Gary Malcolm Wright was born on April 26,1943 and is an American musician and composer best known for his 1976 hit songs "Dream Weaver" and "Love Is Alive", and for his role in helping establish the synthesizer as a leading instrument in rock and pop music.
36 Facts About Gary Wright
2.
Gary Wright turned to film soundtrack work in the early 1980s, including re-recording his most popular song, "Dream Weaver", for the 1992 comedy Wayne's World.
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Gary Wright was born and raised in Cresskill, New Jersey.
4.
Gary Wright appeared in TV and radio commercials before being offered a part in the 1954 Broadway production of the musical Fanny.
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Gary Wright played the role of Cesario, the son of Fanny, who was played by future Brady Bunch matriarch Florence Henderson.
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Gary Wright spent two years with the production, during which he performed with Henderson on The Ed Sullivan Show.
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Gary Wright recalls 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.
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Gary Wright composed or co-composed seven of the album's eight songs, including "That Was Only Yesterday" and "Better By You, Better Than Me".
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The third Spooky Tooth album was Ceremony, a Gary Wright-instigated collaboration with French electronic music pioneer Pierre Henry, released in December 1969.
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Gary Wright co-produced the album with Andy Johns, who had been the recording engineer on Spooky Two and Ceremony.
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Gary 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.
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Gary Wright later participated in London sessions by Jerry Lee Lewis, issued as the double album The Session.
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Gary Wright produced an eponymous album by folk rock band Howl the Good, released on the Rare Earth label.
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In 1972, Gary Wright moved to Devon with Wonderwheel to work on songs for a new album, titled Ring of Changes.
15.
Gary Wright wrote the soundtrack for a film by former Olympic skier Willy Bogner, Benjamin, from which the German label Ariola Records released "Goodbye Sunday" as a single that year.
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In September 1972, Gary Wright decided to disband Wonderwheel and re-form Spooky Tooth.
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Shortly before doing so, he participated in sessions for Harrison's Living in the Material World, an album that Gary Wright describes as "a beautiful masterpiece" and his favorite Harrison album.
18.
Gary Wright regrouped with Spooky Tooth for a final album, The Mirror, with Mike Patto as their new vocalist.
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Gary Wright acknowledges that artists such as Stevie Wonder had similarly released keyboard-dominated music, but "[Wonder] used brass and he used other things as well".
20.
The song, which Gary Wright had written on acoustic guitar after his visit to India with Harrison, went on to peak at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the Cash Box singles chart.
21.
Gary Wright then supported Frampton on a European tour, by which time a fourth keyboard player had been added to the band.
22.
Gary Wright 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".
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In between these two albums, Gary Wright played on "If You Believe", a song he co-wrote with Harrison in England on New Year's Day 1978, which appeared on Harrison's eponymous 1979 album.
24.
The single "Really Wanna Know You", which Gary Wright co-wrote with Scottish singer Ali Thomson, peaked at number 16 that year.
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Gary Wright contributed the song "Hold on to Your Vision" to the soundtrack of Cobra, a 1986 action movie starring Sylvester Stallone.
26.
Gary Wright himself re-recorded "Dream Weaver" for the 1992 comedy Wayne's World, the soundtrack album for which topped the US charts.
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Gary Wright later provided "We Can Fly" for another Bogner film, Ski to the Max, released in IMAX cinemas in October 2000.
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The previous year, Gary Wright had contributed to Harrison's album Cloud Nine, 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".
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Gary Wright later described the tour as "a lot of fun" and "a big boost" for his career.
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Two solo releases by Gary Wright followed in late 2008, including the new-age album Waiting to Catch the Light.
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In May 2009, Gary Wright rejoined Spooky Tooth to participate in a series of London concerts celebrating the 50th anniversary of Island Records' founding, before performing further shows with the band in Germany.
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Starr, Joe Walsh and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter made guest appearances on the track "Satisfied", which Gary Wright co-wrote with songwriter Bobby Hart.
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Gary Wright recorded the latter song on the day of Harrison's death in November 2001.
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Gary Wright contributed to Martin Scorsese's 2011 documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World and supplied personal reminisces and family photographs for Olivia Harrison's book of the same title.
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Gary Wright has a sister, Lorna Dune, who recorded the song Midnight Joey.
36.
Gary Wright has spoken out on the importance of creative opportunities for children in the public educational system, and expressed his opposition to the prevalence of free music downloading and its disadvantage to artists.