Grey
— Common connotations —
depression, blandness, boredom, neutrality, fog, undefinedness, old age, contentment and speed
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#C0C0C0
sRGBB	(r, g, b)	(128, 128, 128)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(--°, 0%, 50%)
Source		HTML/CSS[1]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Grey or gray is an achromatic or neutral color.

Complementary colors are defined to mix to grey, either additively or subtractively, and many color models place complements opposite each other in a color wheel. To produce grey in RGB displays, the R, G, and B primary light sources are combined in proportions equal to that of the white point. In four-color printing, greys are produced either by the black channel, or by an approximately equal combination of CMY primaries. Images which consist wholly of neutral colors are called monochrome, black-and-white or greyscale.

The first recorded use of grey as a color name in the English language was in AD 700.^[2] Grey is the British, Canadian, Australian, Irish, New Zealand and South African spelling, although gray remained in common usage in the UK until the second half of the 20th century.^[3] Gray is the preferred American spelling, although grey is an accepted variant.^[4][5] Gray became the preferred spelling in American English around 1825.^[6]

In color theory[link]

Most grey pigments have a cool or warm cast to them, as the human eye can detect even a minute amount of saturation.^{[citation needed]} Yellow, orange, and red create a "warm grey". Green, blue, and violet create a "cool grey".^[7] When there is no cast at all, it is referred to as "neutral grey", "achromatic grey" or simply "grey".

Warm grey	Cool grey
Mixed with 6% yellow.	Mixed with 6% blue.

Two colors are called complementary colors if grey is produced when they are combined additively. Grey is its own complement.

Web colors[link]

There are several tones of grey available for use with HTML and CSS in word form, while there are 254 true greys available through Hex triplet. All are spelled with an a: using the e spelling can cause unexpected errors (this spelling was inherited from the X11 color list), and to this day, Internet Explorer's Trident browser engine does not recognize "grey" and will render it as green. Another anomaly is that "gray" is in fact much darker than the X11 color marked "darkgray"; this is because of a conflict with the original HTML grey and the X11 grey, which is closer to HTML's "silver". The three "slategray" colors are not themselves on the greyscale, but are slightly saturated towards cyan (green + blue). Note that since there are an even (256, including black and white) number of unsaturated tones of grey, there are actually two grey tones straddling the midpoint in the 8-bit greyscale. The color name "gray" has been assigned the lighter of the two shades (128 also known as #808080), due to rounding up.

Color coordinates[link]

RGB

Grey values result when r = g = b, for the color (r, g, b)

CMYK

Grey values are produced by c = m = y = 0, for the color (c, m, y, k). Lightness is adjusted by varying k. In theory, any mixture where c = m = y is neutral, but in practice such mixtures are often a muddy brown (see discussion on this topic).

HSL and HSV 

Achromatic greys have no hue, so the h code is marked as "undefined" using a dash: -- ; greys also result whenever s is 0 or undefined, as is the case when v is 0 or l is 0 or 1

See also[link]

• Black
• Black-and-white
• Vin gris (grey wine in French)
• List of colors
• Variations of grey
• White

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gray

• Three computational biologists’ theory to explain how humans perceive achromatic colors:
• Chart showing a comparison of the achromatic (greyscale) values of the colors on the RYB and RGB color wheels, respectively (the chart is halfway down the webpage):

Jean-Michel Basquiat
Born	(1960-12-22)December 22, 1960 Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Died	August 12, 1988(1988-08-12) (aged 27) Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Nationality	American
Field	Graffiti, painting, poetry, musician, producer
Movement	Neo-expressionism
Influenced by	Jean Dubuffet, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist.^[1] He began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s and evolved into a Neo-expressionist painter during the 1980s.

