Though his recording career was quite brief, Donny Hathaway has continued to be one of the most influential soul artists of the last four decades. The longevity of and increase in his popularity is due in large part to the rare combination of gifts he possessed. He was a talented songwriter with the ability to write songs that provided, in a secular format, the depth of the most heartfelt Gospel music; and he was a remarkable song stylist who defined (or redefined) nearly every song he touched in his brief career. His death by an apparent suicide was news in 1979, but it has loomed ever larger since then, and one wonders whether his already strong influence on R&B would have been truly singular if he had lived through the entirety of his creative cycle...READ FULL BIOGRAPHY OF DONNY HATHAWAY.
And watch the Donny Hathaway episode of TV One's "Unsung," below:
Though his recording career was quite brief, Donny Hathaway has continued to be one of the most influential soul artists of the last four decades. The longevity of and increase in his popularity is due in large part to the rare combination of gifts he possessed. He was a talented songwriter with the ability to write songs that provided, in a secular format, the depth of the most heartfelt Gospel music; and he was a remarkable song stylist who defined (or redefined) nearly every song he touched in his brief career. His death by an apparent suicide was news in 1979, but it has loomed ever larger since then, and one wonders whether his already strong influence on R&B would have been truly singular if he had lived through the entirety of his creative cycle...READ FULL BIOGRAPHY OF DONNY HATHAWAY.