Johnny Nash
Singer best known for his hit single I Can See Clearly Now
JOHNNY NASH, who has died aged 80, was a musician best known for his 1972 hit I Can See Clearly Now, which he wrote, sang and produced and which went to No 1 in the US and No 5 in the UK. With its irresistibly sunny optimism it played a leading role in spreading the reggae gospel – and Nash was also instrumental in making Bob Marley a global superstar.
John Lester Nash was born on August 19 1940 in Houston, Texas, and began singing in earnest in the choir of his Baptist church. By the time he was 13 he was appearing on a local television show, Matinee, singing R & B covers.
In 1957 he released his first single, A Teenager Sings the Blues, which made little impression, but the follow-up, A Very Special Love, entered the charts, and in 1958 he had another hit, The Teen Commandments, alongside Paul Anka and George Hamilton IV.
Seen by executives as a rival to Johnny Mathis, he made a few film appearances, including the lead in the 1959 coming-ofage drama Take a Giant Step, playing a high school student who objects to the way in which the Civil War is being taught. But when a run of singles failed to chart he formed a record label with his manager Danny Sims and they began looking to the Jamaican market.
In 1965, after his record Let’s Move and Groove Together was a hit there, they moved to Jamaica, and within a couple of years Nash was entrenched in the local music scene, particularly after meeting Bob Marley and the Wailers at a Rastafarian party.
In 1967 Nash formed a new label, JAD Records, with Sims and the musician and arranger Arthur Jenkins, who would be his musical mainstay for the next decade. Their first signing was the Wailers, who released a string of singles before moving to Trojan and then on to Island.
In 1968 Nash had his own Top 5 US and UK hit with the infectious rocksteady track Hold Me Tight, and in 1971 he covered Marley’s Stir It Up, which initially failed to chart but was a Top 20 hit on its re-release in 1973.
Nash was a fervent supporter of Bob Marley, and in 1972 he brought him to London – where Nash was at the time the bigger name – in an attempt to put Marley on the road to superstardom. They performed a fondly remembered gig at a school in Peckham – followed by an impromptu game of football in the playground – after an art teacher at the school had met the pair at the famed Bag O’nails club in Soho.
That year I Can See Clearly Now, recorded in London with the soca and reggae band the Fabulous Five Inc, sold more than a million copies and occupied top spot on the Billboard chart for four weeks.
More hits followed, like Tears On My Pillow (a UK No 1), and a cover of Sam Cooke’s (What a) Wonderful World, but I Can See Clearly remained his bestselling song; much-covered, it was used in the film Thelma and Louise as well as in several television ads – including one for cataract treatments.
But Nash gradually withdrew from the scene from the late 1970s, though there was an album in 1986, as well as the inevitable stream of compilations. He lived on a ranch outside Houston, indulging his love of horse riding, and he also managed rodeo shows at the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena. In later years he had begun to digitise his old recordings, some of which were lost in a studio fire in 2008.
Johnny Nash was married three times. He is survived by his third wife, Carli, and by a son and daughter.
Johnny Nash, born August 19 1940, died October 6 2020