Still in Rotation: A Donny Hathaway Collection
Still in Rotation is a guest post feature in which talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power.
I met Taya Dunn Johnson through the Listen To Your Mother Show – besides being a director and producer of the Baltimore show, she’s LTYM’s Diversity & Inclusion Outreach Consultant. That means she makes sure you’re hearing from a diverse set of voices on the topic of motherhood, which makes LTYM extra rich, meaningful, and relatable. Taya’s as welcoming and warm as the show seeks to be – it’s a perfect match.
A Donny Hathaway Collection
by Taya Dunn Johnson
Entering my childhood home in Hempstead, New York, one was almost certain to hear music in the background. My parents were both music lovers; my father played drums for many years in a local band and two of my uncles were DJs. I can recall day- long trips from our home on Long Island into Brooklyn and the Bronx to visit the old school record shops that my father and uncles loved. The smell of thousands of vinyl records in a small space was intoxicating.
Being surrounded by music was the most natural thing in the world to me, and my love for it developed early. My parents got great joy in watching me perform my own dance routines to songs by the Stylistics and the Commodores, and I’d be shocked if any other five year old knew all the lyrics and cadences of songs like, “Baby Workout” by Jackie Wilson.
Family and music were connected in such a way that the Christmas holiday season became that much more magical to me. Each person has “that song” – you know, the one that puts you deep into the holiday spirit from the very first note you hear. I don’t remember the first time I heard “This Christmas” by Donny Hathaway, but I do know that by the age of five, I had all the lyrics memorized and it was “that song” for me. My parents had a small collection of Christmas songs from The Temptations and a few other soul artists. Prior to hearing Donny Hathaway’s contribution, so many Christmas songs didn’t reflect the amount of soul and love that my favorite R&B songs contained. “This Christmas” had it all – deeply melodic voice, catchy and repetitive chorus, tambourines and a grooving bass line. As soon as the song came on, you just had to dance, smile and say, “Ahhh, yes, THIS is Christmas.”
I remained a lover of music my entire life and it’s probably no coincidence that my high school boyfriend-turned-husband played percussion like my father and had my same affinity for good music. During my first year of college, music helped soothe the stress of being an only child away from my parents (and boyfriend) for an extended length of time.
Late one night in early December while studying for finals, I found myself needing a real boost – a taste of home and family to push me through to the finish line. I was surrounded by friends and dorm mates, but everyone was struggling and none of us was having any luck with motivating one another. Donny’s voice popped into my head and I knew what I needed to do. I ran into my room and searched desperately for my cassette tape of “Holiday Jams” that I had recorded from the radio the previous Christmas. I tossed it in the tape deck and instantly the odd three-count drumbeat filled our suite with ENERGY.
My black friends jumped up and started singing and swaying to the beat. My white friends looked intrigued and I knew it was the first time they had ever heard the song. Within a few seconds, Donny grabbed the newly exposed and made them dance too. When the song ended, the questions began: “Who is that?” “What’s that song called?” “I’ve never heard that before! Can I tape it?” and then the one that stopped me cold, “What else does he sing?”
What else does he sing? I simply didn’t know. I had a cassette entitled, “A Donny Hathaway Collection” but I was embarrassed to admit I’d never listened to any other song on it. I felt like I had just failed a major musical test and imagined the disappointment on the faces of my father and uncles.
With a mere eight hours until an astronomy final for which I was ill prepared, I layered myself with winter gear and made the short walk from my dorm to one of the 24-hour computer labs on campus. It was full of stressed-out students attempting to absorb the final nuggets before their exams, and those painfully squeezing out just enough words to hit the page count for required essays. Not an empty computer to be found. Damn. At that moment, my need to know more about HIM was so great that I would not be deterred.
I went back into the cold heading for another lab that was farther away and then it clicked. I was on the grounds of the University of Virginia and we had an amazing music library!! I hustled over to the Peabody Library and could not believe that I hadn’t yet made this magical place like a second home. I dove in and found myself falling down the rabbit hole – microfiche articles, reel to reel and albums recordings, and digital photo images with more information on Donny Hathaway than I ever expected to find.
