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From: DeenasWorld
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  • what mad him kill himself?

  • I love this narrator's voice. So wonderful.

    Poor Donny. RIP, my brother.

  • Donny Hathaway was the greatest vocalist/musician to walk the face of the earth period.

  • @ezekielthemack Ever heard of Marvin Gaye? Sam Cooke?

  • @TempeSoldier123 "Ever heard of Marvin Gaye Sam Cooke?" - Yes I have and they too are my musical idols, as is Curtis Mayfield. But none of those artists had the unique ability of being a virtuoso vocalist AND a virtuoso musician. Donny couldn't be touched vocally NOR could he be touched by anyone for his piano playing prowess.You seldom see the confluence of those two entities in a musician end of story.

  • Thinking back the day Donny died may me realize of Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson and others we lost tragically and too soon.

  • Since this episode aired in late 2008, it keeps me in great memories and how much I appreciate the spirit, the legacy and the movement of the great Donny Hathaway. Mental Illness is very serious and treated in the health community as Cancer, AIDS, Diabetes, etc. Back then it wasn't alot of support groups, interventions or suicide preventions at the time, but 2day we do have those now available. Let's hope and pray we continue to fight Stigma and raise awareness w/ Mental Illness all across.

  • The last part on this documentary had me in shock and put me in tears when Donny committed suicide at 33 years of age. Who would've thought something this tragically and sad could do something to himself. Had he lived long enough he would've grew and exploded by now. He was on the verge of a comeback and just getting ready to roll. To this day I considered this one of the truest episodes of unsung ever. As with Bird and Marvin Gaye, they all various dualities in 'em.

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  • this was one of the best unsung i seen on here, thank u for posting this, i learned a lot about donny i didn't know at first!

  • Thanks so much for this. I missed the episode on TV1 and have a renewed interest in Donny Hathaway. I was unaware of his mental illness but quite inspired by his life.

  • Donny's voice is ONE OF A KIND, no one could ever come close to this Man. I still play his music at least once a week......

  • I find it interesting these music folks can't accept that Donny on his own movement fell out the window.....period. Don't romanticize the truth. He was a very sick individual living in a time period that didn't know how to take care of the mentally ill. If these people (musicians) were going to work with him they should have had a 24 hour chaperone (s) for him. I am sure all these people were well intended but his health should have came first when they saw signs of mental illness.

  • He was 33! RIP musical genius..

  •  He is/was of my all-time favorite. His live album is to die for. The issue of mental illness is very real. Many geniuses suffer from some sort of affliction. I witnessed it in my own family. My late maternal aunt had to be a genius because EVERYTHING came easy to her, from the time she was a child. Languages, math, science, singing, dance, you name it. But, from her teen years, to her death, she always had to anesthetize herself with drugs and alcohol, which to her early demise. RIP.

  • Told you that suicide is bad.

  • God bless, Wonder and Gate, I adore them, but Donny cornered the market on raw, black soul, took the 'stain' on it, and made it as chic as classical music. Genius.

  • This is one story that could be told on screen and you would still learn something new

  • tears just sprang out of my eyes...i never new this!!!!

  • Black people are so easy deceived,why do all the artist say the same thing,

    they are trying to kill me,wake the fuck up!!!

    Fuck TV ONE stop being cowards and tell the real story!!!

  • When you see, someone acting crazy because of a mental illness or you know they have some sickness. You don't leave them alone...Wish they had got the doctors/hospitals to take him in if they could, that night. Well we can all learn from this tragic situation.

  • WHERE IN THE HECK WAS ROBERTA FLACK?!?!?!?!?!?!

  • did anyone know Donny song the theme song for "Maude"

  • @keonta81

    Yes! Found that out about 10 years ago.

  • We need to start listening to the cries of those they deem to be mental. These are generally really smart people and whatever is haunting their minds are relicks of things that are actually happening or have happened to them. Take there statements seriously. Could it be possible that someone was trying to kill him? Funny how if you are smart, a leader, or rebel you don't last in the industry.

  • The most talented leave us tragically.. Long live Donny Hathaway and Phyllis Hyman..

  • Nas the rapper did a song about this story......On his HIPHOP is dead album

  • @shesodior Blunt Ashes by Nas from the CD Hip Hop is Dead, everyone should listen to this song and find some real in depth 2 it.

  • i feel he been kill

  • His wife is an amazingly intelligent and strong woman.

