Denny Wright
Denny Wright |
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Denny (Denys Justin) Wright (6 May 1924 – 8 February 1992) was a jazz and skiffle guitarist, who performed with Stephane Grappelli, Lonnie Donegan, Johnny Duncan (bluegrass musician), Digby Fairweather and many other musicians. He was a session musician for many years and frequently acted as arranger and fixer for recording sessions. Denny was a prolific composer for jazz and orchestra. Denny led many bands in his career, ranging from small jazz ensembles through night club bands to full size orchestras. In addition to jazz and skiffle, Denny worked with Latin American and Jamaican bands.
Background and early life
Denny Wright was born in Deptford, London, England, and grew up in Brockley, with frequent forays to the Old Kent Road and the Elephant and Castle. Denny's first instrument was the piano. His older brother, Alex Wright, was a semi-professional guitarist before the war and it was inevitable that Denny, ten years younger, was soon trying to play his brother's guitar. He must have succeeded, because Denny began playing professionally before World War II, while still at school. For a schoolboy, he was pulling in a substantial income. Indeed, when one teacher took a dislike to him, Denny took his entire class to the cinema and the teacher arrived after lunch to find an empty classroom.
There were always two things that gave away Denny's self-taught guitar style: firstly, that he nearly always used his thumb on the top E string (totally incorrect, according to the 'experts') and that Denny could only play as fast as he could sing — very often on a Denny Wright solo, it is possible to hear him humming or singing along with himself!
Musical career
Denny spent the first part of the war playing in jazz clubs in the West End of London, doing almost non-stop session work and performing in bands on many hit wartime shows. He worked with Stephane Grappelli for the first time in London around 1941. Denny was unable to join up, being classified as medically unfit due to a childhood injury which resulted in his spleen and half of his liver being surgically removed. When he was old enough to join up, Denny joined ENSA, entertained the troops, and ended the war in 's-Hertogenbosch in The Netherlands.
After the war,in 1945, he set up London's first bebop club, the Fullado in Old Compton Street. In the late 1940s he toured Italy and the Middle East with the Francisco Cavez orchestra before ending up playing in King Farouk's palace. He returned to the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1950s Denny was hard at work providing some of the great guitar accompaniments for Lonnie Donegan, Johnny Duncan, Humphrey Lyttelton, Marie Bryant (one of Duke Elligton's great vocalists) and others, as well as featuring on the BBC's Guitar Club. He was part of Lonnie Donegan's group who first took skiffle to the Soviet Union in 1957, where his exploits included being mistaken for a champion weightlifter — also called Wright — and presented with medals at every station on the sleeper train to Moscow. Wright worked with Tex Ritter during his visit to the UK in the 1950s, where he had to ride around an arena whilst playing his guitar; on one fateful night, he discovered that the cinch on his saddle had not been properly tightened — he began to list and by the time he left the arena he was almost horizontal — but still on the horse and still playing!
Denny Wright's free-flowing improvisational style came to the forefront through his work with Lonnie Donegan in the 1950s. Denny was a pioneer in establishing a fresh lead guitar style in the context of the folk and blues roots from which Donegan drew his song repertoire. Drawing upon and transcending the jazz blues elements in his own background, and the vital influence of Django Reinhardt, Denny produced constantly innovative lead breaks and solos for Donegan's live work and recordings on both acoustic archtop and electric guitar.
From 1940 until the early 1980s, Denny Wright was a regular in the recording studios as one of Britain's best session musicians.
Together with Bill Bramwell and Donegan's younger lead guitar players, Les Bennetts and Jimmy Currie, he helped forge an approach to lead styling inspirational for the next generation of British lead guitarists working with blues-based material in a rock context. In the early 1970s, Denny once more accompanied Stephane Grappelli, beginning at the Cambridge Folk Festival where Stephane's career was relaunched. Denny performed concerts with numerous musicians including Dick Charlesworth and Steve Benbow. In 1978, he formed Velvet with Ike Isaacs, Len Skeat and Digby Fairweather. In 1981, Denny was voted BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year. After Velvet, Denny formed a band with Don Harper before reforming the Hot Club of London with Johnny van Derrick (violin), Gerry Higgins (double bass) and his protege Rob Seamon (guitar). Denny played with the Hot Club of London across the UK, as well as at the jazz festivals in Eindhoven and Cork. His last gig, at The Grapes in Shepherd Market, Mayfair in late 1991, was with Johnny van Derrick.
Denny occasionally taught young guitarists and guest lectured at the Royal College of Music on the life of a session musician.
Apart from jazz, Denny Wright's listening tastes ranged from Delius and Ravel to Kate Bush ('The Man With The Child In His Eyes' was one of his all time favourites.)
Denny married Barbara Nelson-Jones, lyricist and actress, in 1961 and they had a son. Denny died on 8 February 1992 in London after a nine year battle with bladder cancer, a direct result of his very heavy smoking. Denny's son and Johnny Van Derrick were with him when he died. His wife predeceased him on 16 February 1989 after an eight year battle with breast cancer.
Acknowledgements to Wright
Stephane Grappelli: "Denny Wright also is a marvellous player, he's got such a good technique. Of course he can't produce Django's melodic line because Django invented it, but he has his own style, and on top of that he's got the strength of Django Reinhardt. In my opinion he's the only player in the world who can compare to Django and, you know, when I'm playing with Denny Wright and if I let my spirit go, then maybe I find that for a few seconds I'm back again with Django Reinhardt." (Guitar Magazine, mid 1970s)
Paul McCartney: "I remember going to see Lonnie Donegan in 1956 at the Empire in Liverpool. It was wonderful. After we saw him and the skiffle groups, we just wanted guitars. Denny Wright, his guitar player, we really used to love — he was great." (Amazon.com interview)
Chris Spedding: "We used to buy the old Lonnie Donegan records, and we admired people like Denny Wright, the Donegan guitarist. Skiffle really woke me up, and I bought a guitar which I played in groups at school."
Digby Fairweather: "A soloist with a quicksilver mind, Wright reflected Django Reinhardt and George Barnes in his work, but his inspirations were all his own."
Discography
Singles (UK chart position in brackets)
- Lost John, (Trad. arr Donegan) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (2)
- Stewball, (Trad. arr Donegan) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (2)
- Bring a Little Water, Sylvie, (Trad. arr Ledbetter, Donegan, Campbell) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (7)
- Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O, (Varley, Whyton) Lonnie Donegan (1956) (4)
- Cumberland Gap, (Trad. arr Donegan) Lonnie Donegan (1957) (1)
- Last Train to San Fernando, Johnny Duncan (1957) (2)
Albums
- Showcase, Lonnie Donegan (1965)
- Lonnie Donegan Live, Lonnie Donegan (1957)
- Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival: The BBC Sessions,Stéphane Grappelli
- Live in London, Stéphane Grappelli
- Songs of Ireland, Steve Benbow
- Combo, Don Harper (1977)
- Tribute to the Hot Club, Cooper-Wright Quintet
- Mr Guitar, Denny Wright
- Jazz at the New Theatre
- Velvet
References
- Priestley, Brian (2007). The Rough Guide to Jazz. Rough Guides. ISBN 1843532565.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Brown, Tony (2000). The Complete Book of the British Charts. Omnibus Press. ISBN 0711976708.
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