Donny Hathaway - A Song For You | Soul Sunday

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Happy Soul Sunday. 54 years ago this week, Donny Hathaway released his second album _Donny Hathaway_, which contains his heartfelt rendition of Leon Russell's A Song for You; today we celebrate both of their legacies and music that still speaks to us across generations!

*Donny Hathaway*, as multitalented and ambitious as any pop musician of the post-WW II era, collected kudos for his skills and creativity at lead, duet, and backup singing, keyboard playing, songwriting, and arranging. Born in Chicago in 1945, he grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, where his grandmother, a professional gospel singer, raised him. Under her tutelage and going by the stage name Donny Pitts, he performed in church. Matriculating at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University on a fine arts scholarship in 1963, Hathaway roomed with drummer Ric Powell and joined his eponymous trio. The pair left Howard short of graduation to hire on at Chicago’s Curtom Records, founded by Curtis Mayfield of Impressions fame. At Curtom, Hathaway emerged as a jack of all musical trades well-connected to the era’s hitmakers. In 1969, in a move facilitated by artist/producer King Curtis, he signed with Atco Records. He and another Howard roommate, Leroy Hutson, wrote “The Ghetto, Part I,” released as a single and later included on his Atco debut LP, the now-classic Everything Is Everything. He broadened his fandom singing behind fellow Howard alum and label mate Roberta Flack on her cover of “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” His 1971 LP Donny Hathaway further advanced his reputation. For a third Atco LP, Hathaway teamed with Flack on Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, an LP of duets whose ranks yielded a massive hit single in “Where Is The Love.” In 1978 the pair returned to the charts with “The Closer I Get To You.” Hathaway and Flack were working on a second collection of duets when Hathaway, who had recorded two tracks toward the project despite being waylaid by mental illness, took his own life on January 13, 1979. He was 33. Flack posthumously released Robert Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway.

Donny Hathaway - A Song For You
Album: Donny Hathaway
Year: 1971
Atlantic Records

Written By: Leon Russell

_Performed By:_

Donny Hathaway – lead vocals, keyboards
Myrna Summers – background vocals
Sammy Turner – background vocals
Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
J.R. Bailey – background vocals
John Littlejohn – guitar, vocals
Cissy Houston – background vocals
Judy Clay – background vocals
Cornell Dupree – guitar
Interdenominational singers – background vocals
Jack Jennings – percussion
Sylvia Shemwell – background vocals
Myrna Smith – background vocals
Deirdre Tuck Corley – background vocals
Ronnie Bright – background vocals
Al Jackson Jr. – drums

_Produced By:_

Arif Mardin, Donny Hathaway, Jerry Wexler

_Engineered By:_

Howard Albert, Murray Allen, Ron Albert, Gene Paul, Jimmy Douglass

Recorded at Atlantic Studios in New York, New York on October 21, 1970; overdubs recorded at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami, FL.

Artist Bio by Michael Dolan

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