“Top” Ten Music Losses of 2024: J.D. Souther (#1)

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This closes out the annual look back at the music obituaries from last year that affected me the most. When this one happened I told you it would be #1, unless something happened that was worse. Thank God, that didn’t happen, and so to close out January I present the biggest loss of 2024 in music to me. #1: J.D. Souther And, YES, @NJChicaa , it’s yet another case of “six degrees of Jimmy Buffett,” the fourth one on the top ten list (after Mark Germino, who played with Tim Krekel; Dave Loggins, co-writer of “Island;” and, Will Jennings, co-writer of two Buffett albums). Of course, as with the other three, J.D. Souther is not on this list because of his close proximity to Buffett (they wrote, and sang, “The Good Fight” on 1980’s Coconut Telegraph). It’s not even his close proximity to the Eagles (as I’ve mentioned before, he co-wrote THREE of the five #1 hits the Eagles had…and their last Grammy was for “How Long,” which J.D. wrote and originally recorded himself in 1972). No, J.D. Souther was great on his own, even without all the famous friends. Of course, many people would probably never have heard of him without them. Souther had a whopping ONE top 40 hit on his own, 1979’s “You’re Only Lonely.” He also duetted with James Taylor on the hit “Her Town Too.” Most of his trips to the top 40 were as songwriter, not singer. That’s a shame, because the man was a good singer. Of course, most people would rather hear Linda Ronstadt sing “Faithless Love” than Souther, so there was that. After he made one of the best albums of his career, 1984’s Home By Dawn, Souther decided to go into acting. While he did a lot of things that were successful (Nashville, thirtysomething, and one of the trapped coal miners in the TV movie The Pennsylvania Miners Story), he was sorely missed in music. Twenty five years later, he returned with If the World Was You. By then, “the music business” had forgotten about him. And I think he was fine with that. When you’re rolling in dough because you’ve got a couple of songs on the biggest-selling album in history, you don’t really have to worry about pleasing the record label. Souther was getting ready to tour with Karla Bonoff (another great singer/songwriter) when he died suddenly at his home in New Mexico. No official cause has been publicized, but it sounds like a heart attack or a stroke, one of those things that comes quickly and leaves us with only memories. And oh, what memories. What a singer. What a songwriter. Thank you, J.D. And thank you all for reading. J.D. Souther Born John David Souther, November 3, 1946, Detroit, Michigan Died September 17, 2024, Sandina Park, New Mexico (unknown cause) (age 78) HALL OF FAME: Songwriters Souther singing one of the classics he co-wrote, “New Kid in Town”: