RIP, Dream Weaver

Most sources are telling the life and death of Gary Wright (1943-2023) wrong, so I feel compelled to step in and attempt a better job of it.

The headlines are reading like Wright was a one hit wonder. He was more than that. Technically, he was a TWO hit wonder! But he was more than THAT as well, because he was a backing musician on important records by ex-Beatles and Beatle associates, and more than that again because (much like Monkees members Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones) prior to becoming a rock musician he had been a child actor with some notable credits. As a kid, I was a fan of Wright’s two big songs when they came out in 1976 and they’re both on my iphone (I don’t have a lot of music on my iphone) so I want to toot this musician’s horn.

As a child actor Wright appeared on the TV show Captain Video and His Video Rangers in 1950, was in lots of commercials, and performed in the 1954 Broadway show Fanny with Florence Henderson, with whom he subsequently appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Upon reaching majority Wright initially studied medicine and psychology in New York and Berlin before dropping out to pursue music. In 1968 he founded a band called Spooky Tooth which still has a cult following and which formed and reformed with an ever-shifting membership over the decades. His first solo album Extraction (1970) featured a legendary line-up, including Hugh McCracken, whose jaw-dropping list of credits included Paul McCartney’s Ram and an invitation to join Wings; Alan White of John Lennon’sPlastic Ono Band; and old Beatle cohort Klaus Voorman. Through these connections, Wright was hired to play keyboard on all of George Harrison’s records of the 1970s starting with All Things Must Pass, as well as Ringo Starr’s singles “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Back Off Boogaloo”. He also played piano on Nilsson’s Beatley “Without You” (1972), and records by B.B. King and Jerry Lee Lewis. He formed a backing band called Wonderwheel for his next solo LP, a name which sounds an awful like the title of his friend George Harrison’s first solo LP Wonderwall Music. And Harrison played on Wright’s second album Footprint, joining him on The Dick Cavett Show to support it. (It didn’t chart).

The Dream Weaver (1975) was Wright’s third solo record, and this is the one that briefly pushed him to the top of the charts with the two hit singles, both of which went all the way to number two: “Dream Weaver” and “Love is Alive”. On this record, Wright devised a distinctive sound, playing almost all of the instruments himself, and most of the instrumentation consisting of synthesizers and other keyboards. (Maybe not coincidentally, Harrison had played one of the first Moog synthesizers in existence on Abbey Road). “Dream Weaver”, the better remembered lead single is a meandering thing, with synthesized effects that remind me a little of Pink Floyd’s music of the time. I was only about ten when it came out, but I imagine that stoners really went for it. The verses are slow but the chorus is really catchy. The other one “Love is Alive” is propelled by a portentous clavinet riff — sounds almost like it would make a good soundtrack for a caper movies.

I’ve always loved that Wright is clearly wearing eye shadow on the cover to The Dream Weaver. It was still the glam era at that point, and the synthesized sounds on the record seem to speak to the space age themes that frequently inspired glam. I speculate this to be one of the elements that enabled Wright to click with public taste on this one record.

After this short blip at the top, Wright fell right back to where he had been before in terms of popular interest in his work, though he continued to record and release albums for decades. “Dream Weaver” got renewed attention in 1992 when a re-recorded and extended version was used in the movie Wayne’s World. Wright also toured for years with Ringo’s All-Stars.