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Dale Wright (singer)

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Dale Wright (born Harlan Dale Riffe, February 4, 1938 – April 15, 2007)[1] was an early American rock & roll singer.

Wright was born in Middletown, Ohio. He started his career as a disc jockey in Dayton, Ohio who signed to Fraternity Records after playing a song he'd written on the air.[2] He recorded a sizable body of work for Fraternity in the late 1950s, some of it with backing band The Rock-Its, and hit the Billboard Hot 100 twice in 1958 with the singles "She's Neat" (#38) and "Don't Do it" (#77).[3] By the early 1960s he had been dropped from Fraternity but continued recording for smaller labels well into the decade.

After his success as a singer waned, Wright returned to radio, hosting a talk show on WNVL in Nicholasville, Kentucky for 20 years before becoming program director at sister station WCKU.[4] He died in Lexington, Kentucky on April 15, 2007.[5]

References

  1. ^ Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. 7th edn, 2000
  2. ^ Richie Unterberger, Biography. Allmusic.
  3. ^ Billboard Singles, Allmusic.com
  4. ^ Tom Carter (August 28, 1988). "Soul, Rap to be focus of new area FM station". lkyradio.com. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  5. ^ "Person Details for Harlan D Riffe, "United States Social Security Death Index" — FamilySearch.org". familysearch.org.