Donnie Hathaway Grammy Award Wining Soul Musician

Donnie Hathaway or Donny Pitt was a popular musician of the 1970s. He specialised in soul music. His first single titled The Ghetto, Part I was praised by the popular Rolling Stones magazine. The song was released in 1970 by the Atlantic Records.

In the early years of his career itself Donnie Hathaway won a Grammy Award for the Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal along with Roberta Flack. The song that won them the awards was Where Is the Love. After this song the music critics rated him as the fresh vigour of soul music.

Donnie Hathaway was born to Drusella Huntley on October 1, 1945 in Chicago. Inspiten of all the fame and success, he committed suicide on January 13, 1979. He was found dead outside Essex House, a posh hotel in New York.

Donnie Hathaway's musical started at as a child choir singer at a church in St Louis. At that time he was three years old. His grandmother Martha Pitts was a professional gospel singer. She taught him the basics of singing. Besides Donnie Hathaway could play the ukulele with remarkable expertise. Influenced by Liberrace, he developed an interest towards playing the piano. Along side he took up choir singing seriously and became the nation's youngest gospel singer.

Donnie Hathaway's fame as a maestro of piano playing spread far and near from his school-going days. He went the Howards University for higher education in 1964. During his three years stay at the versity, he used to play piano for The Ric Powell, the popular jazz trio.

Donnie Hathaway released his debut single which was a duet with June Conquest in the year 1969. The duet was titled I Thank You Baby, for the Curtom Records. Then came his solo single The Ghetto Part I, followed at heels by his debut LP titled Every thing Is Every thing in 1970. The second album released by Donnie Hathaway was titled his namesake. It was an overnight hit so much so that even the music critics praised his efforts. Besides a number of hit singles and duets, and best seller albums, he also composed music for films like Come Back Charleston Blue released in 1972.

Donnie Hathaway also produced albums for other budding as well as established singers. For example in the mid-1970s he produced an album titled Cold Blood for singer Lydia Pense. Amidst all the success. Donnie Hothaway started showing symptoms of extreme depression. Due to this his partnership with Flack also suffered so much so that they stopped working together for a long time. They patched up in 1978 with the duet The Closer I Get To You. The next year the ace soul musician killed himself. Donny Hathaway