Charles Wright and the Wright Sounds Charles Wright was born on April 6, 1940, in
Clarksdale, Mississippi. He moved to
Los Angeles in the early 1950s, playing
guitar and singing in several
doo-wop groups including the Turks, the Twilighters, the Shields and the Gallahads. He also briefly worked in
A&R for
Del-Fi Records and was responsible for the 1961 hit record "
Those Oldies but Goodies (Remind Me of You)" by
Little Caesar & the Romans. In 1962, he formed his own band, Charles Wright & the Wright Sounds, which included future Watts Band member John Rayford, along with
Daryl Dragon, later known as the "Captain" of
Captain & Tennille. Over the course of the next six years, Wright added more musicians to his group and these were the players who would eventually become known as the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, at least by 1968. Several of those members, including drummer
James Gadson, bassist
Melvin Dunlap, trombonist/arranger Ray Jackson, and both guitarists Al McKay and Benorce Blackmon, played on several
Dyke and the Blazers charting singles, including "We Got More Soul" (1969) and "Let a Woman Be a Woman, Let a Man Be a Man" (1969). The Wright Sounds played in several venues across Los Angeles, but their best known stint was three years (ending in 1968) at
Hollywood's Haunted House nightclub. Originally located at Hollywood and Vine, the Haunted House was a popular club in the 1960s and appears in several popular culture artifacts, most notably the 1969
go-go dancing B-movie,
Girl in Gold Boots.
First Watts 103rd Band The name, Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band was originally coined by Los Angeles record producer, and Keymen Records owner, Fred Smith in 1967. However, between 1967 and 1968, the Watts 103rd name applied to three, arguably four different personnel configurations, before settling into the final band, who played on every Watts 103rd album from 1968 onwards. Smith produced a theme song for
KGFJ radio personality, DJ
Magnificent Montague. The song became so popular that Smith released it as a single in 1967 and created the name Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band for the studio group who had recorded it. Purportedly, the players on the single included Wright, James Carmichael,
Leon Haywood, and
Bobby Womack. There is some confusion because, after "Spreadin' Honey" became a success, Montague re-released the single on the MoSoul label (a Keyman subsidiary), and credited to a different group altogether, the Soul Runners. It has been long assumed that the Soul Runners were simply an earlier line-up of the Watts Band however, according to Wright, the two groups had nothing to do with one another whatsoever.
Second Watts 103rd Band In 1966, Carmichael and Wright were both working as session players for the Nashville West
recording studio. Their group of studio players was discovered by Fred Smith and comedian
Bill Cosby who needed a backing band for his upcoming album,
Silver Throat. Smith hired the Nashville West players and gave them the Watts 103rd name. This group included (but was not necessarily limited to): Arthur Wright (bass), Pete Fox (guitar),
Streamline Ewing (trombone), Herman Riley (tenor sax), Jackie Kelso (tenor sax), Melvin Jernigan (tenor sax),
Mel Brown (guitar), and Abraham Mills (drums). reflecting the group's musical blend of different regional R&B and funk styles. Their experiments in long, loosely structured
grooves, best heard on the
Express Yourself and ''You're So Beautiful'' albums, could be heard as both influences on and influenced by contemporaries such as
Sly and the Family Stone,
the Isley Brothers and
Parliament-Funkadelic.
Dissolution As early as 1969, the Watts Band began to lose members. Al McKay left the Watts Band in 1969, and joined
Earth, Wind & Fire. He was replaced by Benorce Blackmon. After recording the 1971, ''You're So Beautiful
album, Gadson, Dunlap, Jackson, and Blackmon left the Watts Band to work with Bill Withers, playing on his albums Still Bill (1972) and Live at Carnegie Hall'' (1973). Charles Wright went on to record four solo records after the departure of the Watts Band's core rhythm section,
Rhythm and Poetry (1972), ''Doin' What Comes Naturally
(1973), Ninety Day Cycle People
(1974), and Lil' Encouragement
(1975). In 2007, he released a new album, Finally Got It Wright,'' which includes an updated version of "Express Yourself." "Express Yourself" was sampled by Los Angeles rap group
N.W.A in 1988, and has been used for many soundtracks of movies, including
Remember the Titans,
Cheaper by the Dozen 2, and
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, plus numerous television commercials. "Do Your Thing" was featured on the soundtrack to
Boogie Nights. "65 Bars and a Taste of Soul" serves as the theme music for the
Chuck character Roan Montgomery. ==Band members==