Chip Taylor, the songwriter behind rock and pop music classics including “Wild Thing,” popularized by the Troggs, and “Angel of the Morning,” made famous by both Merrilee Rush and Juice Newton, died on Monday. He was 86.
Mr. Taylor died of cancer at a hospital in New York, his daughter Kelly confirmed in an email.
A prolific composer and songwriter during his six-decade career, Mr. Taylor wrote hits for artists including Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield and Frank Sinatra. His other well-known compositions included Ms. Joplin’s “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)”; Anne Murray’s country hit “Son of a Rotten Gambler,”; and “Welcome Home,” sung by the Chicago soul man Walter Jackson.
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016, alongside Marvin Gaye and Tom Petty. During the ceremony, he performed “Wild Thing” with his grandchildren.
James Wesley Voight was born on March 21, 1940, in Yonkers, N.Y., the third son of Elmer and Barbara Voight. His father was a professional golfer. He is the younger brother of Jon Voight, the Oscar-winning actor known for his roles in “Midnight Cowboy” and “Coming Home.” His stage name, Chip, was a nod to his short game at golf.
In high school, he joined a three-piece country band and played shows at Irish bars in Westchester County.
Mr. Taylor signed a record deal but little success followed, so he had to decide whether to pursue his career as a musician or follow in his father’s footsteps as a golfer.
His breakout success came in 1966 with “Wild Thing,” which he initially wrote for the Wild Ones, but it did not take off. In the hands of the British rock group the Troggs, it became a No. 1 hit in the United States, and provided Mr. Taylor with “a permanent seat in the pop culture hall of fame,” The New York Times wrote in 2009.
The song was “one of the primal radio odes to youthful lust,” The Times wrote.
“I wasn’t sure about ‘Wild Thing’ at first,” Mr. Taylor recalled in an interview in 1999. “On the demo I told the sound engineer to turn off the lights in the studio, and I just sat on a stool and sang it like a blues guy would. My brother Jon was visiting, and I played the song for him later the same night, and he predicted it would be a smash hit.”
Mr. Taylor often recorded his own music even as his songwriting career took off. In the 1970s, he “carved out a niche as a pre-alt-country, alt-country act,” The Times wrote.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Taylor retired from the music industry and started gambling full time. He frequently bet on horse races with his friend Ernie Dahlman, one of the world’s top horse-race bettors. He also enjoyed blackjack and was a skilled card counter, which got him banned from “several casinos,” according to an obituary from his independent record label, Train Wreck Records.
He mounted a comeback in the 1990s, releasing several critically acclaimed albums. He told The Times that his musical reawakening happened when he sang and played guitar for his mother in her last days before she died of cancer.
Mr. Taylor’s 2009 album, “Yonkers NY,” a country-tinged homage to his hometown, was nominated for the Grammy for best recording package. He discussed his nostalgia for, and “certain pride in,” New York’s third-largest city with The Times that year.
“The thing I really loved about Yonkers was this energy, this sense of a place where there was all this energy about to burst forth,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it was a gritty place, full of people who worked hard and had all the character in the world.”
He was recording music until his death, and his final album, “Words From Holy Gardens,” was released in the last month.
He is survived by two children, Kristian and Kelly, and five grandchildren. He was married to his middle school sweetheart, Joan Carol Frey, who inspired his first song, according to his label. She died in 2025, Mr. Taylor’s daughter said.
Hannah Ziegler is a general assignment reporter for The Times, covering topics such as crime, business, weather, pop culture and online trends.
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