Gary Usher

Gary Usher (December 14, 1938 – May 25, 1990) was an American surf rock musician, songwriter, and record producer.

Biography

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 aces with his own troops (Chuck Girard , Dick Burns and others). Later in the decade, he produced with The Byrds, Dick Dale, Gram Parsons, and was the force behind a number of "studio created" bands, including The Hondells, The Super Stocks, and Sagittarius.

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 sometime 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 featured no drums at all. 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 off the drums were digitally programmed). The engineer, Bill Fletcher, was also the bass player on 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 seen the light of the day.

Gary's early life was in Grafton, Massachusetts. He attended Norcross grammar school with his sister Sandra, who was in same class and was likely his twin.Gary was kiddingly called "Chicken Feed" by his male classmates. He attended high school & graduated from Westborough, Massachusetts hign school in 1957.

Gary Usher was the father-in-law of noted Disney character animator Eric Goldberg.

elected discography

Rare 45 records

Produced by Gary Usher

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)

ongwriting

*"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)

External links

* [http://www.garyusher.com Official site]