Ed Wright, a trailblazing leisure trade government whose multi-faceted profession encompassed radio programming, music promotion, artist administration and personal consulting for movie and TV, died of pure causes in Cincinnati on Monday (Sept. 11). Wright, who additionally performed a pivotal position in initiating June as Black Music Month, was 82 years outdated.
Calling Wright a “mentor, good friend, colleague and shopper,” Grammy-winning producer Don Mizell tells Billboard, “Ed was a easy, congenial visionary and efficacious navigator on the slicing fringe of the momentous advances first instigated by the Black music trade in the course of the ‘70s. His heat and gracious character, diplomatic model and flexibility served the emergent wants of Black music’s development at an important time.” Mizell additionally famous that Wright engineered his being employed as the primary Black government at Elektra Information when he was appointed GM of the label’s jazz fusion/city division earlier than later ascending to its VP.
Wright was simply 13 years outdated when he turned a part-time announcer at WCIN in Cincinnati, the place he was born in 1940. After going full-time on the station in 1958, he later turned its information director and manufacturing supervisor. Wright additionally majored in communications at College of Cincinnati’s Faculty-Conservatory of Music.
Between 1962-66, Wright served as program director of Cleveland radio station WABQ, the place he helped foster immediately’s trendy city radio format. Additionally throughout that interval, he turned the youngest president of the Nationwide Affiliation of Tv and Radio Announcers (NATRA), a company representing Black broadcasters. Within the latter half of the last decade, Wright segued into the music trade as the pinnacle of Liberty Information’ Minit division, whose roster included the O’Jays and Bobby Womack. Along with managing artist improvement, manufacturing, promotion and gross sales in coordination with the Liberty department distribution system, Wright supervised advertising and marketing for the Blue Word jazz label.
Wright hung up his personal shingle as president of the Edward Windsor Wright Company (EWW), specializing in promotion and public relations, from 1969-1976. Along with Blue Word, the corporate’s purchasers included main and impartial labels comparable to CBS Information, A&M, Warner Bros., Capitol, MCA, Stax, United Artists and Philadelphia Worldwide in addition to ABC Circle Movies (Barry Diller) and New World Footage (Roger Corman). At one time, EWW’s administration division boasted a roster starting from Womack, the O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass and Herbie Hancock to Natalie Cole, Billy Paul and Earth, Wind & Fireplace.
Kenneth Gamble of legendary manufacturing duo Gamble & Huff, and co-founder of Philadelphia Worldwide, first met Wright at a NATRA conference. The pair would later co-found the Black Music Affiliation, out of which arose the declaration of June as Black Music Month.
“Ed was a ahead thinker,” Gamble tells Billboard. “There was lack of know-how and comprehension in regards to the economics of our trade. Ed, together with Clarence Avant, Jules Malamud, Glenda Gracia, Dyana Williams and artists like Earth, Wind & Fireplace and Stevie Surprise amongst others, helped advance our tradition. Ed was one of many main leaders who created financial alternatives for Black professionals in addition to the institution of Black Music Month, now in its forty fourth 12 months.”
Wright’s profession resumé consists of his institution of GEI Communications, specializing in market analysis, session and public relations, and the artist administration agency World Leisure, which launched in 1977. He was additionally co-owner/president of the Lengthy Seashore, Calif., FM station KNAC within the ‘80s and later managed artist Chico DeBarge and the reconstructed group DeBarge that includes Bobby DeBarge.
Former Mercury Information president Ed Eckstein was 19 years outdated in 1973 and “a green-behind-the-ears music journalist” for Soul journal when his assigned beat put him in touch with Wright’s agency, EWW.
“Ed and his trusty lieutenant Bob Brock have been head and shoulders above all PR companies specializing in representing up to date R&B artists,” remembers Eckstein in an e mail to Billboard. “I mirror fondly on that interval after I would get a name querying my curiosity in speaking with a younger, pre-Teddy Theodore Pendergrass Jr. of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes or in spending a day with the O’Jays’ Eddie Levert. And in spending the higher a part of a night within the studio whereas Epic Information artist Minnie Riperton was ending her career-defining Good Angel album with Stevie Surprise. Ed was a businessman of dignity, class and professionalism who ran a first-class operation and whose mentorship and tutelage fueled my profession from its nascent phases by the following a long time. Relaxation properly, Ed. You touched many lives together with your mild hand.”
Wright’s survivors embody his sister, Bedria Sanders.
