Denny Wright
Encyclopedia
Denny 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
, Ella Fitzgerald
, Billy Eckstine
, Fapy Lafertin
and many other musicians, including young rising stars such as Bireli Lagrene
and Nigel Kennedy
. 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, including Kenny Graham's Afro-Cubists. He greatly enjoyed contributing to some of the best swing bands and orchestras of the period, playing frequently with the Carl Barriteau
orchestra, with Decca Records' own house-band under Phil Green, and even the Glenn Miller
band on occasions. In 1980, Denny was voted the BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year.
Although he was best known as a guitarist, Denny's favourite instrument was actually the piano, no doubt partly inspired by his great friend George Shearing
.
, 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!
for the first time in London around 1941. Denny was unable to join up, being classified as medically unfit due to a childhood injury suffered in a road accident which resulted in his spleen and half of his liver being surgically removed. Whilst still at school, Denny served with the Auxiliary Fire Service in Brockley. When he was old enough to join up, Denny joined ENSA
, entertained the troops, apparently had a great time, and ended the war in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
.
After the war,in 1945, he set up London
's first bebop club, the Fullado in New Compton Street, where he played both piano and guitar. 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. Wright worked with Tex Ritter
, providing him with musical accompaniment at the 'Texas Western Spectacle' at the Haringey Arena in 1952; in addition to playing a Sheriff in one scene (which Denny loved, always having been a great fan of Westerns), he had to ride around an arena with Tex and the band 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 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, hurling a large glass ashtray at a regimental band of pipers who began rehearsing in the early morning, and knocking a Chinese acrobat out after he knocked Denny's amplifier off the stage.
From 1940 (Workers' Playtime, among others) until the early 1980s, Denny Wright was a regular in the recording studios as one of Britain's best session musicians. Denny loved the life of a session musician, and he relished the musical challenges that it brought, providing guitar on hits by Mary Hopkin, Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones, among others.
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.
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 1960s, in addition to a great deal of session work providing backing for many top artists including Mary Hopkin
and Tom Jones
, Denny was working with his friend Keith Cooper to keep the jazz flag flying; Tribute To The Hot Club by the Cooper-Wright Quintet [Rediffusion] is a wonderful example of their work together. In addition to jazz and session work, Denny was also a keen contributor on the folk scene, working extensively with the brilliant folk singer and guitarist Steve Benbow.Denny and Steve were to remain firm friends, working together to the delight of audiences to the end of Denny's career. During this period, Denny also began a long partnership with Rediffusion, providing many albums that are now collector's items.
In the early 1970s, Denny once more accompanied Stephane Grappelli
, beginning at the Cambridge Folk Festival
where Stephane's career was relaunched. Denny recorded and performed concerts with numerous leading British and international musicians during this time. 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. The 1970s saw Denny form a close friendship with Anton Kwiatkowski, one of the leading Producers/Engineers for EMI; throughout the decade, the worked together on many albums, mostly for EMI's Music for Pleasure label.
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.)
. They had been married over 27 years. Denny, who was devastated by his wife's death, died on 8 February 1992 in London
after a nine year battle with bladder cancer
, a direct result of his very heavy smoking. Johnny Van Derrick and Denny's son, who had given up his career to become Denny's carer, were with him when he died.
: "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."
Albums
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and skiffle
Skiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
guitarist, who performed with Stephane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
, Lonnie Donegan
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
, Johnny Duncan (bluegrass musician), Digby Fairweather
Digby Fairweather
Digby Fairweather is a British jazz cornettist and broadcaster.-Biography:Fairweather has been a professional jazz musician since 1 January 1977, but worked for seven years previously with several local jazz bands in the Essex area and recorded his first album in 1975...
, Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
, Billy Eckstine
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine was an American singer of ballads and a bandleader of the swing era. Eckstine's smooth baritone and distinctive vibrato broke down barriers throughout the 1940s, first as leader of the original bop big-band, then as the first romantic black male in popular...
, Fapy Lafertin
Fapy Lafertin
Fapy Lafertin is a jazz guitarist of Romani ethnicity, one of the foremost contemporary exponents of the Belgian-Dutch style of Gypsy jazz....
and many other musicians, including young rising stars such as Bireli Lagrene
Biréli Lagrène
Biréli Lagrène is a French guitarist and bassist. He came to prominence in the 1980s for his Django Reinhardt-influenced style on the classical guitar, as well as for being a jazz fusion virtuoso on the electric guitar...
and Nigel Kennedy
Nigel Kennedy
Nigel Kennedy is a British born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti...
. 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
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and skiffle
Skiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
, Denny worked with Latin American and Jamaican bands, including Kenny Graham's Afro-Cubists. He greatly enjoyed contributing to some of the best swing bands and orchestras of the period, playing frequently with the Carl Barriteau
Carl Barriteau
Carl Alrich Stanley Barriteau was a jazz clarinetist.Barriteau was raised in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He played tenor horn in Trinidad from 1926 to 1932, then played clarinet in a local police band from 1933 to 1936. At the same time, he also played in Port of Spain with the Jazz Hounds and the...
orchestra, with Decca Records' own house-band under Phil Green, and even the Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
band on occasions. In 1980, Denny was voted the BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year.
