Born 11-26-1924 died 2-6-2013

Sharp was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1924. His family had settled there because Kansas was, during slavery times, a free state. Sharp’s great-grandmother was a slave and he remembers her telling him stories about lying on the floor while cannonballs blasted through the cabin. The Great Depression soon followed, and Sharp’s parents sent him to live with relatives in Los Angeles while they went to New York to seek their fortune.

Sharp’s father was a concert tenor who won several small roles in Broadway shows but never hit it big. However, their social life was rich; they lived in an apartment building in Harlem with fellow residents Duke Ellington, Walter White, Roy Wilkins and artist Aaron Douglas. It was the peak of the Harlem Renaissance, and poet Langston Hughes was a family friend; Orson Welles had recently staged his famous Black Macbeth at the nearby Lafayette Theater. Sharp, a piano player and singer, penned “Unchain My Heart” in 1960 and Ray Charles turned it into an American sensation in 1961. An energetic cover of the song by Joe Cocker made it popular again in 1987.

Sharp received just $50 for the lyrics when he sold them to musician and composer Teddy Powell, who insisted on shared writing credits. Sharp then used the money to supplement a drug habit. In 1963, Sharp sold his remaining writer’s share to Powell for $1,000. Sharp sued Powell for the rights to the song a year later and, after a seven-year legal battle, the suit was settled.