Donny Hathaway

Known most widely for the enduring holiday classic "This Christmas" and his celebrated pairings with Roberta Flack, Donny Hathaway stood among soul music’s most luminous figures across the 1970s. Gifted with a fluid, gospel-tinged romantic delivery that animated both tender love songs and impassioned social statements, he proved an extraordinary all-around musician—a skilled songwriter, skilled orchestrator, and accomplished keyboardist—whose live performances held audiences spellbound. His professional path opened in the closing years of the 1960s when he arranged the Impressions’ “Choice of Colors,” co-wrote material for Flack’s first record, and contributed to other studio projects. He stepped forward as a headliner when “The Ghetto” appeared on the charts in January 1970 as the lead single from his debut album, Everything Is Everything. Between that release and 1973 he worked at a remarkable pace, issuing Donny Hathaway, Live, the joint effort Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, the Come Back Charleston Blue soundtrack, and Extension of a Man. Several of these sets reached the higher echelons of the R&B album chart and together produced eight additional charting singles, the most prominent being the Grammy-winning pop number-five smash “Where Is the Love.” In 1978 Hathaway and Flack earned another gold single with the quiet-storm staple “The Closer I Get to You,” which climbed to number two on the pop side. Following his untimely passing in 1979, a second collection of Flack/Hathaway duets appeared and generated two further Top Ten R&B successes, “You Are My Heaven” and “Back Together Again.” Decades later the song “This Christmas” experienced renewed streaming traction, finally securing Hathaway his first solo Top 40 placement in 2020, half a century after its initial release.

Hathaway entered the world on October 1, 1945, in Chicago yet relocated to St. Louis while still a small child and began performing in church alongside his grandmother at age three. He also took up the piano early and, by his high-school years, had developed sufficient command of the instrument to earn a full fine-arts scholarship to Howard University in 1964. During his college tenure he played with the cocktail-jazz ensemble the Ric Powell Trio and departed after three years to accept recording-industry positions already being offered to him.

He initially contributed behind the scenes as a producer, arranger, songwriter, and session pianist and keyboardist, supporting artists including Aretha Franklin, Jerry Butler, and the Staple Singers. He further joined the Mayfield Singers, the studio vocal group that backed Curtis Mayfield’s Impressions, and soon rose to house-producer status at Mayfield’s Curtom label. In 1969 he cut his first single, the duet “I Thank You Baby” with June Conquest. Shortly afterward he signed with Atco as a solo act and delivered his debut release, the urban lament “The Ghetto, Pt. 1,” late that year. Though it peaked only at number 23 on the R&B chart, the track endures as a landmark soul statement and has been widely sampled by hip-hop artists. “The Ghetto” paved the way for his well-received debut album Everything Is Everything, issued in early 1970. That December he unveiled the original seasonal recording “This Christmas,” which, despite limited chart impact beyond Billboard’s temporary Christmas Singles list, later became a perennial presence in films, television, commercials, and holiday compilations. In 1971 he released his self-titled second album and teamed with former Howard classmate Roberta Flack for a cover of Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.” The single reached the R&B Top Ten and prompted a full-length duet project, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, issued in 1972. The gentle ballad “Where Is the Love?” topped the R&B chart, reached the pop Top Five, captured a Grammy, and helped drive the accompanying album to gold status.

Also in 1972 Hathaway ventured into scoring, composing the theme for the television series Maude and the music for the film Come Back Charleston Blue. Amid mounting success, however, he confronted intense periods of depression that periodically led to hospitalization. These emotional fluctuations likewise strained his working relationship with Flack, which began to fracture in 1973. He issued one further album that year, the expansive Extension of a Man, then withdrew from public view, limiting his appearances to small-club settings for several years.

In 1977 he reconciled with Flack and left the hospital temporarily to record the new duet “The Closer I Get to You” for her album Blue Lights in the Basement. The track became a major hit, marking the duo’s second R&B number one in 1978 while also ascending to number two on the pop chart. Work on another duet album was in progress when, on January 13, 1979, Hathaway was discovered on the sidewalk beneath the fifteenth-floor window of his room at New York’s Essex House. The window glass had been carefully removed and no signs of struggle were evident, prompting investigators to determine the death a suicide. Friends expressed shock, noting that his career appeared to be regaining momentum, while Flack was left profoundly shaken. The album Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway appeared in 1980, and the two completed duets—“Back Together Again” and “You Are My Heaven”—achieved posthumous success.

In 1990 Hathaway’s daughter Lalah began her own solo recording career. After Billboard adjusted its chart methodology to incorporate streaming data, “This Christmas” entered the Hot 100’s Top 40 in December 2020.