‘Unchain My Heart’ songwriter

Bobby Sharp, 88, a singer-songwriter best known for “Unchain My Heart,” an early 1960s hit for Ray Charles, died Jan. 29, according to an announcement on his website. No other details were released.

In 1960, Sharp wrote “Unchain My Heart” in an hour and sold it for $50 so that he could buy the drugs that were then central to his life, The Times reported in 2004.

When he realized he wasn’t receiving proper royalties for the song, he sued and engaged in a seven-year legal battle that ended with a settlement. Once the original copyright ran out, he regained ownership of the song in 1988, a year after Joe Cocker had a Top 40 hit with it.

“I had changed my life around, became a drug counselor,” Sharp said in 2004 in The Times, “and wasn’t really thinking about music until I found out I could renew the copyright, and it really changed my life.”

An Alameda, Calif., resident since 1980, Sharp worked at a mental health center in San Francisco until retiring in 1988.

Robert Sharp was born in 1924 in Topeka, Kan., and lived with his grandparents in Los Angeles before moving to New York to live with his parents when he was 12. His father was a concert tenor.

After joining the Army in 1943, Sharp served stateside and then studied at Greenwich House Music School and the Manhattan School of Music.

As a singer-songwriter, he had his first commercial success in 1956 with “Baby Girl of Mine,” which was later covered by Ruth Brown. During the 1950s and ’60s, his songs were recorded by such artists as Sammy Davis Jr. and Sarah Vaughan.

At 81, Sharp released his debut CD, “The Fantasy Sessions,” playing piano and singing his own songs.