Tribute to Gary Wright, featuring Sheldon Zoldan
Manage episode 423191631 series 3554502
"Dream Weaver," by singer-songwriter Gary Wright, was the first single from Wright's third studio album, "The Dream Weaver," in 1975. He said the song was inspired by a copy of "Autobiography of a Yogi" given to him by George Harrison.
Harrison also took Wright to India, and both the book and the trip made Wright a fan of Eastern philosophy and changed his life. You can see him perform the song in this video from 1976 on the Midnight Special channel on YouTube.
The song was a number two hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and Wright's follow-up, “Love Is Alive,” reached number two as well.
Wright also wrote "Dream Weaver: A Memoir." The subtitle of the book is "Music, Meditation, and My Friendship with George Harrison." And he wrote a book for kids titled "Dream Weaver: A Children's Picture Book," with illustrations by Rob Sayegh Jr. I found both on Amazon.
In the chapters, you'll see an image of the cover of Wright's children's book. Also in the chapters, you can go right to the tribute by skipping my intro; feel free to skip my closing remarks too. Both are there to provide context for those who haven't listened to the other tributes.
This tribute is one of 44 short biographies of music greats who died in 2023. They were written and recorded by writer/editor Sheldon Zoldan, who also is the creator of Song of the Day, a story sent daily to an email list of subscribers. To get on his subscriber list, email shzoldan@comcast.net with the subject line ADD ME TO SOTD.
Audio engineer/musician Mike Villegas edited all the audio for this series. Hope you enjoy these intriguing glimpses into the lives of the people who made some of the music we love.
This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to my show, available on YouTube and in most of the podcast directories including Apple, Spotify and Audible.
Chapters
1. Tribute to Gary Wright, featuring Sheldon Zoldan (00:00:00)
2. Tribute begins (00:00:36)
3. "Dream Weaver" (00:01:58)
60 episodes