The paper's March 27 edition covered the death of Chip Taylor through "Wild Thing," the three-chord explosion the Troggs turned into a generational anthem. The songwriter behind the song deserves equal attention for his other masterwork. "Angel of the Morning," written in 1967, was a radical song for its time — a woman acknowledging a one-night encounter without shame, asking only that her lover not treat her differently when morning came.

Merrilee Rush recorded it first in 1968. It reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. Juice Newton's 1981 version climbed to No. 4 and became the definitive recording, selling over a million copies. [1] The Pretenders covered it. So did Shaggy, in a reggae version that introduced the melody to an entirely different audience. [2]

Taylor — born James Wesley Voight, Jon Voight's brother and Angelina Jolie's uncle — wrote both songs before he was 30. He spent the next five decades as a touring artist, a country singer, and a gambling expert who once wrote a book on blackjack strategy. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. [3]

He died on March 23 in hospice care at the age of 86. Two songs, billions of listens, and a name most people never learned.

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles