Willie Wright
Telling the Truth

Well, I happened to hear this record by chance, and now I'll tell you.

There's this strange American label called The Numero Group, originally conceived as a label for compilations and reissues of somewhat obscure and forgotten music that hadn't been successful. A label that eventually, in reality, also reissued music by several major names including Husker Du, Blondie, Syl Johnson, etc.

The fact is that someone brings back from oblivion, where it had been floating for over thirty years, this 1977 album by Willie Wright, an album that at the time saw no sales and leaves one astonished. An acoustic soul album that somewhat recalls Bill Withers for the voice, somewhat Terry Callier, but very unique, with a personal timbre and a certain mix of genres and sounds that leaves you bewildered.

After some research, one traces back the sparse story of the author, who begins in the tumultuous '60s as a singer in a doo-wop trio in New York where he writes his pieces then performing solo in the venues and clubs of Greenwich Village.

He is noticed but is said to refuse to sign with a major label to maintain his creative freedom. However, he can't move forward on his own and has to make ends meet singing here and there in bars, venues, and even on the street. In short, to cut a long story short, at some point he moves to Boston and founds his own label with which he publishes a single and then an album but with no success.

Disillusioned, after a few years he moves to the island of Nantucket, a tourist spot off Newport or somewhere thereabouts, and works playing covers for the members of a private yacht club but also manages to write new pieces, which will make up "Telling The Truth" and which he will record in one day, due to cost issues, in a New York studio. Not a shadow of sales.

He continues to perform for about fifteen years and in the early '90s moves again. He goes to Providence, Rhode Island, and here he keeps active until 2002 when he retires.

In 2011, Numero Group performs a miracle and reissues "Telling The Truth" first on CD then on vinyl and suddenly he's rediscovered. He even manages to record an album in 2012 but illness overtakes him and he dies in 2020.

To return to the album, I won't bore you with a track by track, but I want you to understand that the charm of this album lies precisely in those aspects that today are somewhat anachronistic: the calypso flavor of "Nantucket Island," the funky guitar of "I'm So Happy Now," the dreamy atmosphere of "Lady of the Year" and "In The Beauty Of The Night," and the jazz flute that he plays himself and that accompanies the whole record like a fil rouge. And in each of the tracks, you can find something different but only stemming from his era and only that.

Incidentally, Numero Group has skillfully reissued with a lot of care. Both the CD and vinyl editions include a bonus single containing Wright's only 45, a cover of Curtis Mayfield's "Right On For The Darkness," its original B-side "Africa," and an earlier original track from Wright's first album titled "Lack of Education." Moreover, these extra contents are not added to the end of the album like usual bonus tracks, but are included, in the vinyl, as an extra 7" replica or, for the CD, as an actual functional 5" single.

I apologize for going on (but not too much), but Willie Wright's story is one of those that gives emotions, a true story full of ups and downs just like an artist's life almost always is.

I am convinced it deserves a listen and even if someone else could surely have expressed better than me in bringing you into the strange world of Willie, you'll have to settle, for now. Ajò.