Johnny Nash, the guy who sang the incredibly happy and infectious 1970s #1 hit, “I Can See Clearly Now,” has died.
The singer’s son tells TMZ … Johnny was at home Tuesday when he passed away of natural causes. No word on cause of death yet.
Johnny was born in Houston and made his debut as a major label artist in 1957 with the single, “A Teenager Sings the Blues.” However, it was his reggae-tinged hit that topped the charts in November of 1972, and stayed there for 4 weeks.
Nash sold more than 1 million copies of the single, and it made him an international star, especially in Jamaica … where he became one of the first non-Jamaican singers to record reggae on the island.
While he might go down in music history as a one-hit wonder, what a smash. “I Can See Clearly Now” has been covered numerous times after Johnny. A couple of those covers even reached the top 20 — the most recent one being Jimmy Cliff‘s 1993 version for the “Cool Runnings” soundtrack.
His son, John Nash III, tells us, “He was a wonderful father and family man. He loved people and the world. He will be missed within his community. Family was his everything.”
Johnny was 80.
RIP