  • @shestudios I agree.

  • That poor man. It must be unbelievably terrifying to feel the way he did.

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  • go donnie his music is better than the ttrailor trash out there now

  • lalah and kenya look so much like him

  • @roscoegino Donita looks JUST like him.

  • lalah looks so much like him

  • actually, Hathaway was 33 when he died, not 34 as the documentary says

  • Please,subtitles for the Portuguese!

  • Thanks Denna for posting this and Thank you tv1 for showcasing blacks in a respectable and overdue light.

    This is the kind of information that we should be sharing and learning all along!

  • My parents played Donny's music from the time I was small, I will never forget hearing of his passing, my brother & I had just peformed The closer I get to you in a high school talent show. Donny was an extraordinary musical genius.

  • thank you deena im a big fan im very thankful for you puting this on youtube

  • Did y'all notice the book laying beside his hand? It was titled "suicide". Eerie stuff!

  • All I kept wondering is where is Roberta Flack? This was a beautiful story and a very clean story, but there are some things very much missing. I do not say this to demean his life, but I do say this to say that the most powerful vocalists are often the most traumatized in one way or another. And I am simply in love with his music and this person, Donny Hathaway!

  • Thank very much Deenasworld for this video.

  • donny you're still here ! for me your the master from Soul Music..FOREVER. RIP Donny

  • I am a little disapointed that no mention of the song "young gifted and black" was mentioned. Donny brilliantly sang this song to help uplift the black community in the sixties and seventies.

  • "He sat in the window. Closed his eyes...and leaned back." That's deep.

    Too think of all the torment behind that brilliance, breaks my heart. It's a tragedy but I'm glad the world had him as long it did. I'm happy to know that I'll be able to share Donny's talent with my children. His legend does live on.

    Thanks for uploading.

  • I eel like this they knew he was tlking crazy why did they leave him alone by his self!

  • parnoid schizoprenics are suicidal, it's crazy b/c they didnt knw how to control it. not only that, people really didnt know about the problem or how to deal with it well. his music is very hunting and touching at he same time

  • Great Job, thank you. What an amazing man.

  • i beleive it was an accident, yes they did not want to pay insurance...he just stated, he wanted to live to be 80 years old... give me a break....whitewashed,hoodwink & bamboseled lied to ! n we were cheated ... i really love him, as he has affeted my life trmendously!

  • what an interesting story, WOW...i never knew this.

  • The song being played :50 - 3:00 is called "Giving Up is Hard To Do" and was performed by one of the actresses in the movie "Sparkle." And the late, Aaliyah did a demo of it, because a remake of "Sparkle" was going into production before she died.

  • thank you so much for posting this!!!!

  • He was such a masterful artist in the truest sense. "Musicians" these days should pay attention to his dedication to his craft. There are very few true musicians today. One of them, for sure, is Lalah Hathaway, who has such a beautiful incredible voice and creative voice, and honors her father greatly. In fact, all 3 of his daughters are incredible.

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  • Thank you sooooo much Deenasworld! This is a story everyone should see as Donny is so underestimated. Brilliant talent!

  • Knowing what I know about the music industry, I think that Donny was killed. I feel like the record execs wanted total control over his talent and gave him something either thru drink or injection which started working on his brain. There is no way he would mention the two guys trying to kill him and lets not forget, his music was raising consciousness to another level, something that record companies say they promote but they don't. His story reminds me a lot of what happened to Hendrix.

  • @ethurst2 it was a suicide. remember that Roberta Flack was in the room with him when he jumped and she confirmed it. he was having an affair with her

  • @PhuckHue2 If Roberta was in the room with him I wonder why she couldn't have talked him out of it? Interesting...

  • @ethurst2 That's makes a lot of since to. I can see that theory happening

  • thank you so much for the series. I no longer have cable and miss Unsung. I hope the show is still going strong, so many stories need to be told.

  • Thank you for posting this. Damn! 34 years old. Too young to die. What a tragic loss to music & the world. This was moving, enlightening & sad at the same time.

  • And the public's awareness and acceptance of mental illness is shameful. People, educate yourselves--the brain can get "sick" just as any other organ in our bodies. Working in the insurance industry opened my eyes to the discrimination the mentally ill face. The limits placed on what they would pay for mental illness was a disgrace, which should chabge this year because of the passage of the mental health disparity act. Mental illness is real and those suffering from it--my heart goes out to u

  • @racourdav yea of course its real...real as any other illness...but its the one we know the least about...that is why its so hard to determine...and since there are no physical disability, people may, without knowledge, take it as faking it...i dont blame the public, mental illness is just a tragedy, but it will take time, like any other problems mankind has faced, for us to understand what this is all about, but just from some research i did on donny hathaway, mental illness is the scariest...

