Willie Wright (July 7, 1939 – June 29, 2020) – I’m So Happy Now (1977)

This superb upbeat jam was written by the unsung singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist for Telling The Truth, his self-released masterpiece LP.

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Willie Wright was an unsung singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who emerged from the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s and self-released two cult albums that blended soul and folk in the 70s.

Born in Quitman County, Mississippi, William C. Gathright’s family moved first to Arkansas when he was young, then St. Louis, and finally Harlem. As a teenager he sang with the doo-wop trio the Persuaders. He became close friends with two members of their backing band, George “Buzzy” Bragg and Harry Jensen (who in the seventies would go on to drum with the Skull Snaps, and play guitar with the Jimmy Castor Bunch, respectively). In 1963 they left the Persuaders and formed a new trio called Willie Wright and Combo.

Bragg left after three years, but Wright and Jensen kept performing as a duo in Greenwich Village clubs, playing songs that spanned folk, soul, rock, jazz, and beyond. After Jensen was drafted in 1967, Wright continued on as a solo act, splitting his weekends between gigs at clubs in New York and Boston.

Wright turned down offers from record companies who wanted to sign him. After moving to Boston in the fall of 1967, he tried to open a record store that was stopped in its tracks by a mysterious fire, then ran a 24-hour head shop called The Cellar that became a counterculture institution in the city.

He eventually set up his own label, Hotel Records. In 1971 he released his debut album Lack Of Education on Hotel, which was also known as Too Soon to Know, the title that appeared on its labels. It contained mostly covers, but also several originals like its title track and the beautiful “Too Soon To Know.” His old friend and bandmate Harry Jensen played lead guitar on the album, with Wright on rhythm guitar and vocals.

Three years later, Wright put out an ultra-rare single on Hotel. He wrote its A-side, the introspective heritage anthem “Africa” (1974) with an inspired cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “Right On For The Darkness” on the flip.

Beginning in 1976, Wright started performing for tourists on Nantucket Island, off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He decided to move there, and it was on the island that he wrote many of the songs which ended up on his next album Telling The Truth (1977). Wright recorded it at a budget studio in New York City called Variety Recording, located at 130 West 42nd Street. He was charged half the usual rate for the studio time in exchange for allowing a short promotional message that credited the studio to appear as the first track on the record, and completed the LP in one day.

It was again self-released on Hotel Records with only 1,000 copies pressed, and Wright sold them at his public performances. Highlights included the upbeat jam “I’m So Happy Now,” featuring his young daughter Sheila on backing vocals, and its closing cut, the heartfelt meditation on time’s passage “It’s Only Life, That’s All.” Wright wrote and arranged every song on the album, and played flute and guitar. Jensen and “Buzzy” Bragg appeared on lead guitar and drums.

Around the same time Telling The Truth was made, Wright recorded a very funky single that remained unreleased until 2017. According to the liner notes for its release on the Italian label Cannonball Records:

“Though there’s no certainty on the exact year, 1976 is the best guess as to when. The track was done at a proper recording studio, but Willie deliberately staged it to sound like it was recorded live in a club, including calling out hellos to waitresses and restaurant staff, who weren't actually there. The impetus for making this recording, and for writing and playing it during those days, was the fact that disco was literally wiping out all other forms of pop music, and even big acts were having to make concessions and put out disco-like concoctions to stay "current." Some of his fellow singers and musicians occasionally teased him saying he was too much of a "folkie" to do a decent modern dance tune.”

After “Right On For The Darkness” was included on Northern soul compilations in the nineties and early 2000s, Wright was re-discovered. In 2011, the Numero Group re-issued Telling The Truth on CD. Wright recorded one final album, This Is Not A Dream, which came out in 2012 on Green Coil Records and featured the superb jam “Don’t Change a Thing.”

Happy 85th Heavenly Birthday to the great Willie Wright.

Further info:

“Willie Wright: The Timeless Truth,” by Ari Leichtman & Ken Shipley, NumeroGroup.com, 2010.

“Willie Wright, American Soul Singer and Songwriter, Dead,” obituary, Pitchfork, June 30, 2020.

#soul #folk #funk #disco #WillieWright