Jim Post, best known as one half of the duo Friend & Lover whose only hit was a memorable one — “Reach out of the darkness” is Declared with the seriousness of flower power. he was 82 years old.
his ex-wife Janet Smith PostTogether he wrote two children’s books.
On “Reach Out of the Darkness,” which hit No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1968, Post and then-wife Cathy Conn sang:
don’t be afraid of love
don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid
don’t be afraid to love
listen to me
Everyone needs a little love.
Although the lyrics say “reaching out in the dark”, executives at Verve Forecast Records, the label that released the record, titled the record “reaching out”. of darkness. “The title suggested something different from Mr. Post, who wrote the song.
“Reach out of A place not enlightened,” he explained to the South Bend Tribune in 2009. He then recited the chorus: “
The song fared better than the duo’s album of the same name, and after a few more unsuccessful singles, Friend & Lover broke up and Mr. Post and Ms. Conn divorced. Ms. Kong passed away in 2018.
Mr. Post injected extra elements into the 2009 recording “Reach Out.” A fundamentally new arrangement, merged with “Get Together”, The Youngbloods hit of the late 1960s urged listeners to “get everyone together and try to love each other right now.” He called the medley “Reach Out Together”. He said at the time that “Reach Out”, mashed up with songs from the same era and similar sensibilities, was just as relevant as it was in 1968.
“What is our country’s theme now?” he asked. He answered his own question, “Come with me.”
“Reach Out of the Darkness” was given new life in 2013 when it was heard in the closing credits of the sixth season episode of “Mad Men” when the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy was being reported on television. was Writing for the arts and culture website Across the Margin, LP Hanners said: The hilarious 45-year-old song “was perfectly in tune with the duality addressed in the final scene of ‘Man With a Plan’.”
The song was also heard on the soundtrack of the 2015-16 TV series Aquarius, which starred David Duchovny as a homicide detective on the trail of Charles Manson in late 1960s Los Angeles.
Jimmy David Post was born in Houston on October 28, 1939 and grew up on a farm about 20 miles from the city. His father was a docker and his mother a stay-at-home mom.
A singer from an early age, Jim won the school talent contest in first grade, which led to a performance on a local radio show.later he said 1972 Chicago Sun-TimesBy the time he was 22, he was a “successful evangelist” who had performed in over 500 churches across the United States.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Post was part of the three-man folk group, The Rum Runners, and released a version of the traditional song “You Gotta Quit Kickin’ My Dog Around” as a single on Mercury Records in 1963. A year later, when they played a club in Kansas City, Missouri, Dick Brown of The Kansas City Star wrote:
While touring Canada with the Ram Runners, Mr. Post met dancer Ms. Kong and left the group to be with her. They soon began playing as Friend & Lover and made a name for themselves at Chicago’s folk club Earl of Old Town, where singers such as Steve Goodman and John Prine also performed.
Friend & Lover were a folk act, but their records utilized studio musicians, achieved a more pop sound, and were a pop success, at least at first.
After Friend & Lover broke up and married Conn, Post embarked on a solo career and returned to folk music.
“Jim was a great character with a wide vocal range,” said the folksinger Bonnie CorokMr. Post said in an interview that he had seen him perform with Ms. Conn and alone at the Earl of Oldtown. “He was such a dedicated performer. We all loved him.”
Post, who has been married and divorced five times, has a daughter and a grandson.
He later changed direction, organizing and touring one-man musical shows. His first work, in 1986, was “Galena Rose: How Whiskey Won the West,” which depicted the 19th-century lead mining rush in Galena, Illinois, where he lived for many years.
Then, in the mid-1990s, when he began to look like Mark Twain, Mr. Post “Mark Twain and the Laughing Riverr’ is a show that combines his songs with Twain’s words. His CD of the show earned him an American Library Association Award for Notable Recording.
He followed it with “Mark Twain’s Adventures West” about ten years later.
“Reach Out of the Darkness” remained a notable part of Post’s life 54 years after its release, through its continued airplay and the royalties he received.
“Two months ago he got a check for $6,000,” his friend Bob Postel said in an interview.
He continues: The song paid for a lot of gas.