Thomas Wright Jr.

Family-Placed Death Notice

WRIGHT, Thomas Thomas Glenn (Tom) Wright, Jr., age 65, of Lawrenceville, died Saturday March 1, 2008. A memorial service will be held at 11 AM Tuesday March 4, 2008 at Bill Head Funeral Home, Lilburn/Tucker Chapel. Tom was a loving father and a devoted husband and grandfather and a loyal friend to many respected members of the community. He is survived by his wife, Linda Padgett of Lawrenceville; children, Nicole Smith of Lawrenceville, Thomas G. Wright, III of Miami, FL, Kelly Wright of Atlanta, and Jennifer Wright of Dallas, TX; grandchildren, Dillon Smith and Gage Smith; five step-brothers. Tom Wright was born in Atlanta in 1943. His father was in the U.S. Army, so Tom's childhood was spent moving around America. His family settled in Memphis in the 1950s. By 1959, Tom was fifteen and was a frequent participant in the city's drag racing and music worlds, which, for Tom, were closely connected. He "built up" a '59 Chevrolet Impala which captured a National Championship; the first recording studio he visited was near his race car garage. When he turned 16, Tom left Memphis and moved to Atlanta where he lied about his age, and went to work for Lockheed Aviation repairing airplanes. He also became a drum technician for Ronnie Rich (of Jerry McGill's Topcutters). While attending a Tam's session at [Bill Lowrey's] Old Schoolhouse in 1961, he was fascinated by the five Tams in a tiny vocal booth and a sideways two-track Ampex tape deck. Pouring over manuals from the public library, with additional help from engineers at Georgia Tech, Tom learned the principles of electronics and how tape recorders worked. An avid tinkerer from an early age, Tom was also building slot car motors at an Atlanta hobby shop and, perhaps of greater consequence, running a scuba diving salvage operation at Lake Lanier. In one of the many unusual turns in Tom's colorful career, the DeKalb Police Department asked him to train scuba divers, and, for a while, he even served as a Line Officer. He invented a burglar alarm used by Rollins Protective Systems. It was magnetic tape based and was the first completely reliable automatic dialing and alert system produced in the world. In 1967, Tom built his first recording studio behind a Decatur record shop called Melody Music Center. He engineered and managed the 4-track facility which he gradually transformed into a 16-track studio, the first in the South. With no formal training in electronics, he built his own recording console from scratch, designing the amplifiers and equalizers himself. Soon, he was tracking artists like Lowrey Publishing songwriter Ray Whitley and The Tam's lead singer. His first brush with success came in 1969 with "Paint A Cannon Pink," by the redoubtable Leo LaBranch. Ironically, "Cannon" was never released due to its controversial anti-war theme, but not before it was purchased by Metromedia Records, commanding a higher fee than any single up to that point. Tom was also producing tapes for use in the "Mellotron," a tape based keyboard, the first system to provide strings, horns, etc. to artists in a keyboard format. Tom made virtually all the tapes used in the US by such artists as "The Rasberries". In 1970, Tom moved his studio to the Atlanta location which eventually became known as Cheshire Sound Studios. Tom handled engineering duties, developed his production skills, and produced a series of "Sound-alikes," which "covered" the hit songs of the period. These projects provided steady work for many musicians in the Atlanta area. These "Greatest Hits" albums were very successful. In fact, the cover of the trucker anthem, "Convoy," sold more copies than the original hit! Over the course of the 70s decade, Tom expanded the Cheshire facility and found himself on the cutting edge of technology. By the early 1980s, Cheshire Sound began attracting regional and national clients of considerable stature. In 1987 Tom expanded the Melody/Cheshire organization to include Musiplex, next door to Cheshire. Musiplex included a sound stage, rehearsal rooms, a 24 track studio, and a full pro audio support facility for outside clients. The "A" room at Cheshire was upgraded with an SSL 6000 console, Mitsubishi 32 track digital machine, and had full dual 24 track analog capability as well. The "B" room was retrofitted with a highly modified SSL 4000 B console and dual 24 track capability. It was also during this time that the famed Wright Monitors were developed, joining the wonderful sounding Wright Microphones that Tom had developed earlier. These incredibly accurate monitors and microphones, though never produced in large quantities, became a favorite of many engineers and producers, including the late great Tom Dowd. The monitors and microphones, together with the highly modified equipment, contributed to the unique environment at Cheshire and Musiplex, and the word spread. This was a period of intense activity, with a staggering lineup of artists from across the spectrum of popular music, including Black Sabbath, Mick Jagger, Warren Zevon, .38 Special, Georgia Satellites, Johnny Paycheck, Keith Sweat, Pebbles, New Kids on the Block, Dorothy Norwood, Della Reese, R.E.M., Bobby Brown, Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs), Prince, Sheila E., and Tupac Shakur. Cameo made Cheshire their home for five albums in a row. Peabo Bryson recorded and mixed many of his albums at Cheshire. The studio cut one of the biggest Gospel records in history, "The Rough Side of the Mountain," by Reverends Barnes and Brown, which was No. 1 for a year and a half. In one week in1989, Cheshire had a record in every Billboard chart, including Country/ Western-a feat without precedent, nor has it been repeated. (The Billboard article said 17 records on 14 charts in Billboard surveys.) The Cheshire "A" room was the first to grace the cover of Mix magazine, a premier publication of the recording industry. Cheshire and Musiplex closed in 1997 and Tom entered a period of semi-retirement. He was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2002. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the American Cancer Society, 2970 Clairmont Road, Suite 840, Atlanta, GA 30329. Arrangements by Bill Head Funeral Homes and Crematory, Lilburn/Tucker Chapel. (770) 564-2726