{"id":544051,"date":"2026-03-25T09:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T09:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/544051\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T09:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T09:09:11","slug":"writer-of-wild-thing-angel-of-the-morning-was-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/544051\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer of ‘Wild Thing,’ ‘Angel of the Morning’ Was 86"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChip Taylor<\/a>, the Songwriters Hall of Fame<\/a> inductee who is best known for writing the classic hits \u201cAngel of the Morning\u201d and \u201cWild Thing,\u201d died Monday at age 86.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe death was reported on social media by his friend, singer Billy Vera, who said that Taylor passed away while in hospice care. No immediate cause of death was given.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough it sometimes came as a surprise to music fans who knew of his songwriting legacy but not his lineage, Taylor was part of a famous family, being the brother of actor Jon Voight and uncle to Angelina Jolie. Voight was on hand to help induct his brother into the Songwriters Hall of Fame when Taylor received that honor in 2016.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe New York-bred artist was born James Wesley Voight on March 21, 1940. He was a singer in his own right and released numerous singles and albums over the decades, beginning in the late 1950s as a member of the Town Three or under the name Wes Voight before adopting Taylor as his stage name. As a recording artist, his top-charting single was 1975\u2019s \u201cEarly Sunday Morning,\u201d which peaked at No. 28 on the country chart. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWild Thing\u201d was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for the Troggs in 1966, helping usher in a wave of what was often referred to as garage-rock. Its rawness made it ripe for cover versions over the years, including Jimi Hendrix\u2019s live rendition at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, as captured in the documentary about the gathering, where the guitarist gets wild enough to light his instrument on fire. It was later recorded as a single by the L.A. punk band X and included in the film comedy \u201cMajor League.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe far gentler \u201cAngel of the Morning\u201d also had an extensive life of its own, reaching its peak moment when Juice Newton had a No. 4 Hot 100 hit with it in 1981. The song also reached No. 1 on the AC chart and charted on country radio as well. The song was originally recorded by Evie Sands in 1967 but drew little attention at the time. The first hit version was by Merrilee Rush, whose version reached No. 4 in 1968. It was later recorded by Nina Simone, Olivia Newton-John and the Pretenders, among others.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome filmgoers who were not around for the original chart runs of \u201cAngel of the Morning\u201d learned it through the licensing of Newton\u2019s version for the opening of \u201cDeadpool\u201d or the closing of \u201cAngel of the Morning,\u201d in both cases for ironic effect. Additionally, Shaggy used it as the springboard for his 2001 hit \u201cAngel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith \u201cWild Thing,\u201d given the song\u2019s simplicity, music fans did not have a hard time believing Taylor when he said he wrote it in a matter of minutes, at the request of a producer who was working on a project by the first group to record it, Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones. Their version was considered tame, and bombed, before Britain\u2019s Troggs took it on. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was a little afraid to play it for people because it was so different than anything I\u2019d done before,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t one of those pretty little country songs. \u00a0And it was very sexy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTaylor told an interviewer <\/a>he bought into the contention that \u201cWild Thing\u201d was the first punk record. \u201cSounds like it to me,\u201d he said. \u201cThe way I was doing my rock \u2018and\u2019n\u2019 roll stuff and\u00a0\u2018Wild Thing,\u2019 that was all in the same kind of honest energy that would come with the Velvet Underground and Joan Jett and all those people. The demo \u00a0is very garage-sounding, very punk-sounding. And the recording of it is very garage-sounding and probably the first record that was done like that. \u2026 \u2018WIld Thing\u2018\u00a0is a therapeutic song. \u00a0It lets you relax. \u00a0And I think that\u2019s the secret to it. It\u2019s simple and it feels good. It\u2019s sweaty. Sweaty things are good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe told Rock Cellar <\/a>of his favorite cover versions, \u201cHendrix heard the Troggs\u2019 version. He told his girlfriend that he\u2019d just heard a song that was his favorite song that he had ever heard. The next morning he was taking a shower and it came on the radio and he jumped out of the shower butt naked and said, \u201cThat\u2019s\u00a0the song I\u2019m talking about!\u201d He used to play it all the time, so his versions were wonderful because he had the same strum, the same thing that I do hitting the strings with the upstroke with my thumb in the same simple man\u2019s way of playing the guitar.\u201d So I loved his version and I also loved the version done by X, which was very true to the feel of it. They did a wonderful version.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to that, Taylor had been a staff writer at April-Blackwood Music, CBS\u2019 publishing arm of CBS, and had had country songs recorded by artists like Willie Nelson, who recorded his \u201cHe Sits at My Table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLinda Ronstadt popularized \u201cI Can\u2019t Let Go\u201d with a 1980 recording. it was another number he had written for Evie Sands.<\/p>\n

\n\tBilly Vera\u2019s post noted that he and Taylor co-wrote \u201csome good ones,\u201d including \u201cMake Me Belong To You\u201d (recorded by Barbara Lewis and Fats Domino), \u201cStorybook Children\u201d (recorded by Vera along with Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood, plusDon Williams) and \u201cPapa Come Quick (recorded by Bonnie Raitt).<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the \u201990s forward, he made an impact largely on the Americana scene as a singer-songwriter. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2012, Taylor got back in touch with his wild side with his presciently named group Chip Taylor & the New Ukrainians, issuing an album titled \u201cF**k All the Perfect People.\u201d The title song was featured in the Netflix series \u201cSex Education.\u201d In 2019, he got rootsier again with a new album, \u201cWhiskey Salesman.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chip Taylor, the Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee who is best known for writing the classic hits \u201cAngel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[242969,88,92905],"class_list":["post-544051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-chip-taylor","tag-entertainment","tag-songwriters-hall-of-fame"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}