Early life[link]

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born after the death of his brother Max in Brooklyn, New York, the second of four children to Matilda Andrades (July 28, 1934 – November 17, 2008)^[2] and Gerard Basquiat (born 1930).^[3] He had two younger sisters: Lisane, born in 1964, and Jeanine, born in 1967.^[2]

His father, Gerard Basquiat, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and his mother, Matilde Basquiat, was of Puerto Rican descent, born in Brooklyn, New York.^[3][4]

Basquiat was a precocious child who learned how to read and write by age four and was a gifted artist.^[5] His teachers noticed his artistic abilities, and his mother encouraged her son's artistic talent. By the age of eleven, Basquiat could fluently speak, read, and write French, Spanish, and English.^[3][5]

When he was eleven years old, his mother was committed to a mental institution and thereafter spent time in and out of institutions.^[6]

In September 1968, Basquiat was hit by a car while playing in the street. His arm was broken and he suffered several internal injuries, and eventually underwent a splenectomy.^[7] His parents separated that year and he and his sisters were raised by their father.^[3][8] The family resided in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, for five years, then moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1974. After two years, they returned to New York City.^[9]

At 15, Basquiat ran away from home.^[3][10] He slept on park benches in Washington Square Park, and was arrested and returned to the care of his father within a week.^[3][11]

Basquiat dropped out of Edward R. Murrow High School in the tenth grade. His father banished him from the household and Basquiat stayed with friends in Brooklyn. He supported himself by selling T-shirts and homemade post cards. He also worked at the Unique Clothing Warehouse in West Broadway, Manhattan.^[3]

Career[link]

SAMO© color xerox work at A´s, Arleen Schloss, 1979

In 1976, Basquiat and friend Al Diaz began spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, working under the pseudonym SAMO. The designs featured inscribed messages such as "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause." On December 11, 1978, the Village Voice published an article about the graffiti.^[12] When Basquiat & Diaz ended their friendship, The SAMO project ended with the epitaph "SAMO IS DEAD," inscribed on the walls of SoHo buildings in 1979.^[13]

In 1979, Basquiat appeared on the live public-access television cable TV show TV Party hosted by Glenn O'Brien, and the two started a friendship. Basquiat made regular appearances on the show over the next few years. That same year, Basquiat formed the noise rock band Test Pattern, later "Gray" which played at Arleen Schloss´s open space, "Wednesdays at A`s" ^[14], where in October 1979 Basquiat showed, among others, his SAMO© color Xerox work. Gray with Shannon Dawson, Michael Holman, Nick Taylor, Wayne Clifford and Vincent Gallo. Gray performed at nightclubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrah, and the Mudd Club. In 1980, Basquiat starred in O'Brien's independent film Downtown 81, originally titled New York Beat. That same year, Basquiat discovered Andy Warhol, while Basquiat was eating at a restaurant. Basquiat presented to Warhol samples of his work, and Warhol was stunned by Basquait's genius and allure. The men later collaborated. Downtown 81 featured some of Gray's recordings on its soundtrack.^[15] Basquiat also appeared in the Blondie music video "Rapture" as a nightclub disc jockey.^[16]

In June 1980, Basquiat participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab) and Fashion Moda. In 1981, Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine,^[17] which brought Basquiat to the attention of the art world.

In late 1981, he joined the Annina Nosei gallery in SoHo. By 1982, Basquiat was showing regularly alongside other Neo-expressionist artists including Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Francesco Clemente, and Enzo Cucchi. He was represented in Los Angeles by the Larry Gagosian gallery and throughout Europe by Bruno Bischofberger. He briefly dated then-aspiring performer, Madonna, in late 1982. That same year, Basquiat also worked briefly with musician and artist David Bowie.

In 1983, Basquiat produced a 12" rap single featuring hip-hop artists, Rammellzee and K-Rob. Billed as Rammellzee vs. K-Rob, the single contained two versions of the same track: "Beat Bop" on side one with vocals and "Beat Bop" on side two as an instrumental.^[18] The single was pressed in limited quantities on the one-off Tartown Record Company label. The single's cover featured Basquiat's artwork, making the pressing highly desirable among both record and art collectors.