  • Poor Donnie!!

    Thanks for posting this. For the longest time I never knew what he suffered from. Hearing his wife say that he was Szhicophrenic puts his death in perspective for me. I've worked in homes where people suffering from this disorder reside--and trust me, it's a harrowing thing to see. The medications have to be taken in order for them to function. Most, if not all, hate the meds-some are on meds so heavy that they can't speak..this illness truly robs people of normalcy.

  • Thank you for posting!

  • I always wanted to hear the story told by those who knew, this has answered many things with revelation that the good may suffer but the best although they may suffer heavily for their talents, live on in this world of distraction and mediocrity as a testament to their own so powerful yet fragile immoratality.

  • who is that person at 4:09?

  • @hungurr Roberta Flack

  • @hungurr Looks like it may have been Roberta Flack

  • Thank you for posting!

  • Thank you soooo much for posting this !!!

  • DeenasWorld... thank you...

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  • That was Common

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  • Somebody answer me, why I got -5 poor comments. I'm confused

  • LMAO! No it's not, it's Common the rapper/actor!

  • I can't even begin to tell you how much DH means to me! His voice, his sound, his SOUL that has touched me like very few others have. I FEEL his pain, his joy, his melancholy, everything with this man! Oh man, such a tragedy and I would have loved to have been able to have seen him live.. What a blessing he was to the world of music and he is missed! DH, RIP and be among the musical angels with Luther, Marvin, JB, Barry, Sam, Otis..

  • @TangelineMadness Well said.

  • All three of Donny's daughters are beautiful. :)

  • @timmy841212 Not as beautiful as Donny's music was

  • @timmy841212 xcept the one bastard thats a darkie....ewwww.

  • thank u Deen for posting...nuff respect

  • thank you for posting this series! I was young when donny died, but i still loved hiis voice and music. some of the best lyrics and music ever written!

  • back in the 70's they didn't have the medication that they have now. the medication back then turned paranoid schizophrenics into a zombie

  • @PhuckHue2 It's hard for everyone to accept, throughout the documentary they keeps saying he would go off his meds when he felt better. His second wife said, when he was on his meds he was fine. So the medicine of the day helped him but I'm sure Donny hadn't accepted his own illness and didn't want to be sick or see himself as being one that needed help. I discovered Donny Hathaway's music long after his death but it still hurts to hear of his death, what a genius.

  • Awesome documentary. Very distrubing and sad at the same time. I was very moved towards the end. Donny Hathaway was a talented genuis that cannot be replaced,. He has very lovely talented daughters too. RIP!

  • it's so sad that mental illness is something that is still not something we still don't have as out there as it should be and it takes wonderful gifted people.

  • A touching piece. His death still resonates to this day as one of the great tragedies in American music. I have never been affected by any other artists' music to the extent that Donny's music has touched and influenced me. With all due respect to the greats that preceded & followed him, as well as his contemporaries, it is my opinion that no other artist makes the listener feel raw emotion as strongly as Donny was able. His music is essential to experiencing what it means to be human. Gd Bless

  • I still breaks my heart to think about his death.

  • Too bad they tried to keep Donny's illness under wraps when they should've just come out with a campaign to deal with it head-on. Nothing more tragic than seeing a genius' life cut short like that under those circumstances. At least his musical legacy continues to live on though. He truly was ahead of his time...

  • Sad.Donny I so hope your at peace.Your music will always be a part of our lives.Thanks for what you gave to us.Thanks so much.

  • Thank you so very much for posting the UnSung: Donnie Hathaway -- I loved this program on TV and now it is on YT as well.

    Thank you for raising the profile of one of greatest and best male vocalist ever to live and sing. Thank you for sharing his wonderful voice with the masses.

    Blessings.

  • Donnita looks JUST like her father!...anyway, thanks SO MUCH...the best male voice EVER...

  • :)

    Donnita Hathaway

  • This is so sad

  • R.I.P. Donny Hathaway Your music will live on FOREVERRRR!!! This just brings me back to the day that Michael Jackson died. So many talented people are leaving us! smh

  • True genius!

