Johnny Nash: Pioneer of Reggae and R&B Icon (1940–2020)

John Lester “Johnny” Nash, Jr., singer, record label owner, and early promoter of reggae, son of John Lester Nash, Sr., a chauffeur, and Eliza (Armstrong) Nash, was born on August 19, 1940, in Houston, Texas. He grew up in Houston’s Third Ward, was active in the Boy Scouts, and was a gifted singer from an early age. Young Nash sang at Progressive New Hope Baptist Church in Houston. In his early teens he worked as a caddy at Hermann Park golf course, but his periodic singing on the job earned him extra tips and eventually a regular appearance on a local program called Matinee on KPRC-TV, where he sang rhythm-and-blues covers. Nash attended Jack Yates High School. According to an interview Nash gave in 1973, in Houston he won first place in an audition given by talent scouts for The Arthur Godfrey Show. The famous television host later featured him on radio and television shows for some years.

Nash made his recording debut in 1956 when he signed with ABC-Paramount and released his single “A Teenager Sings the Blues.” At the time he was still in high school and living in Houston with his parents. He followed this with the single “A Very Special Love” which made it into Billboard’s Top 40 in early February 1958. That year his self-titled album Johnny Nash was released, and he also scored a Top 40 hit with “The Teen Commandments,” a song that he recorded with Paul Anka and George Hamilton IV. Some media outlets touted Nash as America’s first Black teen idol, and his warm smooth delivery backed by lush pop arrangements drew comparisons to Johnny Mathis.

The young recording artist also embarked on an acting career and appeared in Take a Giant Step (1959) which garnered him the Silver Sail Award from the Locarno International Film Festival. In 1960 he appeared in the movie Key Witness. He was the voice for the theme song of the syndicated television cartoon series The Mighty Hercules from 1963 to 1966. He made appearances on a number of television programs during the early 1960s, including The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and The Mike Douglas Show. During this time, he released a series of singles on various labels, including Argo, Groove, and Warner Brothers, that did not chart.

Nash met his manager Danny Sims, in New York City in the early 1960s. In 1964 they established JoDa Records. The short-lived label released the debut single of The Cowsills. Nash scored a Top 5 hit on Billboard’s R&B chart in 1965 with the release of “Let’s Move and Groove Together” on JoDa. That year he formed a new record label with Sims and Arthur Jenkins—JAD Records.

The mid-1960s marked a significant pivot in Nash’s musical approach and style as he traveled to Jamaica in his effort to bring its local reggae sound to the United States. His recording “Let’s Move and Groove Together” was a hit in Jamaica. By early 1967 Nash met local musician Bob Marley and almost immediately signed him (along with fellow musicians Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone—known collectively as The Wailers) as a songwriter to his JAD label. Nash released the single “Hold Me Tight” on JAD in 1968. Recorded at Federal Records in Kingston, Jamaica, the song was a Top 5 hit in the U. S. and Britain and rose to Number 1 in Canada. Music writers have credited the song as the “first true reggae song to chart in America and the U. K.” and Nash as one of the first “non-Jamaican” singers to record reggae in Kingston. His reggae-flavored remake of “Cupid” (written by Sam Cooke) made it just inside the Billboard Top 40 in early 1970.

Nash composed (with Bob Marley) the soundtrack for a Swedish film, in which he also starred, that was released as Love is Not a Game in 1971. That same year JAD Records shut down. Nash and Sims later sold Bob Marley’s contract to Englishman and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who signed Marley and the Wailers and eventually brought them to a wider audience.

Johnny Nash signed with Epic Records, a division of CBS, and was living in London when he produced several Marley and Tosh tunes. During those sessions, Nash recorded a his own reggae-inspired upbeat pop song called “I Can See Clearly Now,” which became his biggest hit and shot to Number 1 for four weeks on the Billboard pop chart in the U. S. in fall 1972. With more than a million copies sold, the single earned a gold record in November 1972 and was part of the album I Can See Clearly Now, which also included four original Bob Marley compositions. One of those songs, “Stir It Up,” made it to Number 12 on Billboard for Nash in March 1973. Nash embarked on a major American tour and appeared on such programs as The Midnight Special, Soul Train, and American Bandstand. He followed up his success with the release of the soulful album My Merry-Go-Round, though the offering failed to match the popularity of his previous record.

Nash moved back to Houston in 1974. He scored a Number 1 hit in the U. K. with “Tears on My Pillow” in 1975 and had success with “(What a) Wonderful World” (a Sam Cooke cover) in 1976. Though he released the song “Let’s Go Dancing” in 1979 and an album, Here Again in 1986, Nash dropped out of the music business and lived an intensely private life in Houston. His hit “I Can See Clearly Now” has been recorded by numerous artists, including Jimmy Cliff for the 1993 movie Cool Runnings.

Nash enjoyed horseback riding and in 1993 opened a small rodeo arena, the Johnny Nash Indoor Arena, on the south side of Houston. The facility was established as an outlet for Black cowboys and cowgirls, and the singer hosted rodeos there. In 2002 it was transformed into a BMX course, but it later closed. In 2006 Nash returned to the recording studio and sang at SugarHill Recording Studios and Tierra Studios in Houston. He took on his personal project to transfer the analog tapes of his music to a digital format.

Johnny Nash married three times—to Margaret Rawlings in New York City in 1963,   Doris N. Vann in Houston in 1976, and Carlie Joyce Collins in Houston in 1986. He had two children. He died of natural causes at his home in Houston on October 6, 2020. He was buried in Houston Memorial Gardens in Pearland, Texas. Nash is an inductee as an R&B Pioneer in the Soul Music Hall of Fame.