Basquiat often painted in expensive Armani suits and would even appear in public in the same paint-splattered suits.^{[19][page needed][20]}

Final years and death[link]

By 1986, Basquiat had left the Annina Nosei gallery, and was showing in the famous Mary Boone gallery in SoHo. On February 10, 1986, he appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in a feature entitled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist".^[21] He was a successful artist in this period, but his growing heroin addiction began to interfere with his personal relationships.

When Andy Warhol died on February 22, 1987, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his heroin addiction and depression grew more severe.^[13] Despite an attempt at sobriety during a trip to Maui, Hawaii, Basquiat died on August 12, 1988, of a heroin overdose at his art studio in Great Jones Street in New York City's NoHo neighborhood. He was 27.^[13][22]

Basquiat was interred in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.

Artistic styles[link]

Continuing his activities as a graffiti artist, Basquiat often incorporated words into his paintings. Before his career as a painter began, he produced punk-inspired postcards for sale on the street, and became known for the political–poetical graffiti under the name of SAMO. On one occasion Basquiat painted his girlfriend's dress with the words "Little Shit Brown". He would often draw on random objects and surfaces, including other people's property.

The conjunction of various media is an integral element of Basquiat's art. His paintings are typically covered with text and codes of all kinds: words, letters, numerals, pictograms, logos, map symbols, diagrams and more.^[23]

A middle period from late 1982 to 1985 featured multi-panel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surface dense with writing, collage and imagery. The years 1984-85 were also the main period of the Basquiat–Warhol collaborations, even if, in general, they weren't very well received by the critics.

A major reference source used by Basquiat throughout his career was the book Gray's Anatomy, which his mother gave to him while in the hospital at age seven. It remained influential in his depictions of internal human anatomy, and in its mixture of image and text. Other major sources were Henry Dreyfuss Symbol Sourcebook, Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, and Brentjes African Rock Art.

Basquiat doodled often and some of his later pieces exhibited this; they were often colored pencil on paper with a loose, spontaneous, and dirty style much like his paintings. His work across all mediums display a child-like fascination with the process of creating.^[24]

Representing his heritage in his art[link]

According to Andrea Frohne, Basquiat’s 1983 painting "Untitled (History of the Black People)" "reclaims Egyptians as African and subverts the concept of ancient Egypt as the cradle of Western Civilization".^[25] At the center of the painting, Basquiat depicts an Egyptian boat being guided down the Nile River by Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead.^[26] On the right panel of the painting appear the words “Esclave, Slave, Esclave”. Two letters of the word "Nile" are crossed out and Frohne suggests that, "The letters that are wiped out and scribbled over perhaps reflect the acts of historians who have conveniently forgotten that Egyptians were black and blacks were enslaved."^[26] On the left panel of the painting Basquiat, has illustrated two Nubian style masks. The Nubians historically were darker in skin color, and were considered to be slaves by the Egyptian people.^[27] Throughout the rest of the painting, images of the Atlantic slave trade are juxtaposed with images of the Egyptian slave trade centuries before.^[27] The sickle in the center panel is a direct reference to the slave trade in the United States, and slave labor under the plantation system. The word “salt” that appears on the right panel of the work refers to the Atlantic Slave Trade, as salt was another important commodity to be traded at that time.^[27]

Another of Basquiat’s pieces, "Irony of Negro Policeman" (1981), is intended to illustrate how African-Americans have been controlled by a predominantly Caucasian society. Basquiat sought to portray how complicit African-Americans have become with the “institutionalized forms of whiteness and corrupt white regimes of power” years after the Jim Crow era had ended.^[27] Basquiat found the concept of a “Negro policeman” utterly ironic. It would seem that this policeman should sympathize with his black friends, family and ancestors, yet instead he was there to enforce the rules designed by "white society." The Negro policeman had “black skin but wore a white mask”. In the painting, Basquiat depicted the policeman as large in order to suggest an “excessive and totalizing power”, but made the policeman's body fragmented and broken.^[28] The hat that frames the head of the Negro policeman resembles a cage, and represents how constrained the independent perceptions of African-Americans were at the time, and how constrained the policeman’s own perceptions were within white society. Basquiat drew upon his Haitian heritage by painting a hat that resembles the top hat associated with the Haitian trickster lwa, leader of the Gede family of lwas and guardian of death and the dead in vodou.^[28]

