07/13/2023
ON THIS DATE (48 YEARS AGO)
July 11, 1975 - Gary Wright: The Dream Weaver is released.
# ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4/5
# Allmusic 4/5 stars
# Rolling Stone (see original review below)
The Dream Weaver is a solo album by former Spooky Tooth keyboard player Gary Wright, released on July 11, 1975. It reached #7 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart, and has two hits that reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart - "Dream Weaver" and "Love is Alive".
After Spooky Tooth's final break-up in 1974, Wright returned to New Jersey and began compiling songs for his third solo album. Under the guidance of new manager Dee Anthony, he chose to sign with Warner Bros. Records, mainly because the company had no keyboard virtuosos among its other acts. Wright says that it was while routining his songs with all his stage equipment set up – Hammond organ, clavinet, Fender Rhodes piano, Mini Moog and ARP String Ensemble – together with a drum machine, that he decided to record the album "all on keyboards". It was said by Wright to be the first-ever all-synthesizer/keyboard album (though there were many all-synthesizer LPs before this, including Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos, in 1968) - it features Wright on vocals and keyboards and Jim Keltner and Andy Newmark on drums. The only track to feature any guitar was "Power Of Love" which featured fellow labelmate Ronnie Montrose on electric guitar.
The album enjoyed minimal success in America until the release of its second single, "Dream Weaver", in November, 1975. The song, which Wright had written on acoustic guitar after his visit to India with George Harrison, began the ascent landing it at #7 on the Billboard LP chart in 1976. Although this commercial success was not repeated in his native UK, The Dream Weaver was a big seller in West Germany, where, Wright says, Spooky Tooth had been "the number one band" during 1969.
Following the album's release, Wright toured extensively with a band comprising three keyboard players and a drummer. Subsidized by synthesizer manufacturers Moog and Oberheim, Wright became one of the first musicians to perform with a portable keyboard, in the style of Edgar Winter. Among his live performances in 1976, Wright shared the bill with Yes and Peter Frampton at the US Bicentennial concert held at JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, playing to a crowd estimated at 120,000.
"I mean … I'm an overnight success in ten years, right? I've been through periods of self-doubt, wondering whether or not I wanted to stay an artist ... but I guess, like in all things, it's timing. The right timing, the right songs and strong management at last."
– Wright commenting in 1976 on the unexpected success of The Dream Weaver
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ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW
The trouble with The Dream Weaver is that most of it sounds alike. For all the effects you can squeeze out of electric pianos, organs, clavinets and sythesizers, those devices still have one vital thing in common: a keyboard. As such, the same physical process is usually employed to produce a sound -- a process entirely different from that of, say, a reed or a fretted instrument. This is why you can almost always tell the machines fromthe actual instruments. Synthesizers only synthesize -- they don't duplicate, which means that sameness is an easy trap to slip into.
Gary Wright's choice of instruments on his second solo try does little justice to his solid songwriting. Working within basic rock frameworks and chord structures, he manages never to be hackneyed. Few arrangements, however, stand out though "Power of Love" does drive with the best of the hard rockers. Generally, this is a long, mechanized wash, with the moog bass line particularly monotonous.
~ Charley Walters (October 9, 1975)
TRACKS:
All songs written by Gary Wright (except as noted).
Side one
"Love Is Alive" (3:54)
"Let It Out" (Wright/Jamie Quinn) (3:25)
"Can't Find the Judge" (3:24)
"Made to Love You" (3:45)
"Power of Love" (3:32)
Side two
"Dream Weaver" (4:17)
"Blind Feeling" (4:45)
"Much Higher" (3:00)
"Feel for Me" (Gary and Tina Wright) (4:58)