I got a request for this one and here it is.
Gary Wright was born April 26, 1943 in Creskill, New Jersey. Did you know that he was a child actor? At the age of 7 he was appearing on "Captain Video And His Video Rangers" based in New York City in addition to the TV and radio commercials. Soon Broadway came calling and he landed a role in the 1954 production of "Fanny", notable for Florence Henderson in the lead role. They both appeared on the Ed Sullivan show to promote the play.
Gary learned keyboards and then joined several rock bands while a student of the Tenafly Hight School and as Gary & Billy released "Working After School" in 1960.
He was not feeling confident about a future in music so he applied to become a doctor specializing in psychology while playing gigs at night. He eventually moved to Berlin to complete his studies. He gave up that career choice to become a professional musician in 1967 touring as a backing musician supporting Traffic and met Island Records founder Chris Blackwell who invited him to London to join the band Art composed of Mike Harrison and Mike Kellie.
They changed the name to Spooky Tooth and while they had a couple of albums chart in the US they were unable to get a commercial hit. By the time they released their third album the writing was already on the wall and Wright left Spooky Tooth in 1970.
Gary was chosen to play piano on George Harrison's 1970 opus "All Things Must Pass" that cemented his stature as a keyboardist and remained with Harrison. He reformed Spooky Tooth in 1972 composing a lion's share of the music and then broke up the band in 1974.
Signing with Warner Brothers as a solo act he began to work on his third solo album entitled "Dream Weaver" released in 1975. "Love Is Alive" was the first single issued and it tanked. The second single issued "Dream Weaver" caught the attention of US radio and the single quickly claimed th #2 spot on the chart for three weeks, thwarted by two #1 singles, The Four Seasons "December 1963 (Oh What A Night) and Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady".
Then "Love Is Alive" was re-promoted and it repeated the #2 charting but this time spent two weeks there, unable to knock two more #1 songs Bee Gees "You Should Be Dancing" and KC & The Sunshine Band's "(Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty from the top of the chart. The album sold double platinum,
Gary never reached those heights again, but in 1981 his "Really Wanna Know You" reached #16 and was his last charting hit. From 1982 on he concentrated on movie soundtracks and his newfound interest in world music.
"Love Is Alive" was recorded by Chaka Khan as "My Love Is Alive" for her "I Feel For You" album in 1984. Judas Priest covered Wright's "Better By You, Better Than Me". Then hip hop began to sample "Dream Weaver", "Love Is Alive" and "Can't Find The Judge" by artists like Tone Loc, Mya, 3rd Bass and Dream Warriors.
Wright re-recorded "Dream Weaver" for the 1992 film "Wayne's World" which famously resurrected the song played every time Tina Carriere's character appeared in the film.
In 2014, Gary released his autobiography, "Dream Weaver: Music, Meditation, and My Friendship with George Harrison" and Warner Brothers released all of Wright's solo albums for digital download.
3 окт 2024
