Another perfect song from the summer of ’76.

July 1976 and the hits just keep on coming! Gary Wright’s perfect song Live is Alive is another perfect song from the summer of 76!  It still thrills me to hear it.  How can you not move when you hear it?  I have to get funky with my bad self EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!!!

That distinctive funky beat, its very, very 1970s groove- everything I love in a song.

Written and produced by Gary Wright, Love is Alive was the first single from his album The Dream Weaver.  Surprisingly on first release it went nowhere as a single. It was a complete flop. After the second single Dream Weaver became a major hit, the song was re-released and eventually spent twenty seven weeks on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, eventually peaking at number two on July 31st. It became a bigger hit than Dream Weaver.

Gary Wright was an interesting cat.  Born in New Jersey, he was a child actor on Broadway, studied he lived in Berlin and then London where he was the founding member of the mostly British blues rock group Spooky Tooth, who I have recently discovered, of which he was the principal songwriter.  He played keyboard on George Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass, performed with Mick Jones, BB King, Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr, touring with Ringo’s All Star Band. 

The music in this groovy song is all electronic except for the drums.  Wright played a minimoog model D for that iconic deeply funky  rhythm and bass line.  That just gets deep down into your solar plexus, your root chakra and ooh boy, it just feels so good. 

 Wherever I hear Love is Alive I think of these things from that long ago summer- sunshine, heat, the smell of chlorine from the Holiday Inn pool that we swam in all season, popsicles, time moving slowly, going to the county fair and the Farm Festival and the Bicentennial parade and everything was red, white and blue.  Good memories of what summer is supposed to be.  What a glorious time it was to be a ten year old.  My world was very good then.  If you grew up in the seventies, and want to time travel back to that exciting summer, listen to Gary Wright’s Love is Alive, THE perfect song.