Exhibitions[link]

Basquiat’s first public exhibition was in the group "The Times Square Show" (with David Hammons, Jenny Holzer, Lee Quinones, Kenny Scharf and Kiki Smith among others), held in a vacant building at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue, New York. His first one-person exhibition was in 1982 at the Annina Nosei Gallery, New York.^[29]

The first retrospective was the "Jean-Michel Basquiat" exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art from October 1992 to February 1993. It subsequently traveled to museums in Texas, Iowa, and Alabama from 1993 to 1994. The catalog for this exhibition,^[30] edited by Richard Marshall and including several essays of differing styles, was a groundbreaking piece of scholarship into Basquiat's work and still a major source. Another influential showing was the "Basquiat" exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum March–June 2005 (which subsequently traveled to Los Angeles and Houston from 2005 to 2006).^[31]

Legacy[link]

In 1996, seven years after his death, a biopic titled Basquiat was released, directed by Julian Schnabel, with actor Jeffrey Wright playing Basquiat. David Bowie played the part of Andy Warhol. Schnabel purchased the rights to the project after being interviewed, as a personal acquaintance of Basquiat, during its script development and realizing that he could do a better film.^[32]

In 1991, poet Kevin Young produced a book, To Repel Ghosts, a compendium of 117 poems relating to Basquiat’s life, individual paintings, and social themes found in the artist’s work. He published a “remix” of the book in 2005.^[33]

In 2005, poet M.K. Asante, Jr. published the poem "SAMO," dedicated to Basquiat, in his book Beautiful. And Ugly Too.

A 2009 documentary film, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, directed by Tamra Davis, was first screened as part of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was shown on the PBS series Independent Lens in 2011.^[24]

In 2011, MC/poet/hip hop producer Ohini Jonez released a piece called "Basquiat (PBUH)" on Tumblr to widespread online acclaim.^{[citation needed]}

Both Jay-Z and Kanye West made reference to Basquiat on their 2011 collaborative album "Watch The Throne". In "Illest Motherfucker Alive", Jay-Z raps "Basquiats, Warhols serving as my muses".

Art market[link]

Since Basquiat’s death in 1988, his market has developed steadily — in line with overall art market trends — with a dramatic peak in 2007 when, at the height of the art market boom, the global auction volume for his work was over $115m. Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of Christie’s, is quoted describing Basquiat’s market as "two-tiered. [...] The most coveted material is rare, generally dating from the best period, 1981-83."^[34] Until 2002, the highest money paid for an original work of Basquiat's was US$3,302,500, set on November 12, 1998 at Christie's. In 2002, Basquiat's Profit I (1982), a large piece measuring 86.5"/220 cm by 157.5"/400 cm, was set for auction again at Christie's by drummer Lars Ulrich of the heavy metal band Metallica. It sold for US$5,509,500.^[35] The proceedings of the auction are documented in the film Some Kind of Monster.

In 2008, at another auction at Christie's, Ulrich sold a 1982 Basquiat piece, Untitled (Boxer), for US$13,522,500 to an anonymous telephone bidder.^[36] Another record price for a Basquiat painting was made on in 2007, when an untitled Basquiat work from 1981 sold at Sotheby's in New York for US$14.6 million.^[37] In 2012, Basquiat's Untitled (1981), a painting of a haloed, black-headed man with a bright red skeletal body, depicted amid the artist’s signature scrawls, was sold by Robert Lehrman for $16.3 million, well above its $12 million high estimate.^[38]

Estate[link]