I was excited, intrigued and saddened by all that I read and heard. Never had I heard and connected with an artist in the way that I connected with Donny Hathaway. The beautiful timbre of his voice was like that of a warm flannel blanket on a bone chilling winter night. It warmed my heart and soul like that of a long lost friend and lover. The loving quality of his voice was wrapped in equal layers of pain and despair. I couldn’t ignore the pain. The raw emotion that was woven through each song caused my tears to flow without warning. That night, I fell in love with Donny Hathaway.
I would go on to read about his musical beginnings, his love and marriage to his college sweetheart, their two daughters, his friendship and musical duets with Roberta Flack, and eventually his death. Reading the hazy details surrounding his death pained me as if I had known and loved him during the course of his life. The official narrative is that he committed suicide, but I’m a stubborn believer that his fall from the 15th floor of the Essex Hotel in New York City was a tragic accident. Although he had suffered from depression in the past, family and friends, specifically Roberta Flack who was with him that very day recording new music, report that he was in great spirits that day and very optimistic about the career developments on the horizon. He was known to remove the screen from hotel windows and sit in them in order to get fresh air and hear the pure sound of his own voice.
From that night in December 1993 until today, Donny Hathaway’s music has occupied a prominent place in the soundtrack to my life. The compilation, “A Donny Hathaway Collection” is my go-to recording when I need a dose of Donny. His catalog is much more extensive than just this collection, but it’s the one that I keep in rotation. He speaks of life, love, heartache, passion, pain, heartbreak, joy, happiness and regret. If one were to just hear, “This Christmas,” they might take him to be a joyful one-hit wonder, but he is so much more than that. He is an artist that wrote to release his soul and he unselfishly shared it with the rest of us.
Many know of Donny only as the male singer on the popular duets that he and Roberta Flack sang together, especially “The Closer I Get To You” and “Where Is the Love.” While I can appreciate those, they are but one small facet of the gifts that Donny left with us. A few of my favorites that stay on repeat are “For All We Know” which speaks to a pair of lovers who have a moment in which to share their love with the idea that they may never have another.
“You Were Meant For Me” which speaks to him loving a woman and vowing not to let anything tarnish their love.
One of his most special recordings, “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” which caused him to cry in the recording studio upon its completion:
My painful favorite is “Giving Up.” It always pushes me to the verge of tears.
Giving up, so hard to do
I’ve tried
But it just ain’t no use
Giving up, so hard to do
I said I’ve tried
But it just ain’t no use
But my light of hope is burning dim
But, But in my heart I pray
That my love and faith in the girl
My love…will bring her back someday
I’m talking ’bout when you really love someone
Donny’s talent was passed to his daughter, Lalah Hathaway. I’ve followed her career closely and I hope to one day be able to tell her just what her father’s music does to my heart and soul. All of his songs move me in different ways, and whenever I need a creative push, I know that this collection will give me what I need.
In late 2008, I was 39 weeks pregnant with our first child, and it became evident that I might not begin labor on my own. My obstetrician decided my husband and I needed to schedule my delivery, so we sat together to look at the calendar for January 2009. She offered me a range of dates between January 7 and January 14. Without a moment of hesitation, I selected January 13, 2009 – 30 years to the day that Donny Hathaway’s musical genius left this planet.
I often wonder what other treasures Donny would have given us had he not passed away at the young age of 33. Yet I am forever grateful and thankful that he shared as much as he did.
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Taya Dunn Johnson has been writing as MrsTDJ since 2006 with a focus on everyday life and anecdotal stories about her teenage and young adult years. Upon the sudden death of her husband in 2012, Taya continued writing and allowed her readers to ride the emotional waves as she navigated life as a vulnerable, expressive, humorous and audacious young widowed mother of an toddler with autism. She’s a writer, blogger, speaker, workshop facilitator and panelist. Taya has been published in the anthology Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now, online at www.xoJane.com, and www.BlackAndMarriedWithKids.com, and contributed to articles on Buzzfeed and Everyday Parent. Taya is currently the producer and director of the Listen To Your Mother show in Baltimore, MD as well as the Diversity & Inclusion Consultant for the Listen To Your Mother National Team.
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