Gary Wright Bio, Wiki, Death, Age, height, Education, Networth, Family and More

Career

1967–1970: With Spooky Tooth

He has described his initial musical influences as "early R&B" – namely, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Bobby Bland – along with rock 'n' roll artists Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Beatles. While in Europe in 1967, Wright abandoned his plans to become a doctor and instead toured locally with a band he had formed, the New York Times. When the latter supported the English group Traffic – at Oslo in Norway, according to Wright – he met Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. Wright recalled that he and Blackwell had a mutual friend in Jimmy Miller, the New York-born producer of Island acts such as the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic.

1970–1972: Solo career on A&M Records, Wonderwheel, and London session work

Extraction

After signing with A&M Records, Wright recorded Extraction (1970) in London with musicians including Kellie, guitarist Hugh McCracken, bassist Klaus Voormann and drummer Alan White. Wright co-produced the album with Andy Johns, who had been the recording engineer on Spooky Two and Ceremony. The album included "Get on the Right Road", which was issued as a single, and "The Wrong Time", co-written by Wright and McCracken.

George Harrison's All Things Must Pass

Through Voormann, Wright was invited to play piano on former Beatle George Harrison's 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass. Among what author Nicholas Schaffner later described as "a rock orchestra of almost symphonic proportions, whose credits read like a Who's Who of the music scene", Wright was one of the album's principal keyboard players, together with former Delaney & Bonnie organist Bobby Whitlock. During the sessions, Wright and Harrison established a long-lasting friendship, based on music and their shared interest in Indian religion. In a 2009 interview with vintagerock.com, Wright described Harrison as "my spiritual mentor";[8] author Robert Rodriguez writes of Wright's "unique" place among musicians with whom Harrison collaborated at this time, in that Wright wasn't an established star, a friend from the years before Harrison achieved fame as a Beatle, or a "studio pro".

Wright played on all of Harrison's subsequent solo albums during the 1970s, as well as on other releases that the ex-Beatle produced for Apple Records. These included two hit singles by Harrison's former bandmate Ringo Starr over 1971–72, "It Don't Come Easy" and "Back Off Boogaloo", and a 1971 comeback single by ex-Ronette Ronnie Spector, "Try Some, Buy Some".

Footprint

To promote Extraction, Wright formed the band Wonderwheel in April 1971, with a lineup comprising guitarist Jerry Donahue – soon replaced by Mick Jones – Archie Legget (bass) and Bryson Graham (drums). Donahue was among the many musicians on Wright's second album, Footprint (1971), along with George Harrison and All Things Must Pass contributors such as Voormann, White, Jim Gordon, Bobby Keys and John Barham. Produced by Wright, the album included "Stand for Our Rights", a call for social unity, song which was originally written for Johnny Hallyday under the name “Flagrant Délit” and was partly inspired by the Vietnam War, "Two Faced Man" and "Love to Survive". In November 1971, Wright and Wonderwheel performed "Two Faced Man" on The Dick Cavett Show in New York, with Harrison accompanying on slide guitar. Wright expressed gratitude for Harrison's support during this stage of his career, citing the ex-Beatle's uncredited production on Footprint and his arranging the Dick Cavett Show appearance. Despite this exposure, like Extraction, the album failed to chart.

Among other recordings over this period, Wright played piano on Harry Nilsson's 1972 hit "Without You" and accompanied B.B. King, Starr, Gordon, Voormann and others on B.B. King in London (1971), which included Wright's composition "Wet Hayshark".[50] He later participated in London sessions by Jerry Lee Lewis,[34] issued as the double album The Session (1973). He also produced an eponymous album by folk rock band Howl the Good, released on the Rare Earth label.

Ring of Changes

In 1972, he moved to Devon with Wonderwheel to work on songs for a new album, titled Ring of Changes. With Tom Duffey having replaced Leggett on bass, the band recorded the songs at Olympic and Apple studios in London. After issuing "I Know" as an advance single, A&M chose to cancel the album.[56][nb 3] Wright also wrote the soundtrack for a film by former Olympic skier Willy Bogner, Benjamin (1972), from which the German label Ariola Records released "Goodbye Sunday" as a single that year.[58] The full soundtrack album, recorded with Jones, Leggett and Graham, was issued by Ariola in 1974.

1972–1974: Re-forms Spooky Tooth

The only members from the original lineup, Wright and Mike Harrison relaunched Spooky Tooth with Jones and Graham from Wonderwheel, and Chris Stewart, formerly the bassist with English singer Terry Reid.[17] Salewicz visited the band while they were recording at Island Studios and remarked of Wright's role in the group, "it is clear who is the leader of this brand of Spooky Tooth, and, I suspect, of the original, too"; Salewicz described Wright as "urbane, loquacious with the remnants of a New Jersey accent, and a touch of Dudley Moore about the face".

1975–1981: Solo career on Warner Bros. Records

The Dream Weaver

After Spooky Tooth's break-up, Wright returned to New Jersey and began compiling songs for his third solo album. Under the guidance of new manager Dee Anthony, he chose to sign with Warner Bros. Records, mainly because the company had no keyboard virtuosos among its other acts. Wright says that it was while routining his songs with all his stage equipment set up – Hammond organ, Hohner Clavinet, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Minimoog and ARP String Ensemble – together with a drum machine, that he decided to record the album "all on keyboards", without guitars. He acknowledges that artists such as Stevie Wonder had similarly released keyboard-dominated music, but "[Wonder] used brass and he used other things as well". On Wright's debut album for Warner Bros., The Dream Weaver (1975), he, David Foster and Bobby Lyle played a variety of keyboard instruments, supported only by drummers Jim Keltner and Andy Newmark, apart from a guitar part on the track "Power of Love" by Ronnie Montrose. Jason Ankeny of AllMusic describes The Dream Weaver as "one of the first created solely via synthesizer technology".

