IN: Gary Wright was born and raised in Cresskill, New Jersey. A child actor, he made his TV debut at the age of seven, on the show Captain Video and His Video Rangers, filmed in New York. Among other acting work, he appeared in TV and radio commercials, before being offered a part in the 1954 Broadway production of the musical Fanny. Wright played the role of Cesario, the son of Fanny, who was played by future Brady Bunch matriarch Florence Henderson.

Wright has described his initial musical influences as "early R&B" - namely, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Bobby Bland - along with rock 'n' roll artists Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Beatles. While in Europe in 1967, Wright abandoned his plans to become a doctor and instead toured locally with a band he had formed, the New York Times. When the latter supported the English group Traffic - at Oslo in Norway, according to Wright - he met Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. Wright recalls that he and Blackwell had a mutual friend in Jimmy Miller, the New York-born producer of Island acts such as the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic.  Blackwell invited Wright to London, where he joined English singer and pianist Mike Harrison and drummer Mike Kellie in their band Art (formerly the VIPs). The group soon changed its name to Spooky Tooth, with Wright as joint lead vocalist and Hammond organ player. While noting the band's lack of significant commercial success over its career, The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll describes Spooky Tooth as "a bastion of Britain's hard-rock scene".  Spooky Tooth's first album was It's All About, released on Island in June 1968. Produced by Miller, it contained the Wright-composed "Sunshine Help Me" and six songs he co-wrote with either Miller, Harrison or Luther Grosvenor, the band's guitarist. Spooky Two, often considered the band's best work, followed in March 1969, with Miller again producing. Wright composed or co-composed seven of the album's eight songs, including "That Was Only Yesterday" and "Better By You, Better Than Me". Spooky Two sold well in America but, like It's All About, it failed to place on the UK's top 40 albums chart.  The third Spooky Tooth album was Ceremony, a Wright-instigated collaboration with French electronic music pioneer Pierre Henry, released in December 1969. Songwriting for all the tracks was credited to Henry and Wright, after the latter had passed the band's recordings on to Henry for what The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia terms "processed musique concrete overdubs".  Although Wright had traditionally provided an experimental influence within Spooky Tooth, he regretted the change of musical direction, saying in a 1973 interview: "We should have really taken off after Spooky Two but we got into the absurd situation of letting Pierre Henry make the Ceremony album. Then he took it back to France and remixed it." With bass player Greg Ridley having already left the band in 1969 to join Humble Pie, Wright departed in January 1970 to pursue a solo career.

Why was the name changed?

OUT: Blackwell invited Wright to London, where he joined English singer and pianist Mike Harrison and drummer Mike Kellie in their band Art (formerly the VIPs


IN: Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. The group's core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and included Stone's brother and singer/guitarist Freddie Stone, sister and singer/keyboardist Rose Stone, trumpeter Cynthia Robinson, drummer Greg Errico, saxophonist Jerry Martini, and bassist Larry Graham. The band was the first major American rock group to have a racially integrated, male and female lineup.

With the band's new-found fame and success came numerous problems. Relationships within the band were deteriorating; there was friction in particular between the Stone brothers and Larry Graham. Epic requested more marketable output. The Black Panther Party demanded that Sly replace Gregg Errico and Jerry Martini with black instrumentalists and fire manager David Kapralik.  After moving to the Los Angeles area in fall 1969, Sly Stone and his fellow band members became heavy users of illegal drugs, primarily cocaine and PCP. As the members became increasingly focused on drug use and partying (Sly Stone carried a violin case filled with illegal drugs wherever he went), recording slowed significantly. Between summer 1969 and fall 1971, the band released only one single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" / "Everybody Is a Star", released in December 1969. "Thank You" reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1970.  In 1970, Sly Stone spent most of his waking hours on drugs. He became erratic and moody, and missed nearly a third of the band's concerts that year. The band did close out the Strawberry Fields Festival near Toronto, Ontario in August but live appearances on television talk shows such as The Mike Douglas Show and The Dick Cavett Show went unpredictably. Meanwhile, Sly hired his streetwise cohorts, Hamp "Bubba" Banks and J.B. Brown, as his personal managers; they in turn brought in gangsters such as Edward "Eddie Chin" Elliott and Mafioso J.R. Valtrano to be Sly's bodyguards. Sly enlisted these individuals to handle his business dealings, to retrieve drugs, and to protect him from those he considered his enemies, some of whom were his own bandmates and staff. A rift developed between Sly and the rest of the band; in early 1971, drummer Errico became the first to leave the band for other ventures. He was replaced with a succession of drummers until Sly settled on Gerry Gibson, who only remained with the band for a year before being replaced by Andy Newmark in 1973.  To appease fan demand for new songs, Epic began re-releasing material. A Whole New Thing was reissued with a new cover, and several of the Family Stone's most popular recordings were packaged into the band's first Greatest Hits album. Greatest Hits reached number two on the Billboard 200 in 1970.  During this period, Sly Stone negotiated a production deal with Atlantic Records, resulting in his own imprint, Stone Flower Productions. Stone Flower released four singles, including one by R&B artist Joe Hicks, one by a group called 6IX, and two pop Top 40/R&B Top 10 singles by Little Sister: "You're the One" and "Somebody's Watching You", a cover of a song from Stand!. For unclear reasons, Sly gradually withdrew his attention from Stone Flower, and the label was closed in 1971. Little Sister's "Somebody's Watching You" is the first popular recording to feature the use of a drum machine for its rhythm track.

who else left before it was officially broken up?

OUT:
He was replaced with a succession of drummers until Sly settled on Gerry Gibson,