Career

Born in Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

, Gary Myrick played guitar and sang in Dallas and neighboring Fort Worth starting as a teenager. Eventually, he built a significant enough reputation to be asked to join Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

 band Kracker Jack, replacing Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...

 who had left to begin his solo career.

After relocating to Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, he formed Gary Myrick & the Figures, releasing a self-titled album in 1980 which included the minor hit Living In A Movie, She Talks In Stereo and the EP Language, featuring the percussive single "Guitar, Talk, Love & Drums", followed in 1981 and 1983, respectively. His combination of blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 and new wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

 won him airplay on modern rock

Modern rock

Modern rock is a rock format commonly found on commercial radio; the format consists primarily of the alternative rock genre...

 radio stations in the United States and exposure on MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 throughout the 1980s. Two of his songs, "She Talks in Stereo" and "Time to Win", were used in the 1983 film Valley Girl

Valley Girl (film)

Valley Girl is a 1983 romantic comedy film, starring Nicolas Cage, Deborah Foreman, Elizabeth Daily, Cameron Dye, and Joyce Heiser. The film was the directorial debut of Martha Coolidge, and was the first film in which Nicolas Coppola was billed as Nicolas Cage.The American release of Valley Girl...

.

Myrick took a break from his solo work to write four songs and play guitar on John Waite's

John Waite

John Charles Waite is an English rock singer and musician. He was lead vocalist for The Babys and Bad English. As a solo artist, he scored several international hits, including 1984's "Missing You", a top ten hit on the US Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart, reaching #1 in the...

 No Brakes

No Brakes

No Brakes is a 1984 album by John Waite and was released in June 1984 the United States on the EMI America label. It features the number 1 hit single "Missing You." No Brakes was certified gold on September 4, 1984.-Track listing:...

album, which included Waite's biggest solo hit "Missing You

Missing You (John Waite song)

"Missing You" is the title of a song co-written and recorded by British musician John Waite. It was released in June 1984 as the lead single from the album No Brakes...

" and reached the top spot on the Billboard album chart in 1984. The following year came Myrick's LP Stand for Love with the single "When Angels Kiss" and a re-recording of "She Talks in Stereo." For the next few years, Myrick concentrated on work as a session and touring guitarist before joining his next group.

Paul Simonon

Paul Simonon

Paul Gustave Simonon is an English musician and artist best known as the bass guitarist for punk rock band The Clash. Recent work includes his involvement in the album The Good, the Bad & the Queen with Damon Albarn, Simon Tong and Tony Allen, released in January 2007...

 (former bassist of The Clash

The Clash

The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...

), Nigel Dixon (former lead singer of Whirlwind) and Myrick united to form Havana 3AM

Havana 3am

Havana 3am was the band of bassist Paul Simonon formed shortly after his previous band, The Clash, officially broke up in 1986.The band consisted of Simonon on bass, American musician Gary Myrick on guitar, Nigel Dixon from the British band Whirlwind on lead vocals, and Travis Williams, a drummer...

. The band released a self-titled album in 1991, melding rockabilly

Rockabilly

Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...

, Latin and punk

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 traditions. After Simonon left the band, Myrick began work on the next Havana 3AM album with Dixon. Dixon, however died of cancer in 1993. Myrick rebuilt Havana 3AM and completed the Texas Glitter and Tombstone Tales album in 1996.

Moving towards roots rock

Roots rock

Roots rock is a term now used to describe rock music that looks back to rock's origins in folk, blues and country music. It is particularly associated with the creation of hybrid sub-genres from the later 1960s including country rock and Southern rock, which have been seen as responses to the...

, Myrick switched to a stripped down, acoustic approach for his 2001 solo release, Waltz of the Scarecrow King. Reinvent the Gods, featuring a cover of The Rolling Stone's "As Tears Go By

As Tears Go By (song)

"As Tears Go By" is a song written by The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, guitarist Keith Richards, and their manager Andrew Loog Oldham, and was a popular hit for both British singer Marianne Faithfull in 1964 and The Rolling Stones in 1965.-History:...

," was self-released in 2004.

Myrick continues to play solo but also performs as a session and touring guitarist. He has worked with Big Audio Dynamite

Big Audio Dynamite

Big Audio Dynamite are a British musical group formed in 1984 by the ex-guitarist and singer of the Clash, Mick Jones. The group are noted for their effective mixture of varied musical styles, incorporating elements of punk rock, dance music, hip hop, reggae, and funk...

, Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone....

, The Eagles, Steve Jones

Steve Jones (musician)

Stephen Philip "Steve" Jones is an English rock guitarist, singer and actor, best known as guitarist and founding member of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols.-Childhood:...

 (former guitarist of the Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...

), Wilson Pickett

Wilson Pickett

Wilson Pickett was an American R&B/Soul singer and songwriter.A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, and frequently crossed over to the US Billboard Hot 100...

, Queen Ida, Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

, Todd Rundgren

Todd Rundgren

Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...

, Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson

Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...

, Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder

Stevland Hardaway Morris , better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist...

 and others. He has also done some work scoring films.

Gary Myrick and The Figures reunited in 2010 with their first concert in Hollywood, California at The Roxy on June 22 and then in Dallas, Texas at Trees on July 16. The band will be announcing more shows in the near future. They will be playing in Portland, OR on February 26, 2011 at The Aladdin Theater and February 27, 2011 at the Tractor Tavern is Seattle, WA.

Albums

• Gary Myrick & the Figures (1980) #203 US
• Living in a Movie (1982)
• Language (1983) #138 US
• Stand for Love (1985)
• Havana 3AM
  Havana 3am (album)
  Havana 3am is an eponymously named debut album by post-Clash Paul Simonon's band Havana 3am. The woman shown on the cover was bassist Paul Simonon's girlfriend at the time.-Track listing:All tracks composed by Nigel Dixon, Gary Myrick and Paul Simonon...
  
  (as member of Havana 3AM) (1991) #169 US
• Texas Glitter and Tombstone Tales (1996)
• Waltz of the Scarecrow King (2001)
• Reinvent the Gods (2004)

External links

• [ Gary Myrick at allmusic.com]
• Official website