Mar 24, 2026 3:17pm PT

Chip Taylor, Songwriters Hall of Fame Member Who Wrote ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Angel of the Morning,’ Dies at 86

Chris Willman

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Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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Chip Taylor, the Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee who is best known for writing the classic hits “Angel of the Morning” and “Wild Thing,” died Monday at age 86.

The death was reported on social media by his friend, singer Billy Vera, who said that Taylor passed away while in hospice care. No immediate cause of death was given.

Although it sometimes came as a surprise to music fans who knew of his songwriting legacy but not his lineage, Taylor was part of a famous family, being the brother of actor Jon Voight and uncle to Angelina Jolie. Voight was on hand to help induct his brother into the Songwriters Hall of Fame when Taylor received that honor in 2016.

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The New York-bred artist was born James Wesley Voight on March 21, 1940. He was a singer in his own right and released numerous singles and albums over the decades, beginning in the late 1950s as a member of the Town Three or under the name Wes Voight before adopting Taylor as his stage name. As a recording artist, his top-charting single was 1975’s “Early Sunday Morning,” which peaked at No. 28 on the country chart.

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“Wild Thing” was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for the Troggs in 1966, helping usher in a wave of what was often referred to as garage-rock. Its rawness made it ripe for cover versions over the years, including Jimi Hendrix’s live rendition at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, as captured in the documentary about the gathering, where the guitarist gets wild enough to light his instrument on fire. It was later recorded as a single by the L.A. punk band X and included in the film comedy “Major League.”

The far gentler “Angel of the Morning” also had an extensive life of its own, reaching its peak moment when Juice Newton had a No. 4 Hot 100 hit with it in 1981. The song also reached No. 1 on the AC chart and charted on country radio as well. The song was originally recorded by Evie Sands in 1967 but drew little attention at the time. The first hit version was by Merrilee Rush, whose version reached No. 4 in 1968. It was later recorded by Nina Simone, Olivia Newton-John and the Pretenders, among others.

Some filmgoers who were not around for the original chart runs of “Angel of the Morning” learned it through the licensing of Newton’s version for the opening of “Deadpool” or the closing of “Angel of the Morning,” in both cases for ironic effect. Additionally, Shaggy used it as the springboard for his 2001 hit “Angel.”

With “Wild Thing,” given the song’s simplicity, music fans did not have a hard time believing Taylor when he said he wrote it in a matter of minutes, at the request of a producer who was working on a project by the first group to record it, Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones. Their version was considered tame, and bombed, before Britain’s Troggs took it on.

“I was a little afraid to play it for people because it was so different than anything I’d done before,” Taylor said. “It wasn’t one of those pretty little country songs. And it was very sexy.”

Taylor told an interviewer he bought into the contention that “Wild Thing” was the first punk record. “Sounds like it to me,” he said. “The way I was doing my rock ‘and’n’ roll stuff and ‘Wild Thing,’ that was all in the same kind of honest energy that would come with the Velvet Underground and Joan Jett and all those people. The demo is very garage-sounding, very punk-sounding. And the recording of it is very garage-sounding and probably the first record that was done like that. … ‘WIld Thing‘ is a therapeutic song. It lets you relax. And I think that’s the secret to it. It’s simple and it feels good. It’s sweaty. Sweaty things are good.”

He told Rock Cellar of his favorite cover versions, “Hendrix heard the Troggs’ version. He told his girlfriend that he’d just heard a song that was his favorite song that he had ever h

Chip Taylor, Songwriters Hall of Fame Member Who Wrote 'Wild Thing' and 'Angel of the Morning,' Dies at 86