[7] Dutch director David Kleijwegt made a documentary called Mister Soul – A Story About Donny Hathaway, which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam on January 28, 2020.

Hathaway began singing in the church choir with his grandmother, a professional gospel singer, at the age of three, and studying piano.

[11] Hathaway worked as a songwriter, session musician, and producer for Curtis Mayfield's Curtom Records in Chicago.

He did the arrangements for hits by the Unifics ("Court of Love" and "The Beginning of My End") and took part in projects by the Staple Singers, Jerry Butler, Aretha Franklin, the Impressions and Curtis Mayfield himself.

Hathaway recorded his first single under his own name in 1969, a duet with singer June Conquest called "I Thank You, Baby".

The track appeared the following year on his critically acclaimed debut LP, Everything Is Everything, which he co-produced with Ric Powell while also arranging all the cuts.

"This Christmas" has been covered by numerous artists across diverse musical genres, including The Whispers, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Alexander O'Neal, Christina Aguilera, Chicago, Harry Connick, Jr., Dru Hill, *NSYNC, Gloria Estefan, Boney James, The Cheetah Girls, Chris Brown, Anthony Arnett (First Baptist Bracktown Christmas Celebration), Patti LaBelle and Mary J. Blige (A Mary Christmas), Seal, Train and CeeLo Green, among other artists.

Hathaway followed this flurry of work with contributions to soundtracks, along with his recording of the theme song to the TV series Maude.

[16] In the mid-1970s, he produced albums for other artists including Cold Blood, where he expanded the musical range of lead singer Lydia Pense.

It also included his classic ballad, "Someday We'll All Be Free" and a six-minute symphonic-styled instrumental piece called "I Love The Lord, He Heard My Cry".

Lalah has enjoyed a successful solo career, while Kenya is a session singer and one of the three backing vocalists on the hit TV program American Idol.

[20][21][11] During the peak of his career, Hathaway began experiencing severe bouts of depression and exhibiting unusual behavior.

However, Eulaulah Hathaway has said that her father became less than diligent about following his prescription regimen when he began feeling better and often stopped taking his medications altogether.

According to Mtume, Hathaway said that white people were trying to kill him and had connected his brain to a machine for the purpose of stealing his music and his voice.

[11] Hours later, Hathaway was found dead on the pavement below the window of his 15th-floor room in New York City's Essex House hotel at 160 Central Park South.

"[26] Raúl Midón said that Hathaway is "the strongest soul singer that ever existed" and compares his vocal technique to a classical vocalist.

Rock critic Robert Christgau described Hathaway as "a synthesizer of limitless cultural aspiration" who "conveyed a sense of roots" and was never content with "the classbound pop fantasies of Ashford & Simpson", but mused that "the idealistic credulousness of a project that incorporated pop, jazz, a little blues, lots of gospel, and the conservatory into an all-over black style is linked to the floridity that mars much of his work.