Dobie Gray

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Dobie Gray was born in 1940 in Simonton, Texas, as Lawrence Darrow Brown. His family worked as sharecroppers, and through his grandfather, a Baptist preacher, he became acquainted with gospel. In the early 1960s he moved to Los Angeles to become an actor and sang to earn money. He recorded under various names, until Sonny Bono sent him to the small label Stripe Records. There he was given the name Dobie Gray, a reference to the popular sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

Music and breakthrough

His first small success came in 1962 with the single Look At Me, recorded with the bassist Carol Kaye, which reached number 91 on the Billboard Hot 100. His first album, Look!, did not sell, but in 1965 he became widely known with The 'In' Crowd, written by Billy Page, which reached number 13 in the United States and number 25 in England. Ramsey Lewis and Petula Clark later recorded the song as well. Gray then sang the title song of the 1966 film Out of Sight, the song Out on the Floor, and from 1968 to 1969 was in the cast of the musical Hair in Hollywood. His biggest hit became Drift Away in 1973, a song by Mentor Williams. It sold more than a million copies and can still often be heard on the radio.

Influence

Gray's music encompasses soul, country, pop and musical theatre. He died in 2011. His voice, which sounds warm and cheerful, belongs to the soul pop of the 1960s and 1970s.

Listening

• 
  Out on the Floor · Dobie Gray, 1966
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 1965Dobie Gray Sings for "In" Crowders That Go "Go Go"
• 1973Drift Away
• 1973Loving Arms
• 1974Hey Dixie
• 1975New Ray of Sunshine
• 1977Let Go
• 1978Midnight Diamond
• 1979Dobie Gray Sings for "In" Crowders That Go "Go Go"
• 1981Welcome Home
• 1985From Where I Stand
• 1987Love's Talkin'
• 2000Soul Days
• 2004Drift Away

See also

• Northern soul