Donny Hathaway
We only had Donny Hathaway for 34 years. And though he was ours for only a moment, his voice remains one of the most prolific treasures of soul music. Behind the powerful tone existed a depth of pain not many in his life could understand. Despite his mental torture, he left songs of hope, love and inspiration – a blueprint for our own struggles.
When he first hit the airwaves, many people mistook Hathaway’s music for new Stevie Wonder songs. While he did cover songs from Stevie’s vast collection – which he referred to as “the Black pool of genius” – there was an extra well of emotion that Hathaway tapped into, setting the two apart. On “Giving Up”, his voice is the musical equivalent of tears. He actually speaks to our generation through songs like “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.” Aside from successful solo albums, Hathaway and his good friend Roberta Flack formed one of soul music’s unheralded partnerships. The Howard University friends penned the Grammy winning “Where Is The Love?” and “The Closer I Get To You.” Flack’s pure and powerful tone coupled with Donny’s raw emotion the duo offered a special brand of alternative soul, resulting in masterful duets without vocal acrobatics. The stripped nature of their songs hooked listeners with lyrics instead of catchy synthesizers and the flash of rising disco.
While his closest friends understood that Donny suffered from bouts of depression, many did not realize that Donny suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. The disease led him to take his own life in 1979, silencing one of the greatest vocalists of our time. Over the passage of time since his death, his music has received its share of regard – the utmost respect from everyone to Common to Fall Out Boy, sampled by the likes of Jay-Z – even while the man has not. His daughter Lalah Hathaway has created a name for herself in today’s soul music scene. I’ve always thought of his most widely known song “A Song For You” as the ultimate goodbye letter, to a friend, to a lover, to a child: “If my words don’t come together/Listen to the melody/Cause my love is in there hiding.” In the soft strokes of the piano keys is the reflection of beauty within a troubled man.
by JADA G. on The Smoking Section