Johnny Nash, reggae singer very best acknowledged for I Can See Obviously Now, dies aged 80 | Tunes

Johnny Nash, a singer-songwriter and performer of the million-marketing anthem I Can See Evidently Now, has died at the age of 80.

Nash, who had been in declining health, died of all-natural triggers at dwelling in Houston, the town of his delivery, said his son, Johnny Nash Jr.

Nash rose from pop crooner to early reggae star and was in his early 30s in 1972 when I Can See Clearly Now topped the charts. He experienced now lived a number of exhibit-enterprise lives. In the mid-1950s, he was a teenager covering Darn That Desire and other benchmarks, his light-weight tenor likened to the voice of Johnny Mathis. A 10 years later on, he was co-operating a history company, had turn out to be a scarce American-born singer of reggae and served launch the profession of his buddy Bob Marley.

Nash, also an actor and producer, was among the the very first artists to bring reggae to US audiences. He peaked commercially in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he had hits with Hold Me Restricted, You Received Soul, an early edition of Marley’s Stir It Up, and I Can See Obviously Now, still his signature tune.

Reportedly penned by Nash when recovering from cataract surgical procedure, I Can See Obviously Now was a tale of overcoming really hard periods, with a swelling pop-reggae groove, the promise of a “bright, vivid sunshiny day” and Nash’s gospel-styled exclamation halfway: “Look straight forward, absolutely nothing but blue skies!”

Johnny Nash performs on Top of the Pops in 1972



Johnny Nash performs on Prime of the Pops in 1972. Photograph: Michael Putland/Getty Pictures

The rock critic Robert Christgau would get in touch with the song, which Nash also produced, “2 minutes and 48 seconds of undiluted inspiration”.

Born John Lester Nash Jnr, he grew up singing in church and by age 13 experienced his possess present on Houston television. In a handful of several years, he had a countrywide pursuing by way of his appearances on The Arthur Godfrey Present, his hit go over of Doris Times A Very Special Enjoy and a collaboration with peers Paul Anka and George Hamilton IV on the wholesome The Teen Commandments (of Really like).

Mash also experienced roles in the movies Choose a Large Action, in which he starred as a high faculty student rebelling against how the Civil War is taught, and Important Witness, a crime drama starring Dennis Hopper and Jeffrey Hunter.

In the 1960s, Nash confident his manager and enterprise associate Danny Sims, with whom he formed JAD Data, to sign up Marley and the Wailers, who recorded Reggae On Broadway and dozens of other songs for JAD. Nash introduced Marley to London in the early 1970s, when Nash was the even larger star internationally, and with Marley gave an impromptu live performance at a community boys’ school.

Nash’s covers of Stir It Up and Guava Jelly aided expose Marley’s composing to a normal viewers. The two also collaborated on the ballad, You Poured Sugar On Me, which appeared on the I Can See Clearly Now album.

Johnny Nash and Estelle Hemsley in the 1959 film Take A Giant Step



Johnny Nash and Estelle Hemsley in the 1959 film Acquire A Huge Stage. Photograph: Archive Photographs/Getty Images

Though missed by Grammys judges, I Can See Evidently Now was included by artists ranging from Ray Charles and Donny Osmond to Soul Asylum and Jimmy Cliff, whose edition was showcased in the 1993 movie Great Runnings. It also turned up all over the place from Thelma and Louise to a Windex professional, and in current decades was normally referred to on web-sites about cataract treatments.

“I truly feel that music is common. New music is for the ears and not the age,” Nash advised Cameron Crowe, then writing for Zoo Environment Magazine, in 1973. “There are some persons who say that they hate music. I have operate into a couple of, but I’m not absolutely sure I think them.”

The fame of I Can See Evidently Now outlasted Nash’s very own. He hardly ever created the charts in the pursuing years, even as he launched these albums as Tears On My Pillow and Celebrate Lifestyle, and by the 1990s experienced primarily left the new music enterprise. His previous album, Right here Again, came out in 1986, despite the fact that in the latest several years he was reportedly digitising his old work, some of which was shed in a fireplace at Universal Studios in Los Angeles in 2008.

Nash was married a few instances and had two kids. He experienced beloved riding horses since childhood and as an adult lived with his household on a ranch in Houston, where for years he also managed rodeo displays at the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena.

In addition to his son, he is survived by his daughter, Monica, and his wife, Carli Nash.