made his TV debut at the age of seven, on the show Captain Video and His Video Rangers, filmed in New York. 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. He spent two years with the production, during which he performed with Henderson on The Ed Sullivan Show. Having studied piano and organ, Wright led various local rock bands while attending Tenafly High School in Tenafly, New Jersey. In 1959, he made his first commercial recording, with Billy Markle at NBC Radio's New York studios. Credited to Gary & Billy, the single "Working After School" was released on 20th Century Fox Records in 1960. Seeing music as "too unstable" a career choice, as he later put it, Wright studied to become a doctor at the College of William & Mary in Virginia and New York University before attending Downstate Medical College for a year, all the while continuing to perform with local bands. Having specialized in psychology in New York, he then went to West Germany in 1966 to complete his studies at the Free University of Berlin. Career 1967–1970: With Spooky Tooth 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