After Basquiat's death, the Robert Miller Gallery, New York, was chosen to represent the estate by the artist's father, Gerard Jean-Baptiste Basquiat, who became the estate's administrator. In 1991, a $40 million claim by the Vrej Baghoomian Gallery against the estate was dismissed in the New York Surrogate's Court; the gallery had represented Basquiat and, in 1989, alleged having an oral agreement with the artist to be his exclusive representative.^[39]

Authentication Committee[link]

The Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat was formed by the gallery that was assigned to handle the artist's estate.^[40] Between 1994 and 2012, it reviewed over 2,000 works of art; the cost of the committee's opinion was $100.^[41] The committee was headed by Gerard Basquiat. Members and advisers varied depending on who was available when a piece is being authenticated, but they have included the curators and gallerists Diego Cortez, Jeffrey Deitch, John Cheim, Richard Marshall, Fred Hoffman, and Annina Nosei (the artist’s first art dealer).^[42] In 2008 the authentification committee was sued by collector Gerard De Geer, who claimed the committee breached its contract by refusing to offer an opinion on the authenticity of the painting Fuego Flores (1983);^[43] after the lawsuit was dismissed, the com­mit­tee ruled the work genuine.^[44] In early 2012, the committee announced that it would dissolve in September of that year and no longer consider applications.

See also[link]

• 27 Club

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Buchhart Dieter, O'Brien Glenn, Prat Jean-Louis, Reichling Susanne. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hatje Cantz, 2010. ISBN 978-3-7757-2593-4
• Curley, Mallory. A Cookie Mueller Encyclopedia, Randy Press, 2010.
• Deitch J, Cortez D, and O’Brien, Glen. Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1981: the Studio of the Street, Charta, 2007. ISBN 978-88-8158-625-7
• Hoban, Phoebe. Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art (2nd ed.), Penguin Books, 2004.
• Marenzi, Luca. Jean-Michel Basquiat. Charta, 1999. ISBN 978-88-8158-239-6
• Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Abrams / Whitney Museum of American Art. Hardcover 1992, paperback 1995. (Catalog for 1992 Whitney retrospective, out of print).
• Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat: In World Only. Cheim & Read, 2005. (out of print).
• Mayer, Marc, Hoffman Fred, et al. Basquiat, Merrell Publishers / Brooklyn Museum, 2005.
• Tate, Greg. Flyboy in the Buttermilk. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. ISBN 978-0-671-72965-3

External links[link]

• Brooklyn Museum Excellent website of the 2005 Basquiat retrospective exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.
• Basquiat.com Official site of The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
• Basquiat Biography. (Scholarly but accessible Basquiat website with bibliography, timeline, links to on-line images, school lesson-plans, list of Basquiat works recently at auction, and updated blog of current Basquiat-related events.)
• Basquiat at Artfacts (Commercial site giving listing of Basquiat exhibitions, and works currently on sale.)
• Emmerling, Leonhard. Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960-1988. Köln: Taschen Art Album, 2003.
• Hoban, Phoebe. “SAMO IS DEAD: The Fall of Jean-Michel Basquiat”. New York Magazine. Sept. 26, 1988. pp 36–44.
• Pearlman, Alison. Unpackaging Art of the 1980s.
• Powers, Nicholas. The Radiant Death, a review of the Brooklyn Museum's Basquiat exhibit
• Seed, John. Driving Mr. Basquiat.
• Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, Documentary film by Tamra Davis, screened at Sundance Film Festival 2010
• Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Fun Gallery, excerpt from "Young Expressionists" (ART/New York #19), video, 1982.
• Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child site for Independent Lens on PBS
• Official Trailer for the 2011 documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child

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Dobie Gray (July 26, 1940 – December 6, 2011)^[1][2][3] was an American singer and songwriter, whose musical career spanned soul, country, pop and musical theater. His hit records included "The 'In' Crowd" in 1965, and "Drift Away", which was one of the biggest hits of 1973, sold over one million copies, and remains a staple of radio airplay.^[2]

Life and career[link]

He was born near Houston, Texas, by his own account in Simonton although some sources suggest the nearby town of Brookshire.^[4][5] His birth name was probably Lawrence Darrow Brown,^[5][6] who is listed in the Fort Bend County Birth Records as being born in 1940 to Jane P. Spencel and Jethro Clifton Brown. Other sources suggest he may have been born Leonard Victor Ainsworth,^[2] a name he used on some early recordings.

