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Wright tours with Ringo
By JOHN BENSON
The Beatles may have broken up nearly four decades ago, but Fab Four drummer Ringo Starr gets busy every few years by touring the nation with his band of friends and playing one hit after another.
This year is no different, with Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band lineup – featuring Starr, Wally Palmar (The Romantics), Rick Derringer, Edgar Winter, Richard Page (Mr. Mister) and Gregg Bissonette – coming to Cleveland on Tuesday for a show at the Nautica Pavilion. Also in the outfit is keyboardist Gary Wright, who is known for his monster ’70s hit “Dream Weaver.” This year may mark the second time the former Spooky Tooth member has toured with Starr, but their history goes back much further.
“First of all, Ringo is an old friend of mine,” said Wright, calling from West Palm Beach, Fla. “I’ve known him since the early ’70s when we played together on George Harrison’s first solo album, ‘All Things Must Pass.’ I also played on Ringo’s first two singles, ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ and ‘Back Off Boogaloo.’ So we had seen each other throughout the years but kind of lost touch in the ’80s and ’90s. Then I got the call in 2008 that he wanted me to be in the band. I was thrilled.”
As for Wright’s career, he’s no one-hit wonder. Actually, he’s more of a two-hit wonder with “Dream Weaver” and its follow-up “Love is Alive.” In fact, the former went to No. 1 and the latter No. 2 on the rock charts. At the time his success allowed him to tour as an opener for the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton and Yes.
Though he never did return to the top of the charts, his two hits have kept his career, well, alive for decades.
“When you write a song that’s as big as ‘Dream Weaver’ is, it kind of takes care of you the rest of your life,” Wright said. “I feel extremely blessed that I was able to write something that became a classic. And it also has reinvented itself. ‘Dream Weaver’ was in ‘Wayne’s World’ and now it’s in ‘Toy Story 3.’ It was on ‘Glee’ a couple of weeks ago. It just keeps coming back all of the time. People just identify with it.”
So did Wright know he had a huge hit on his hands at the time he recorded “Dream Weaver”?
“I had no idea,” Wright quipped. “It was the very last song that was recorded on the album. I never thought it would be a single, so I added all of these electronic sounds to set the mood because of the lyrical content of the song. And lo and behold, radio played the heck out of it. It just kind of worked.”
When looking at the current set list for Ringo and his All Starr Band, you can’t help but think it has the feeling of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction-ceremony jam session. Fans attending the upcoming Cleveland show can expect to hear everything from Wright’s hits, “Frankenstein” by Edgar Winter and “Rock N Roll Hoochie Koo” by Rick Derringer to “Broken Wings” by Page and “What I Like About You” by Palmar. Then there’s Starr’s Beatles tunes such as “Yellow Submarine” and “With A Little Help From My Friends,” as well as solo tune “It Don’t Come Easy.”
“There are really no surprises in so much it’s just really two hours of big hits,” Wright said. “It’s really a good show, it really flows effortlessly from song to song, and it’s quite a rock ’n’ roll kind of band. The songs are really powerful. Since we started the tour a couple of weeks ago, it’s been sold out everywhere. People have been on their feet and just loving it.”