'I Can See Clearly Now' Singer Dead at 80

Johnny Nash helped launch Bob Marley's career
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 7, 2020 12:10 AM CDT
'I Can See Clearly Now' Singer Dead at 80
Stock photo of Jamaica.   (Getty Images / lucky-photographer)

Johnny Nash, a singer-songwriter, actor, and producer who rose from pop crooner to early reggae star to the creator and performer of the million-selling anthem “I Can See Clearly Now,” died Tuesday, his son said. Nash, who had been in declining health, died of natural causes at home in Houston, the city of his birth, his son, Johnny Nash Jr., told the AP. He was 80. Nash was in his early 30s when “I Can See Clearly Now” topped the charts in 1972 and he had lived several show business lives. In the mid-1950s, he was a teenager covering “Darn That Dream” and other standards, his light tenor likened to the voice of Johnny Mathis. A decade later, he was co-running a record company, and had become a rare American-born singer of reggae; he was among the first artists to bring reggae to US audiences and helped launch the career of his friend Bob Marley.

He peaked commercially in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he had hits with “Hold Me Tight,” “You Got Soul,” an early version of Marley’s “Stir It Up,” and “I Can See Clearly Now,” still his signature song. Reportedly written by Nash while recovering from cataract surgery, “I Can See Clearly Now” was a story of overcoming hard times that itself raised the spirits of countless listeners, with its swelling pop-reggae groove, promise of a “bright, bright sunshiny day” and Nash’s gospel-styled exclamation midway, “Look straight ahead, nothing but blue skies!”, a backing chorus lifting the words into the heavens. The song, which Nash also produced, was covered by artists ranging from Ray Charles and Donny Osmond to Soul Asylum and Jimmy Cliff, whose version was featured in the 1993 movie Cool Runnings. It also turned up everywhere from Thelma and Louise to a Windex commercial, and in recent years was often referred to on websites about cataract procedures.

(More obituary stories.)

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