Johnny Nash
Overview
 
John Lester "Johnny" Nash, Jr. (born August 19, 1940) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

, best known in the US for his 1972 hit, "I Can See Clearly Now
I Can See Clearly Now
-Certifications:-Charts:-Other covers:The song also appears in various other films, such as Grosse Pointe Blank, The Break-up, Thelma & Louise, Antz, Deep Blue Sea, Envy, Hitch, Shrek 2s Far Far Away Idol, Viktor Vogel – Commercial Man and Jennifer's Body, as well in a 2009 advertisement for Lipton...

". He was also the first non-Jamaican to record reggae music in Kingston
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...

, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

.
Born John Lester Nash, Jr. in Houston, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, He began as a pop singer in the 1950s. He also enjoyed success as an actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 early in his career appearing in the screen version of playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 Louis S. Peterson
Louis S. Peterson
Louis S. Peterson was an American playwright, who was the first African American playwright to have a dramatic play produced on Broadway...

's Take a Giant Step
Take a Giant Step
Take a Giant Step is a coming-of-age drama film, directed by Philip Leacock about a black teenager living in a predominantly white environment and having trouble coping as he reaches an age at which the realities of racism are beginning to affect his life more directly and pointedly than they had...

. Nash won a Silver Sail Award for his performance from the Locarno International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival
The Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...

.

In 1965, Johnny Nash and Danny Sims formed the JAD
JAD Records
JAD Records was a record label that was co-owned by Johnny Nash, producer Arthur Jenkins, and businessman Danny Sims, whose initials formed its logo...

 label in New York.
 
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