A singer-songwriter with bar residencies in 1960s — ’70s New York, Boston, and adopted home Nantucket, Wright followed a hard-to-pigeonhole folk-soul muse reminiscent of Bill Withers and Gordon Lightfoot. But labels didn’t know how to market him in a still racially polarized environment; hence, 1977’s Telling the Truth was made at Variety Recordings, New York’s cheapest studio — in exchange for a cheesy radio-style ad (included here). Warm, soulful, occasionally political, Wright was a private-press gem who deserved more.
