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Visionary songwriter, performer and all-around musical pioneer Gary Wright has spent more than thirty years shattering conventional ideas about how to make chart-topping rock music. Not only have his classic songs “Dream Weaver", “Love is Alive” and “Really Wanna Know You” proven their genius by achieving hit status in three different decades; Wright’s musical wizardry has also extended, more than once, to changing the very sound and texture of contemporary pop.
Gary’s career started in 1955 when he was on Broadway in the hit musical “Fanny” directed by the legendary Josh Logan and Produced by David Merrick. Gary played the part of Cesario, Fanny’s son, and sang a duet with Florence Henderson (Be kind to your Parents) which he also performed with Florence on the Ed Sullivan Show. He had many offers to pursue an acting career but turned them down to return to his normal life playing sports preparing to attend college.
As far back as the late 70’s Wright was challenging audiences with pioneering instrumentation and cutting-edge keyboard technology. And he has been a longtime collaborator and creative influence to fellow artists ranging from his contemporaries George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Mick Jones (of Foreigner) and Joe Cocker -- to 90’s “rap” artists Third Base, Ton Loc, and Busta Rhymes as well as Eminem, Salt-N-Pepa, Joan Osborne, Anastacia and Mya.
It was in 1967, after earning a degree in psychology and then touring Germany as a singer/songwriter, that Wright met Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and moved to London, where he formed the rock group, “Spooky Tooth.” That year Island released the group’s first record, “It’s All About,” which immediately won critical acclaim and launched the group on a successful career that included sellout U.S. tours with rock legends Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones, and culminated in the band’s classic second album, “Spooky Two.”
In the early 1970’s Wright took a brief hiatus from Spooky Tooth to produce records for Traffic and Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller’s production company. He quickly became a part of London’s elite session musicians, playing keyboards on George Harrison’s classic “All Things Must Pass,” which also featured Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Phil Collins and other greats. Thus began a continuing musical relationship with Harrison that embraced playing keyboards as well as co-writing several songs on George’s subsequent albums.
Together with Harrison, Wright visited India in 1974 as a guest of Ravi Shankar. That visit developed into a long term relationship with Shankar as well as some of India’s other leading classical artists which ultimately blossomed in his award-winning 1988 album “Who I Am,” on Cypress Records, that used an all-star cast of musicians including a South Indian percussion section and performances by classical Indian masters Lakshmi Shankar and L. Subramanian.
After two critically praised albums on A&M Records, “Extraction” and “Footprint” and three more with a revived Spooky Tooth including Mick Jones (later of Foreigner), Gary signed a solo deal with Warner Bros. Records in 1974. His ground-breaking 1975 release “The Dream Weaver” stretched the pop music envelope by featuring the first-ever all keyboard/synthesizer band, and by pioneering technologies in cut down versions of synthesizers and drum machines that revolutionized the musical instrument business and changed the sound of pop, rock and r&b forever.
In 1976 the song “Dream Weaver” hit 1 in the charts, and its follow-up release “Love is Alive” climbed to 2. In all, “The Dream Weaver” resulted in sales of over 2 million albums and 2 million singles. In a business where even the biggest success is often written in the wind, the popular appeal of Wright’s songwriting genius has endured. In 1991 Warner Bros. Records asked Gary to remake “Dream Weaver” for the “Wayne’s World” movie soundtrack -- which went on to become Billboard’s 1 soundtrack album, selling over 2 million copies. “Dream Weaver’’ was also featured in the Golden Globe winner ‘’The people vs Larry Flynt.’’
The year 2001 brought 2 new versions of “Love is Alive”—one by Anastacia, whose International sales topped 3.5 million—the other by Joan Osborne whose version became the first single for the Michael Douglas/Matt Dylan film “One Night at McCool’s.” In addition, “Dream Weaver” and “Love is Alive” were featured in the films “Daddy Day Care” and “Coyote Ugly” respectively. Eminem recorded one of Gary’s songs and re-titled it “Spend some Time” on his “Encore” album, and DG Armand Van Helden sampled “Comin” Apart” from “The right place” album and renamed it “mymymy. ” The track became a huge hit in Europe and Asia selling over 4 million copies.
Gary Wright’s creative output has also extended to film scoring, with music for the Alan Rudolph thriller “Endangered Species,” the Sylvester Stallone-directed “Stayin’ Alive,” the Oscar-winning German film “Fire and Ice,” and the 2000 Imax release “Ski to the Max” —both directed by Willie Bogner. It has included Gary’s 1995 world music album, “First Signs of Life,” which incorporated music and percussion from Brazil and Nigeria, and featured guest appearances by George Harrison and Terry Bozzio. And it continues with his current solo effort “Human Love,” a studio album on which Gary is joined by guest artists Jeff Lynne , L. Shankar, Steve Farris. The year 2007 will usher in the release of a live Spooky Tooth DVD featuring 3 of the original members, Mike Harrison, Mike Kellie and Gary titled “Nomad Poets.” The DVD and CD will be released in May, 2007 in the US and Europe and slightly later in the rest of the world.
Info about Gary’s career, as well as streaming previews from the “Human Love” CD, are available via Wright’s existing website, www.thedreamweaver.com
I am so glad to find you still out and about and have been learning many things I did not know about your career. My friends called me "Dream Weaver" when I was younger.
