{"id":295,"date":"2010-08-06T05:01:46","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T10:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=295"},"modified":"2010-08-06T05:01:46","modified_gmt":"2010-08-06T10:01:46","slug":"the-gary-wright-interview-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/06\/the-gary-wright-interview-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gary Wright Interview, Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

BILL KOPP: Two of the bonus tracks on Connected <\/em>are George Harrison<\/strong>-related. \u201cTo Discover Yourself\u201d was co-written with George in 1971. Can you tell me a bit about the circumstances surrounding the writing of that song? <\/font><\/p>\n

GARY WRIGHT: I don\u2019t remember exactly which album\u2026it was definitely after All Things Must Pass<\/em> (1970). It wasn\u2019t when George was actually right in the middle of writing for an album. He just came up to my flat that I had in London at the time. I had been writing this song, and I played it for him. He took out his guitar and he helped me finish it off. And I never did anything with it; I always kept it in the back of my mind. But then when he passed I decided to finish it. The day he passed away, I actually went into the studio to put that song down.<\/p>\n

BK: The song\u2019s arrangement \u2013 lone piano \u2013 is a stark contrast with the rest of the album. Did you feel a need to be true to some original vision of the song, rather than somehow try and bring it sonically in line with the modern songs on Connected<\/em>?<\/font><\/p>\n

GW: It wasn\u2019t actually part of the album. It\u2019s meant to be an additional track which I had, one that the public wanted to hear. Because I had been getting emails asking \u201cwhen are you going to put that song out?\u201d So I decided now was the time to do it.<\/p>\n

BK: I saw one of the earliest All-Starr tours — with Todd Rundgren<\/strong><\/a> on guitar \u2013 and I get the impression that the whole affair is a sort of loose, back-slapping endeavor where everybody has fun. It doesn\u2019t come off as quite the grind that a plain old tour might be. Is that accurate?<\/font><\/p>\n

GW: I would definitely say there\u2019s a spirit of happiness, and everybody\u2019s having a good time. When we\u2019re onstage, though, I think the band is really serious. It\u2019s a great show. I kind of get the feeling it\u2019s not loose, not like some of the earlier All-Starr tours. In those, he had a lot more people; I think on the first one he had a lot of people onstage. I think this one works really, really well musically because the songs are strong. The chemistry \u2013 how the songs flow into one another — really works. I think this is the best show Ringo has ever had.<\/p>\n

BK: On the current All-Starr tour, how many spotlight tunes do you take? <\/font><\/p>\n

GW: I do two. Each member of the All-Starr Band does two, and Ringo does his stuff.<\/p>\n

BK: The All-Starr tour ends soon. What\u2019s up next for you after that?<\/font><\/p>\n

GW: I will be going out on tour, probably in October, to promote Connected<\/em>. I might be going out with another artist, or I might be doing some gigs on my own.<\/p>\n

BK: I was very impressed to see that while you\u2019re making Connected <\/em>available digitally, you\u2019re paying more attention than most to the issue of quality, of the integrity of the finished product. 320kbps MP3 and <\/em>FLAC — that\u2019s impressive. Do you think that the rise of digital culture has meant that people are (paradoxically) settling for diminished quality audio, with lo-bit MP3 files everywhere?<\/font><\/p>\n

GW: I agree with you. It\u2019s kind of the opposite of CDs were to records. As opposed to evolution, it\u2019s like devolution. You can put more \u201cinformation\u201d into less space on an MP3 file than on a WAV or AIFF file, but you lose quality. That\u2019s why I wanted to make the music available this way.<\/p>\n

I also have a cool thing coming out: it\u2019s a flash drive that\u2019s encased in a pendant with the om <\/em>symbol (\u0950) written on it. It\u2019s to be worn as a necklace, and if you take it off, pull it apart and take the flash drive out, it\u2019s got the whole album digitally, plus the bonus tracks we\u2019ve talked about, as well as a remake of my song \u201cLove is Alive,\u201d a duet with my son Dorian<\/strong>. It\u2019s also got videos of me taking about the making of Connected<\/em>, plus stories about George and Ringo, as well as a video I did with George where he\u2019s singing backing vocals. Some special photographs, and some other stuff. It\u2019s a special package.<\/p>\n

BK: This video with George singing backing: is that \u201cTwo Faced Man\u201d from the <\/em>Dick Cavett Show (1971)? <\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

GW: No, it\u2019s another track that I did [in 2005] called \u201cDon\u2019t Try to Own Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

BK: Tell me a little bit about your involvement in the upcoming George Harrison biographical film.<\/font><\/p>\n

GW: I got the call from Martin Scorsese<\/strong>\u2019s office, asking me if I wanted to participate. And I did. We had a very special relationship, insomuch that it was rooted in spirituality and Indian philosophy. And I think among his friends, I was the closest to him in that regard, in the spiritual sense. I think that\u2019s what interested Martin. He\u2019s making this bio-doc about George because he\u2019s interested in George\u2019s spiritual side. The film will be out sometime in 2011.<\/p>\n

BK: Because you so fully embraced synthesizers in the 70s \u2013 and did so in what I would argue is an \u201corganic\u201d and intelligent manner rather than a bloodless, robotic approach \u2013 I\u2019m guessing that you\u2019re perhaps more open than many of your musical generation to new technology. Social media, etc. How involved do you personally get in the fan-interaction media like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter?<\/font><\/p>\n

GW: I get pretty involved in it, and I have people working with me that are really good at that stuff. Because it\u2019s something you really have to do. You\u2019ve got to make your music available. Because we live in an age where \u2013 unfortunately \u2013 there\u2019s no more record stores except for Wal-mart and those kind of big chains. And they carry a limited amount of product. So you really have to reach out. And I do get involved: I write letters to my fans, and give updates.<\/p>\n

And as far as my website (www.thedreamweaver.com<\/a>), I try to make that as modern as possible. I was actually one of the first artists to have a web site; this was back in the days of Compuserve [laughs]. I saw then that this was something that was going to be important. And people are spending more and more time on their computers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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