Although he was best known as a guitarist, Denny's favourite instrument was actually the piano, no doubt partly inspired by his great friend George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
.
Background and early life
Denny Wright was born in DeptfordDeptford
Deptford is a district of south London, England, located on the south bank of the River Thames. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne, and from the mid 16th century to the late 19th was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Navy Dockyards.Deptford and the docks are...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and grew up in Brockley
Brockley
Brockley is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross.It is covered by the London postcode districts SE4 and SE14.-History:...
, with frequent forays to the Old Kent Road
Old Kent Road
The Old Kent Road is a road in South East London, England and forms part of Watling Street, the Roman road which ran from Dover to Holyhead. The street is famous as the equal cheapest property on the London Monopoly board and as the only one in South London....
and the Elephant and Castle
Elephant and Castle
The Elephant and Castle is a major road intersection in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Southwark. It is also used as a name for the surrounding area....
. 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
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, 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 GrappelliStéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
for the first time in London around 1941. Denny was unable to join up, being classified as medically unfit due to a childhood injury suffered in a road accident which resulted in his spleen and half of his liver being surgically removed. Whilst still at school, Denny served with the Auxiliary Fire Service in Brockley. When he was old enough to join up, Denny joined ENSA
ENSA
ENSA may refer to:* ENSA, the Entertainments National Service Association* ENSA * École Nationale des Sciences Appliquées d'Oujda, an engineering school in Morocco* EC-Council Network Security Administrator...
, entertained the troops, apparently had a great time, and ended the war in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
After the war,in 1945, he set up London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's first bebop club, the Fullado in New Compton Street, where he played both piano and guitar. In the late 1940s he toured Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far 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
Lonnie Donegan
Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...
, Johnny Duncan
Johnny Duncan
Johnny Duncan was an American skiffle star. He was born in the Windrock coal mining camp overlooking the town of Oliver Springs, Tennessee, and became a British skiffle star in 1957 with the hit record "Last Train to San Fernando",-Brief biography:Johnny Duncan entered the United States Army and...
, Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...
, Marie Bryant (one of Duke Elligton's great vocalists) and others, as well as featuring on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Guitar Club. Wright worked with Tex Ritter
Tex Ritter
Woodward Maurice Ritter , better known as Tex Ritter, was an American country music singer and movie actor popular from the mid-1930s into the 1960s, and the patriarch of the Ritter family in acting...
, providing him with musical accompaniment at the 'Texas Western Spectacle' at the Haringey Arena in 1952; in addition to playing a Sheriff in one scene (which Denny loved, always having been a great fan of Westerns), he had to ride around an arena with Tex and the band 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 was part of Lonnie Donegan's group who first took skiffle to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
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, hurling a large glass ashtray at a regimental band of pipers who began rehearsing in the early morning, and knocking a Chinese acrobat out after he knocked Denny's amplifier off the stage.
From 1940 (Workers' Playtime, among others) until the early 1980s, Denny Wright was a regular in the recording studios as one of Britain's best session musicians. Denny loved the life of a session musician, and he relished the musical challenges that it brought, providing guitar on hits by Mary Hopkin, Dusty Springfield and Tom Jones, among others.
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
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
, Denny produced constantly innovative lead breaks and solos for Donegan's live work and recordings on both acoustic archtop and electric guitar.
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 1960s, in addition to a great deal of session work providing backing for many top artists including Mary Hopkin
Mary Hopkin
Mary Hopkin , credited on some recordings as Mary Visconti, is a Welsh folk singer best known for her 1968 UK number one single "Those Were The Days". She was one of the first musicians to sign to The Beatles' Apple label....
and Tom Jones
Tom Jones
Tom Jones is the name of:* Tom Jones , Welsh singer* Tom Jones , Australian politician representing Collie-Wellington district...
, Denny was working with his friend Keith Cooper to keep the jazz flag flying; Tribute To The Hot Club by the Cooper-Wright Quintet [Rediffusion] is a wonderful example of their work together. In addition to jazz and session work, Denny was also a keen contributor on the folk scene, working extensively with the brilliant folk singer and guitarist Steve Benbow.Denny and Steve were to remain firm friends, working together to the delight of audiences to the end of Denny's career. During this period, Denny also began a long partnership with Rediffusion, providing many albums that are now collector's items.
In the early 1970s, Denny once more accompanied Stephane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
, beginning at the Cambridge Folk Festival
Cambridge Folk Festival
The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival held on the site of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is renowned for its eclectic mix of music and a wide definition of what might be considered folk. It occurs...
where Stephane's career was relaunched. Denny recorded and performed concerts with numerous leading British and international musicians during this time. In 1978, he formed Velvet with Ike Isaacs
Ike Isaacs
Ike Isaacs may refer to:* Ike Isaacs , Burmese-British jazz guitarist* Ike Isaacs , American jazz bassist...
