John Gary: A Musical Style That Not Everybody Liked It

Although John Gary was a popular vocalist, he did not cause much impression among the adult audience and his appearance precisely coincided with the British Invasion. Indeed, this aspect did not benefit him to start an artistic career. He was born in 1932 in Watertown, New York.

He worked as a singer on Don McNeill’s radio show Breakfast Club just before having a contract with RCA Records in 1962. Nevertheless, more than lucky, he needed a miracle since in 1964, the single, “Soon I’ll Wed My Love” was the only one topped on the U.S pop charts. Suddenly, some of his songs could reach the Top 100 with "The Nearness of You", "A Little Bit of Heaven", and "Encore". His albums also hit the Top Ten twice. His repertory ranged from show tunes, country hits to romantic ballads.

To perform his music, he made use of television to have his own show at Carnegie Hall, with a great deal of symphonies and appearing more than 20 times as a guest of the The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Steve Allen and Jack Parr. He specialized in touring across the U.S and Canada with around 40 concerts. For the following years, he gave Community concerts in more than 400 cities and towns.

It is true that sometimes beauty did not work well with success. This is exactly Gary’s case, whose beauty and personality did not help him to be a successful singer. Instead, his popularity merely served to displace the work of many artists at that time. Indeed, some referred to him as the singers’ singer since basically one artist was able to appreciate what he did with his voice. Contrary to the way most singers performed, Gary was characterized by having what is called as a ‘mezzo voce’ up to beyond the staff. Another feature of this artist is his apparently endless supply of breath and his capability to shade the words to transmit emotions in the song.