Gary Wright

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Gary Wright (born 26 April 1943, Cresskill, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American musician, most famous for his song, "Dream Weaver" and the piano player on one of the biggest selling and most famous ballads of all time, Harry Nillson's version of "Without You" .

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[edit] Career

Wright, a personal friend of George Harrison, appeared in a TV show at the age of 7. He was born and raised in Cresskill, New Jersey, and attended Tenafly High School.[1]

Later he went to Europe to continue studying psychology. In 1967 he joined the band Spooky Tooth as singer and keyboardist. After Spooky Tooth's split in 1974, Wright continued his solo career, culminating in "Dream Weaver". The single peaked at No. 2 for three weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976 and went gold. It was also featured in the Wayne's World film and soundtrack, as well as in the 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt. Later in 1976, his follow-up single "Love Is Alive" also reached No. 2 (for two weeks).

Ronnie Montrose played guitar on the song "Power Of Love" from The Dreamweaver.

Although The Dreamweaver was a massive hit album and would go multiplatinum, his subsequent releases did not catch on, neither critically nor commercially. Radio play did not help, and with the lack of another hit single, his career quickly stalled. But Wright continued to make albums anyway throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. He has 10 albums, all still in print and available on CD. His first two albums, Extraction and Footprint, released before the big success of The Dreamweaver, are now available as an official double-disc import (digitally remastered).

Wright's last significant success on the pop chart was 1981, when he returned with "Really Wanna Know You" (co-written by Ali Thomson), a lavish, bass-heavy song that managed to hit No. 16.

His 1981 song "Comin' Apart", from the album The Right Place, was sampled by Armand Van Helden for the 2004 club song titled "My My My". The song was remixed in 2006 by Andreas S. Jensen of remixer/writer team The Funktuary , became the 2nd most played on BBC1 that year, and sold in excess of 180.000 copies. "Heartbeat", also from The Right Place, was re-recorded in 2007 as a dance track by Topmodelz.

[edit] Discography

Solo albums
  • Extraction (1971)
  • Footprint (1972)
  • The Dream Weaver (1975)
  • The Light of Smiles (1977)
  • Touch and Gone (1978)
  • Headin' Home (1979)
  • The Right Place (1981)
  • Who I Am (1988)
  • First Signs of Life (1995)
  • Best of Gary Wright / The Dream Weaver (1998)
  • Human Love (1999)

[edit] References

  1. ^ "MUSIC NOTES", The Star-Ledger, November 16, 2000, p. 71. "Wright returns. Singer-songwriter-keyboardist Gary Wright, who grew up in Cresskill and went to Tenafly High School, will perform in New York tonight for the first time in 20 years."

[edit] External links


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