by Hathaway and has cited
Hathaway's influence on his later projects.
That year, Hathaway signed to Atco Records, then a division of Atlantic Records, after being spotted for the label by producer/musician King Curtis at a trade convention. He released his first single of note, "The Ghetto, Pt. 1", which he co-wrote with former Howard roommate Leroy Hutson,
who became a performer, writer and producer with Curtom. The track
appeared the following year on his critically acclaimed debut LP, Everything Is Everything, which he co-produced with Ric Powell while also arranging all the cuts. His second LP, Donny Hathaway, consisted mostly of covers of contemporary pop, soul, and gospel songs. His third album Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway was an album of duets with former Howard University associate and label mate Roberta Flack that established him, especially on the pop charts. The album was both a critical and commercial success, including the Ralph MacDonald-penned track "Where Is The Love", which proved to be not only an R&B success, but also scored Top Five on the pop Hot 100.[4] It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA on September 5, 1972.[5] The album also included a number of other covers, including versions of Carole King's "You've Got a Friend", "Baby I Love You", originally a hit for Aretha Franklin, and "You've Lost That Loving Feeling".
Perhaps Hathaway's most influential recording is his 1972 album, Live, which has been termed "one of the best live albums ever recorded" by Daryl Easlea of the BBC.[6] The album can also be found on the British online music and culture magazine The Quietus' list of "40 Favourite Live Albums".[7] It was recorded at two concerts: side one at The Troubadour in Hollywood, and side two at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village, Manhattan.
Donny Hathaway is also known as the co-composer and performer of the Christmas standard, "This Christmas".
The song, released in 1970, has become a holiday staple and is often
used in movies, television and advertising. "This Christmas" has been
covered by numerous artists across diverse musical genres, including The
Whispers, Diana Ross,
Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder,
Alexander O'Neal, Christina Aguilera, Chicago, Harry Connick, Jr., Dru
Hill, *NSYNC, Gloria Estefan, Boney James, The Cheetah Girls, Chris
Brown, Anthony Arnett (First Baptist Bracktown Christmas Celebration), Patti LaBelle and Mary J Blige (A Mary Christmas, album 2013). Hathaway followed this flurry of work with some contributions to soundtracks, along with his recording of the theme song to the TV series Maude. He also composed and conducted music for the 1972 soundtrack of the movie Come Back Charleston Blue.[8] In the mid-1970s, he also produced albums for other artists including Cold Blood, where he expanded the musical range of lead singer Lydia Pense.
His final studio album, Extension of a Man came out in 1973
with two tracks, "Love Love Love" and "I Love You More Than You'll Ever
Know" reaching both the pop and R&B charts. However, it was probably
best noted for his classic ballad, "Someday We'll All Be Free" and a
six-minute symphonic-styled instrumental piece called "I Love The Lord,
He Heard My Cry". He told UK music journalist David Nathan
in 1973, "I always liked pretty music and I've always wanted to write
it." Added the writer, "He declined to give one particular influence or
inspiration but said that Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky were amongst whom he studied."[9] He returned to the charts in 1978 after again teaming up with Roberta Flack for a duet, "The Closer I Get to You" on her album, Blue Lights in the Basement.
The song topped the R&B chart and just missed the number 1 spot on
the Hot 100 (reaching #2). Atlantic then put out another solo single,
"You Were Meant For Me" shortly before his sudden death.
Liner notes for later releases of his final solo album explain:
"Donny is no longer here, but the song "Someday We'll All Be Free"
gathers momentum as part of his legacy... Donny literally sat in the
studio and cried when he heard the playback of his final mix. It's
pretty special when an artist can create something that wipes them out."
Edward Howard, lyricist of the song, adds, "It was a spiritual thing
for me... What was going through my mind at the time was Donny, because
Donny was a very troubled person. I hoped that at some point he would be
released from all that he was going through. There was nothing I could
do but write something that might be encouraging for him. He's a good
leader for young black men".
Personal life
Family
Hathaway met his wife, Eulaulah, at Howard University and they married in 1967.[2] They had two daughters, Eulaulah Donyll (Lalah) and Kenya.
