Also passing this week: Mary Wilson at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2019 (photo by Jay Goodwin on Wikipedia)
Jim Weatherly wrote songs for almost 50 years. His best-known song is “Midnight Train to Georgia”, recorded by Gladys Knight & the Pips. It peaked at number 1 on the pop and R&B charts, and went on to win a Grammy Award. The song was subsequently inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and was chosen by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America as No. 29 of the 365 Songs of the Century. Ray Price has recorded 38 of Weatherly’s songs. Both Gladys Knight & the Pips (in 1972) and Bob Luman (in 1973) had top five records with “Neither One of Us”. Other artists who have recorded Weatherly’s songs include: Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers, Asha Puthli, Neil Diamond, Kenny Chesney, Lynn Anderson, Brenda Lee, Batdorf & Rodney. and Garth Brooks.
Gladys Knight and the Pips have recorded twelve other Weatherly compositions, such as “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)” and “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”. That version of “Neither One of Us” became his first number one pop record in Cashbox and Record World magazine charts, and became a number one R&B record. It was followed by “Where Peaceful Waters Flow”,” Midnight Train to Georgia” and “Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”, which were all pop and R&B hits.
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Weatherly was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006. Five years later, he was enshrined into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014. He was also conferred the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Music by the government of Mississippi that same year.
Weatherly died on February 3rd, 2021 at his home in Brentwood, Tennessee of natural causes. He was 77.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Weatherly
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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
February 2021
9: Richie Albright, 81, American drummer (Waymore’s Outlaws).
8: Roza Akkuchukova, 70, Russian singer, COVID-19; Servando Cano Rodríguez, 78, Mexican singer-songwriter and producer; Corrado Francia, 73, Italian singer; Mary Wilson, 76, American Hall of Fame singer (The Supremes).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wilson_(singer)
7: Elliot Mazer, 79, American audio engineer and record producer; Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera, 72, Italian opera director (Opéra Royal de Wallonie), cancer; Ricardo Silva Elizondo, 67, Mexican singer and actor (Destilando Amor, El premio mayor, Amigas y Rivales), COVID-19.
5: Abdoul Jabbar, 40–41, Guinean singer-songwriter; Douglas Miller, 71, American gospel singer;
Christopher Plummer, 91, Canadian actor (The Sound of Music, Beginners, All the Money in the World), Oscar winner (2012), complications from a fall; Örs Siklósi, 29, Hungarian singer (AWS), leukemia.
4: Matt Harris, American rock bassist (The Posies) (death announced on this date); Patricia Healey, 85, British singer and actress (The White Bus, Britannia Hospital), complications from COVID-19; Jaime Murrell, 71, Panamanian Christian singer and songwriter, COVID-19; Nolan Porter, 71, American R&B singer-songwriter; Gil Saunders, American soul singer (Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes), lung cancer and multiple sclerosis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Posies
3: Kris De Bruyne, 70, Belgian singer; Anne Feeney, 69, American folk singer-songwriter and political activist, COVID-19; Jim Weatherly, 77, American Hall of Fame singer-songwriter (“Midnight Train to Georgia”, “Neither One of Us”, “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me”).
2: Libuše Domanínská, 96, Czech operatic soprano; Aaron Wegelin, American drummer (Elf Power).
1: Temur Tsiklauri, 75, Georgian pop singer and actor, COVID-19; Cynthia Turner, 88, Maltese pianist, COVID-19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2021