Years ago as music editor for the Houston Press, I compiled a list of the top 100 songs with strong associations to Houston—songs about the Bayou City or songs written or performed by Houstonians. I placed Johnny Nash’s 1972 megahit, “I Can See Clearly Now” near the top of that list, saying:
Big Pharma should bottle this song and sell it; shrinks should prescribe it to all those who have the blues. This is one tune with optimism enough to put Prozac out of business. The pop-reggae gem passes like a giant sigh of relief; it’s plain from the hard-won calm obvious in Nash’s angelic, Sam Cooke-style tenor that he has indeed been truly delivered from some very dark places.
At the time, I wrongly believed Nash to be a one-hit-wonder with a couple of strange footnotes to his career. I’d learned, for example, that the native Houstonian had somehow became acquainted with Bob Marley years before Marley became the Elvis-Dylan combo of the Global South.
