Gary Usher (December 14, 1938 – May 25, 1990) was an American surf rock musician, songwriter, and record producer.
Biography
Usher's early life was in Grafton, Massachusetts. He attended Norcross grammar school with his sister Sandra, who was in the same class and was likely his twin. Gary was kiddingly called "Chicken Feed" by his male classmates. He graduated from high school in Westborough, Massachusetts in 1957. Though a musician in a number of California bands in the late 1950s, Usher gained notice in the early Sixties, writing and producing a number of hits for various surf rock artists. He was the earliest outside collaborator of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, a Hawthorne, California neighbor of his uncle, co-writing more than ten songs (among them "In My Room", "409", and "The Lonely Sea"). According to Beach Boys' biographer Steven Gaines, Wilson's domineering father Murry Wilson clashed with Usher and discouraged Usher's close personal friendship and working relationship with his son.
Usher also produced a lot of fictitious surf groups or hot rod groups mixing studio session musicians with his own troops (Chuck Girard , Dick Burns and others). Later in the decade, he produced with The Byrds, Dick Dale, and Sons of Adam, as well as being the force behind a number of "studio created" bands, including The Hondells, The Super Stocks, and Sagittarius. He also made varying attempts to record vocal sides for himself (including two co-produced by Brian Wilson: "That's Just the Way I Feel" b/w "Sacramento). He also discovered the seminal comedy group The Firesign Theatre, using them on several of his projects for Columbia Records and producing their first album.
After being fired by Columbia Records, he decided to form a record label called Together Records in 1969 with friends Curt Boettcher and Keith Olsen. After talking to Motown Records for some time, hoping to settle on a deal that never materialized, they made a deal with Mike Curb's Transcontinental. Though several albums were released through the label, the only modest but visible success of Preflyte by The Byrds help to pay for all their other projects, the label folded when their distributor backed out of the deal in early 1970. Though his career waned after the Sixties, he continued to produce and write songs. In the seventies he did produced the two first Wackers albums. He also produced a very strange concept album of a folk band called The Ship. Most of the songs were quite long and contained no drums. He co-produced with Curt Boettcher The California Album in 1976-1977 (not released at the time), and his own personal project, a book with a record called Beyond A Shadow Of Doubt only demoed at the time in 1972. Most of his time was taken by religious duties.
His most personal album was issued in 1984, under the name of Celestium. The synth-laden L.P. was called Sanctuary and featured Tom Kelly as singer, Mike Meros and Alan Pasqua on keyboards, and Brent Nelson on drums on two songs (most of the drums were digitally programmed). The engineer, Bill Fletcher, was also the bass player on a few cuts. He also worked with Brian Wilson again in 1986 but clashed with Wilson's controversial therapist Eugene Landy; most of this work has never been released.one of the last Songs co-written by Gary usher was "lets put the fun back in rockn roll" co-written with joseph nicoletti singer songwriter producer in 1985.it was recorded by the golden boys of rock (frankie avalon,fabian bobby rydell. it was performed for mr & mrs president regan at the ford theater 'command' performance december 6th 1988.abc-tv
Gary Usher was the father-in-law of noted Disney character animator Eric Goldberg.
Selected discography
Rare 45 records
Produced by Gary Usher
Gary Usher and the Usherettes
Production
- Go Little Honda (1964, The Hondells)
- Hondells (1964, The Hondells)
- Hit City '65 (1965, The Surfaris)
- In Action (1966, Keith Allison)
- Younger Than Yesterday (1967, The Byrds)
- Present Tense (1968, Sagittarius)
- The Ark (1968, Chad & Jeremy)
- The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968, The Byrds)
- Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him (1968, The Firesign Theatre)
- Sweetheart of the Rodeo (1968, The Byrds)
- Wackering heights (1972, The Wackers)
- Going Public (1977,Bruce Johnston)
- Sanctuary (1984, Celestium)
Songwriting
- "409" (1962, The Beach Boys)
- "Lonely Sea" (1962, The Beach Boys)
- "Ten Little Indians" (1962, The Beach Boys)
- "In My Room" (1963, The Beach Boys)
- "Beach Party" (1963, Frankie Avalon)
- "Mag Wheels" (1963, Dick Dale & the Del-Tones)
- "We'll Run Away" (1964, The Beach Boys)
- "The Blue Marble" (1969, Sagittarius)
- "Don't Give in to Him" (1969, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap)
- "(Friend)Ships" (1971, Gary Usher)
- "Sanctuary" (1983,Celestium and later Laura Branigan and the J-Pop artist Reimy)
- "Let's Go To Heaven In My Car" (1986, Brian Wilson) (Note - Gary also played lead guitar on the song) *"Lets put the fun backin rockn roll" 1985 Co-written with Joseph Nicoletti,Recorded by Frankie avalon,Bobby rydell/Fabian
External links
Gary Usher Co-wrote "let's put the fun back in rocknRoll" with Singer/Songwriter Joseph Nicoletti 1985
it was a hit recorded by The golden boys of rockn Roll" Frankie avalon,Fabian & Bobby rydell" this song was performed at the
Command performance of President Ronald regan at the ford theater december 6th 1988.. abc - tv