Lalah has enjoyed a successful solo career, while Kenya is a session
singer and one of the three backing vocalists on the hit TV program American Idol. Both daughters are graduates of the Berklee College of Music. He also had another daughter, Donnita Hathaway.
Mental illness
During
the best part of his career, Hathaway began to suffer from severe bouts
of depression. It was found that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia
and was known to take strong medication daily to try to control the
illness. However, Eulaulah Hathaway has said that her husband was
frequently less than diligent about following his prescription regimen.[2]
Donnita Hathaway has said that her mother gave her similar information
about her father, saying that when he took his medication, he was
generally fine, but that when he did not, it was impossible for her to
deal with him.[2]
Over the course of the 1970s, Hathaway's mental instability wreaked
havoc on his life and required several hospitalizations. The effects of
his depression and melancholia also drove a wedge in his and Flack's
friendship; they did not reconcile for several years, and did not
release additional music until the successful release of "The Closer I
Get To You" in 1978. Flack and Hathaway then resumed studio recording to
compose a second album of duets.
Sessions for another album of duets were underway in 1979. On January
13 of that year, Hathaway began a recording session at which
producers/musicians Eric Mercury and James Mtume
were present. Mercury and Mtume each reported that although Hathaway's
voice sounded good, he began behaving irrationally, seeming to be
paranoid and delusional. According to Mtume, Hathaway said that "white
people" were trying to kill him and had connected his brain to a
machine, for the purpose of stealing his music and his sound.[2]
Given Hathaway's behavior, Mercury said that he decided the recording
session could not continue, so he aborted it and all of the musicians
went home.[2]
Hours later, Hathaway was found dead on the sidewalk below the window of his 15th-floor room in New York's Essex House hotel. It was reported that he had jumped from his balcony.[10]
The glass had been neatly removed from the window and there were no
signs of struggle, leading investigators to rule that Hathaway's death
was a suicide. However, his friends were mystified, considering that his
career had just entered a resurgence. Flack was devastated and, spurred by his death, included the few duet tracks they had finished on her next album, Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway.
According to Mercury, Hathaway's final recording, included on that
album, was "You Are My Heaven", a song Mercury co-wrote with Stevie Wonder.
A second live album called In Performance, released in 1980
following his death, also included tracks recorded at venues in Los
Angeles and New York between 1971 and 1973, showing Hathaway to be a
fine stage performer. Later, in 2004, selected tracks from these two
albums were added to previously unreleased live recordings for These Songs for You, Live!.
For Record Store Day 2014, Live at the Bitter End 1971 was released on 180g vinyl as a numbered, limited edition. This album marks the first time this 1971 performance at The Bitter End has been released on vinyl, previously appearing on the CD release of the 2013 career anthology, Never My Love.
The 21-minute recording of "Everything is Everything" had never been
released before on any format and was an exclusive track to this
release.
On soul group the Whispers' 1980 self-titled album,
the group paid homage with "Song for Donny", written by fellow soul
singer Carrie Lucas. The song was set to the melody of Hathaway's "This
Christmas".
In 1999 Aaron Hall recorded a brief tribute version of "Someday We'll All Be Free" on the third album for his group Guy titled Guy III, with Teddy Riley and Damion Hall.
In her 2006 song "Rehab", Amy Winehouse sings of learning from "Mr. Hathaway" instead of going to rehab.
In 2007, Deniece Williams covered "Someday We'll All Be Free" for her Love, Niecy Style album. Williams later shared that she broke down in tears in the studio while recording.
In 2008, Ed Pavlic published Winners Have Yet to Be Announced (University of Georgia Press), poems re-imagining the life of Donny Hathaway.
Kofi Natambu, editor of and contributor to Sound Projections, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He has written extensively about music as a critic and historian for many publications, including the Black Scholar, Downbeat, Solid Ground: A New World Journal, Detroit Metro Times, KONCH, the Panopticon Review,Black Renaissance Noire, the Village Voice, the City Sun (NYC), the Poetry Project Newsletter (NYC), and the African American Review. He is the author of a biography Malcolm X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: The Melody Never Stops (Past Tents Press) and Intervals (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of Solid Ground: A New World Journal, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology Nostalgia for the Present (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
Free Soul