The Light of Smiles

He started recording his follow-up to The Dream Weaver in summer 1976, before which Chris Charlesworth of Melody Maker reported that it would be "a logical development" of its predecessor and "again based entirely around what he can do with various types of keyboards". Titled The Light of Smiles (1977), the album included "I Am the Sky", for which Wright gave a songwriting credit to the late Indian guru and Kriya Yoga teacher, Paramahansa Yogananda. The latter's poem "The Light of Smiles", taken from his book Metaphysical Meditations, appeared on the inner sleeve to Wright's new album. Wright had acknowledged the guru as his inspiration for the title of The Dream Weaver, and he later said of Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi: "It's a fantastic book and you won't want to put it down when you start reading it. Even, not from a spiritual point of view, but as a piece of literature, it's a total classic".

Touch and Gone, Headin' Home and The Right Place

He continued to record albums for Warner Bros. until 1981, with only limited commercial success. Released in late 1977, Touch and Gone charted at number 117 in America, with its title track reaching number 73. Headin' Home, which AllMusic's Joe Viglione describes as "an album seemingly driven by a serious relationship in crisis", peaked at number 147 in 1979. In between these two albums, Wright played on "If You Believe", a song he had co-written with Harrison in England on New Year's Day 1978, which appeared on Harrison's eponymous 1979 album.

1982–2000: Film soundtracks and world music

Wright's subsequent releases focused on film soundtracks and forays into world music. After writing the score for Alan Rudolph's 1982 thriller Endangered Species, he supplied the soundtrack to another skiing-themed movie by Willy Bogner, Fire and Ice (1986), which hit number 1 on the German albums chart. Wright also contributed the song "Hold on to Your Vision" to the soundtrack of Cobra, a 1986 action movie starring Sylvester Stallone.

Who I Am, First Signs of Life and Human Love

In 1988, Wright released Who I Am on A&M-distributed Cypress Records. Among the album's contributors were Western musicians such as Harrison, White and Keltner, a group of South Indian percussionists,[105] and Indian classical violinists L. Subramaniam and L. Shankar. The previous year, Wright had contributed to Harrison's album Cloud Nine (1987), for which he co-wrote "That's What It Takes" with Harrison and Jeff Lynne, and played keyboards on songs such as "When We Was Fab". One of the tracks from Who I Am, "Blind Alley", was used in the 1988 horror film Spellbinder.

Later career

Having dedicated much of his time during the 1990s to his family, Wright subsequently resumed a more active musical career, starting with Spooky Tooth's 2004 reunion. Their album and DVD Nomad Poets Live in Germany (2007) features Wright, Mike Harrison and Kellie from the band's original lineup.[118] Wright's past work has continued to inspire rap and dance tracks in the 21st century; samples of "Heartbeat" appear in songs by Jay-Z and Diam's, while Topmodelz covered the song in 2007.[103] Other artists who have used samples from Wright's 1975–81 recordings include Dilated Peoples, Atmosphere, Infamous Mobb, T.I. and Armand Van Helden,[103] the last of whom incorporated part of "Comin' Apart" (from The Right Place) in his 2004 club hit "My My My". In addition, Eminem used "interpolations" from Spooky Tooth's "Self Seeking Man" in his song "Spend Some Time" (released on Encore in 2004).

Waiting to Catch the Light and Connected

Two solo releases by Wright followed in late 2008, including the new-age album Waiting to Catch the Light. A collection of instrumental pieces from "several years" before, he described it as "an atmospheric, ambient music kind of an album", performed on "vintage analog synthesizers ... all on analog tape". Also issued on Larkio, Wright's own record label, the EP The Light of a Million Suns consisted of unreleased tracks from his previous album projects, together with a new version of "Love Is Alive", sung by his son Dorian.

Albums

• 1970 Extraction (1970)
• 1971 Footprint (1971)
• 1975 The Dream Weaver (1975) US #7 - US: 2× Platinum[136]
• 1977 The Light of Smiles (1977) US #23
• 1977 Touch and Gone (1977) US #117
• 1979 Headin' Home (1979) US #147
• 1981 The Right Place (1981) US #79
• 1988 Who I Am (1988)
• 1995 First Signs of Life (1995)
• 1999 Human Love
• 2008 Waiting to Catch the Light
• 2010 Connected

Collaborations

• 1972 That Was Only Yesterday (with Spooky Tooth)
• 1972 Ring of Changes (with Wonderwheel)
• 2004 Down This Road (Gary Wright & Leah Weiss)

Soundtracks

• 1974 Benjamin – The Original Soundtrack of Willy Bogner's Motion Picture
• 1982 Endangered Species (soundtrack)
• 1986 Fire and Ice (soundtrack)

Compilations

• 1998 The Best of Gary Wright: The Dream Weaver
• 2003 The Essentials
• 2017 Greatest Hits

Extended play

The Light of a Million Suns (2008)

Songs

• Get on the Right Road
• Stand for Our Rights
• Two Faced Man
• Dream Weaver
• Love Is Alive
• Made to Love You
• Phantom Writer
• The Light of Smiles
• Are You Weepin
• Touch and Gone
• Starry Eyed
• Something Very Special
• I'm the One Who'll Be by Your Side
• Really Wanna Know You
• Heartbeat
• Close to You
• Take a Look
• It Ain't Right