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In a career spanning seven decades, Chip Taylor, who has died aged 86 of cancer, wrote songs recorded by a huge array of artists from Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt and the Hollies to Janis Joplin, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Emmylou Harris. Yet it was the primitive but irresistible Wild Thing, composed in a matter of minutes, that became his best-known calling card.

He wrote it in 1965 when commissioned to write a song for Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones, but their version was not a hit. However, when the Troggs recorded it the following year it topped the US chart and became a smash around the world.

Taylor recalled how Christopher’s version was “too poppy”, while The Troggs’ version captured the flavour of Taylor’s own rudimentary demo recording. “I think it’s one of the greatest rock records ever made in terms of capturing the spirit of the song,” he enthused. “It’s just a terrific record and it’s the one that Jimi Hendrix heard and went crazy for.” When Hendrix set fire to his Fender Stratocaster guitar while performing Wild Thing at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967, it propelled both song and performer into rock’n’roll legendariness.

But Taylor’s next-most-famous song could hardly have been more different. Angel of the Morning was a country-flavoured ballad with an epic chorus (inspired, Taylor said, by the Rolling Stones’ Ruby Tuesday), seemingly about an illicit love affair. Merrilee Rush took it to No 4 on the US chart in 1968, and Juice Newton did exactly the same thing in 1981. Other memorable versions were recorded by Nelson, Ronstadt and Johnny Cash, as well as PP Arnold, Nina Simone and the Pretenders, and the song formed part of Shaggy’s 2001 international chart-topper Angel.

However, Taylor might never have gone into the music business at all. For a time he considered following in the footsteps of his father, Elmer Voight, a professional golfer who played in the US Open tournaments in 1928 and 1929. Through the 1980s and mid-90s, after recording a string of unsuccessful solo albums, Taylor became a full-time gambler, frequently betting on horse races and developing expert card-counting skills at the blackjack tables, which prompted several casinos to ban him from their premises.

He was born James Wesley Voight in Yonkers, New York, the son of Elmer and his wife, Barbara, a teacher and swimming instructor. He had two older brothers, Barry Voight, later an eminent geologist, and the future Hollywood star Jon Voight. Chip would become uncle to Jon’s children, Angelina Jolie and James Haven, who both pursued acting careers.

He described how “we were brought up to think there was nothing we couldn’t do,” and recalled how he felt inspired to pursue music when his parents took him to see the Hollywood musical My Wild Irish Rose when he was about seven. “I was just mesmerised by the music,” he remembered. “I felt, that night, that something changed in me.” He began soaking up blues and country music from the radio, and briefly tried playing the violin before switching to ukulele, “which later would make it easier for me to learn guitar”.

With some school friends at Archbishop Stepinac, a Catholic high school in White Plains, New York, he formed the Town and Country Brothers, and began to write songs. Their demo tape earned them a deal with the King Records label, and they recorded some tracks which garnered radio play without setting the world on fire.

He claimed not to remember how he acquired the surname “Taylor”, though some say it was because King Records executives thought disc jockeys wouldn’t be able to pronounce “Voight”, but he was dubbed “Chip” because he had inherited some of his father’s golfing skills. He took a business studies course at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, while also pursuing his musical ambitions. These gained an important boost when Burt Bacharach took a liking to his song Here I Am and recommended it to Warner Bros. Taylor’s recording of it became a hit in Connecticut and on several other regional charts.

He now signed a deal with a New York music publisher, Aaron Schroeder, who had an office on Broadway near the songwriters’ mecca of the Brill Building. Throughout the 60s and 70s, he would become an in-demand professional songwriter, working in the country and rock genres, though his attempts to launch himself as a solo artist proved less successful. However, albums such as Last Chance (1973), Some of Us (1974) and This Side of the Big River (1975) earned some solid critical acclaim.

Having conquered what had become a damaging gambling addiction, he resumed his performing and recording career in 1993 (his later podcast Church of the Train Wreck was conceived as a self-help forum, partly with fellow addicts in mind). He enjoyed a fruitful partnership with the violinist and vocalist Carrie Rodriguez, with whom he recorded a series of albums including Let’s Leave This Town (2002) and The Trouble With Humans (2003) on Taylor’s own Train Wreck Records.

Subsequently he recorded a regular stream of solo albums, including Behind the Sky (2024), The Truth and Other Things (2025) and Words from Holy Gardens, released six weeks before his death. The last of these was inspired by his wife, Joan Carol Frey, who died in June 2025. They had married in 1964.

In 2016 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. For the occasion, he performed Wild Thing, accompanied by his granddaughters Kate, Samantha and Riley.

He is survived by his children, Kristian and Kelly, his granddaughters and his grandsons Jack and Ben.

• Chip Taylor (James Wesley Voight), musician, singer and songwriter, born 21 March 1940; died 23 March 2026