, Len Skeat
Len Skeat
Len Skeat is an English jazz double-bassist born in east London, perhaps best-known for his work with the Ted Heath band and younger brother of Bill Skeat ....
and Digby Fairweather
Digby Fairweather
Digby Fairweather is a British jazz cornettist and broadcaster.-Biography:Fairweather has been a professional jazz musician since 1 January 1977, but worked for seven years previously with several local jazz bands in the Essex area and recorded his first album in 1975...
. In 1981, Denny was voted BBC Jazz Society Musician of the Year. After Velvet, Denny formed a band with Don Harper
Don Harper
Don Harper was an Australian composer.Born in Melbourne in 1921, Don Harper showed an interest in music from an early age, learning to play the violin as a child...
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
Shepherd Market
Shepherd Market is a small square in the Mayfair area of central London, England. It is located between Piccadilly and Curzon Street and has a village-like atmosphere.- History :...
, Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
in late 1991, was with Johnny van Derrick. The 1970s saw Denny form a close friendship with Anton Kwiatkowski, one of the leading Producers/Engineers for EMI; throughout the decade, the worked together on many albums, mostly for EMI's Music for Pleasure label.
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
Delius
Delius is a surname. It may refer to:* Ernst von Delius - German racing car driver* Frederick Delius - English composer* Nicolaus Delius - German philologist* Tobias Delius Delius is a surname. It may refer to:* Ernst von Delius (1912–1937) - German racing car driver* Frederick Delius...
and Ravel to Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
('The Man With The Child In His Eyes
The Man with the Child in His Eyes
"The Man with the Child in His Eyes" is a song by Kate Bush. It is the fifth track on her debut album The Kick Inside and was released as her second single in 1978.-Overview:...
' was one of his all time favourites.)
Personal life
Denny married Barbara Nelson-Jones, lyricist and actress, in 1961 and their son, St.John, was born on 1 March 1963 while Denny was on stage with Lonnie Donegan in Leeds. Barbara died on 16 February 1989 after an eight year battle with breast cancerBreast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer originating from breast tissue, most commonly from the inner lining of milk ducts or the lobules that supply the ducts with milk. Cancers originating from ducts are known as ductal carcinomas; those originating from lobules are known as lobular carcinomas...
. They had been married over 27 years. Denny, who was devastated by his wife's death, died on 8 February 1992 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
after a nine year battle with bladder cancer
Bladder cancer
Bladder cancer is any of several types of malignant growths of the urinary bladder. It is a disease in which abnormal cells multiply without control in the bladder. The bladder is a hollow, muscular organ that stores urine; it is located in the pelvis...
, a direct result of his very heavy smoking. Johnny Van Derrick and Denny's son, who had given up his career to become Denny's carer, were with him when he died.
Acknowledgements to Wright
Stephane GrappelliStéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
: "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
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
: "I remember going to see Lonnie Donegan in 1956 at the Empire in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. 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
Chris Spedding
Chris Spedding is an English rock and roll and jazz guitarist, best known for his session work. Allmusic states - "Spedding is one of the UK's most versatile session guitarists, and has had a long career on two continents that saw him tackle nearly every style of rock and roll, as well as...
: "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
Digby Fairweather
Digby Fairweather is a British jazz cornettist and broadcaster.-Biography:Fairweather has been a professional jazz musician since 1 January 1977, but worked for seven years previously with several local jazz bands in the Essex area and recorded his first album in 1975...
: "A soloist with a quicksilver mind, Wright reflected Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
and George Barnes
George Barnes (musician)
George Barnes was a world-renowned swing jazz guitarist, who claimed he played the first electric guitar in 1931, preceding Charlie Christian by six years. George Barnes made the first recording of an electric guitar in 1938 in sessions with Big Bill Broonzy.-Biography:George Barnes was born in...
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 GapCumberland GapCumberland Gap is a pass through the Cumberland Mountains region of the Appalachian Mountains, also known as the Cumberland Water Gap, at the juncture of the U.S. states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia...
, (Trad. arr Donegan) Lonnie Donegan (1957) (1) - Last Train to San FernandoSan Fernando, Trinidad and TobagoThe City of San Fernando with a population of 55,419 according to the 2000 census, is the larger of Trinidad and Tobago's two cities and the second largest municipality after Chaguanas. It occupies 18 km² and is located in the southwestern part of the island of Trinidad...
, 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
- Non Stop Pepsi Party, Denny Wright and the Hustlers (1974)
- Combo, Don Harper (1977)
- Tribute to the Hot Club, Cooper-Wright Quintet
- Mr Guitar, Denny Wright
- Jazz at the New Theatre
- Velvet