  • He was 33 when he died...not 34

  • There are no superlatives to describe the genius that was Donny Hathaway.

  • For some reason I feel like this epidsode didn't say much to me about Donny Hathaway. All of the people being interviewed pretty much said the same thing over and over. I wish Roberta Flack gave her take on her experience with Donny in the studio and more importantly outside of the studio.

  • What more did you want?

  • how do you know?

  • Roberta said it herself in an interview

  • do u know which interview? is it on your channel?

  • @PhuckHue2

    HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?

  • r.i.p Donny

  • Yes I agree with you pharrisbaritone. I wish I could've heard Roberta Flack's story of him and her opinion of his death.

  • now i know what im going to look like in twenty years, jessie jackson.

  • What wonderful talent... I love all the divine musical synergy he & Roberta produced. I cried.. I too, don't believe what they're telling us about his untimely demise--no more than I believe what they told us about the demise of Malcolm, Martin, & JFK. Mass deception...Smoke & Mirrors.

  • @pharrisbaritone: Jesus was 33 too... Just a thought... Two beautiful souls...

  • it's a shame that whoever has talent whether you be a speaker, singer, actor etc etc. - a person that really stands out from the crowd that changes a scene - why do they have to die so young? Donny was a talented person who had a voice that you can feel, almost like he was singing directly to you. After my brother told me about the program I had to see this.....Thanks for the great post Deena!

  • 1:21 Ric Powell says the truth ... his songs had allusions to suicide ... even singing a Gary McFarlane song ... "I hear voices, I see people" ~ what does that mean! ... lots of other lines in songs point to this ...

    @

  • I had missed the entire Unsung on Mr Hathaway, Im a great fan and fellow musician that also suffer from some of the same demons as Donny did. Folks should`nt worry so much about how a person dies,but celebrate them while their still around. Im 34 years old now and have so much music written and recorded of my own.but still celebrate Donny every time I step on stage,studio,sit down to write.... Thanks so much for posting. May God Bless You.

  • thanks for sharing, and make sure to take care of yourself :)

  • It's an epic tragedy that Donny Hathaway's life was cut short at the quite young age of 34. Its such a shame he was plagued by a mental illness that today can be controlled and afford those a normal existence........ I love his music, remember hearing "This Christmas" in the 70's when I just 4yrs old. I love Lalah Hathaway music and I hope he is smiling down on his family, friends and fans. Great tribute, I love Unsung.

  • You don't know how much I appreciate you putting up this programme. Donny was the greatest musical artist of all time in my opinion, and with so little footage or written works about his life available this was fantastic to watch. A real tragedy he's gone but he'll never ever be forgotten.

    Thanks again Deena

  • This would make a good movie. I could see Jason Weaver playing Donnie

  • i think that an unknown should play him, that would put the focus on donny an his story and not the actor but i like jason too.

  • Deena, THANK YOU for posting the 5 parts of Donny Hathaway's tribute. After watching, I'm wondering if Donny's 3rd Daughter is accepted by Lalah & Kenya. I hope that they have some kind of relationship.

  • I wondered the same thing. I am a part of a mixed family like that and I am the child of my father and my mother. My father's other children never really took to me but now that we are adults I think we are trying to bridge that gap. However my sister (mother's daughter) and I are very close and always have been.

  • @ Sean67: I was wondering the same thing too; I hope they embrace her... she's the child..her manifest is not her fault.

  • it's about time donny had a tribute. he was everything that they said about him and so much more. he is my most favorite male vocalist of all time. and yes donny, someday we'll all be free.

  • I appreciate so much this being posted. I adore his music and I never knew exactly what his illness was. His death was a huge tragedy.

  • Thank You Deena!

  • thank you so much

    my favorite of all time I was a girl in his prime and I reconized his genius

  • Very well done, I wonder why Roberto Flack didn't take part in it?

  • I think Roberta is still upset about his death plus she with the other musicians at that recording session were the last to see him. It still hurts her to this day.

  • I can't get tvone either and i've been wanting to see this episode, THANK YOU SOO MUCH

  • You're an idiot! That was not funny!

  • Another musical genius gone too soon.

  • type error - "get"

  • Thanks so much for sharing :) I too cannot TVONE.

  • Deenasworld, thank you so much for putting this on Youtube. I can't get TVOne in my area and I've been desperately wanting to see the Unsung on Donny, my favorite Soul Singer of all time.

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