poltr1 | Albums that rocked my world: "The Light Of Smiles" by Gary Wright.....

The year was 1979, give or take a year. I was familiar with Gary Wright and his all-synthesizer song song "Dream Weaver". I remember laying in bed one winter's night in 1976, with the lights off, and hearing it on the radio. I was staring at the ceiling and I could see the stars.

And one day in the summer of '79, I was at the local Twin Fair discount department store, perusing through the record department, as I often did when I was there. I came across this album in the cutout bin. That day, it went home with me. And I listened to it. And loved it.

As I read the liner notes, it appeared that many of the songs on this album were inspired by the writings and teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda (author of Autobiography of a
Yogi). I hadn't heard of him before. I remembered that George Harrison of the Beatles was drawn toward Indian mysticism, and thought at the time that Gary had walked down the same path. And I remembered a high school band trip to Washington DC and someone was handing out small paperback books. And so I mistakenly thought that this yogi was some sort of cult leader.

I had heard about the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas, and the People's Temple. And I thought that Yogananda was one of their leaders. This assumption, or projection, turned out to be wrong, as I was to find out later in life, after exposing myself to religions and belief systems other than Catholicism, Christianity, and Judaism.

Autobiography of a Yogi is still on my buy-me and read-me lists, after all these years.

The music still had that all-synthesizer sound that Gary Wright is known for, with some great synth bass lines and sonic textures. Gary was one of the first to utilize a portable keyboard. He took a Minimoog, separated the keyboard from the chassis (a sacrilege by today's standards, but it was done while the Mini was still in production), added a guitar strap, and played it. The lyrics of the songs are very spiritual, and speak to me. Listen to the bass line from "Silent Fury" or the solo line from "Are You Weepin'".

I was surprised what a copy of the CD was going for on amazon.com -- over $150 for a used copy, and over $200 for a new CD. Someone was gracious enough to upload all but one track of this album to YouTube. I made a playlist of those songs. (The missing track is "Empty Inside", between tracks 8 and 9 of the playlist.) The playlist can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmO8BO2U9To&list=PLyG98hoZgOQX8bIeiwo2wzjMu-LBS8KfL