His family were sharecroppers, and he discovered gospel music through his grandfather, a Baptist minister.^[4] In the early 1960s he moved to Los Angeles, intending to pursue an acting career but also singing to make money. He recorded for several local labels under the names Leonard Ainsworth, Larry Curtis, and Larry Dennis, before Sonny Bono directed him towards the small independent Stripe Records. They suggested that he record under the name "Dobie Gray", an allusion to the then-popular sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.^[5] His first taste of success came in 1963, when his seventh single "Look At Me", on the Cor-Dak label, recorded with bassist Carol Kaye,^[7] reached # 91 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[6][8] However, Gray's first album, Look!, failed to sell.^[7] Greater success came in early 1965 when his original recording of "The 'In' Crowd" (recorded later that year as an instrumental by Ramsey Lewis) reached # 13 on the chart. Written by Billy Page, arranged by his brother Gene,^[9] and produced by Fred Darian,^[6][10] Gray's record reached # 11 on the US R&B chart, and # 25 in the UK. The follow-up, "See You at the Go-Go", recorded with such top session musicians as Kaye, Hal Blaine and Larry Knechtel, also reached the Hot 100, and he issued an album, Dobie Gray Sings For 'In' Crowders That Go Go Go, which featured some self-penned songs.^[7]

Gray continued to record, though with little success, for small labels such as Charger and White Whale, as well as contributing to movie soundtracks.^[8] He also spent several years working as an actor, including 2½ years in the Los Angeles production of Hair.^[2][5] In 1970, while working in Hair, he joined a band, Pollution, as singer and percussionist. They were managed by actor Max Baer Jr. (best known as "Jethro" in The Beverly Hillbillies), and released two albums of soul-inspired psychedelic rock, Pollution I and Pollution II.^[7][11] The band also included singer Tata Vega and guitarist/singer James Quill Smith. After that, he worked at A & M Records on demo recordings with songwriter Paul Williams.^[5]

In 1972, he won a recording contract with Decca Records, shortly before it became part of MCA, to make an album with producer Mentor Williams, Paul's brother, in Nashville. Among the songs that they recorded at the Quadrafonic Sound Studios, co-owned by session musicians Norbert Putnam and David Briggs, was Mentor Williams' song "Drift Away", featuring a guitar riff by Reggie Young.^[5][12] Released as a single, the song rose to # 5 on the US pop charts and remains Gray's best known song today.^[2] It placed at #17 in the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1973. The follow-up, a version of Tom Jans' much-covered song "Loving Arms", made # 61 in the chart. Gray also released three albums with MCA, Drift Away, Loving Arms, and Hey, Dixie, but later stated that MCA were unsure of how to market the albums - "They didn't know where to place a black guy in country music."^[5]

In the mid-1970s, he moved permanently to Nashville and signed for Capricorn Records, writing songs in collaboration with Troy Seals.^[2] His biggest hit singles in the late 1970s were "If Love Must Go", # 78 in 1976, and "You Can Do It", # 37 in late 1978, his last solo chart hit.^[6] He increasingly concentrated on songwriting, writing songs for a variety of artists including Ray Charles, George Jones, Johnny Mathis, Charley Pride and Don Williams.^[5][8] Gray also toured in Europe, Australia and Africa in the 1970s. He performed in South Africa only after persuading the apartheid authorities to allow him to play to integrated audiences, becoming the first artist to do so in that country.^[2] His popularity in South Africa continued through numerous subsequent concert tours.^[4][5]

He re-emerged as a recording artist for Capitol Records in the mid-1980s, recording with producer Harold Shedd. Gray placed two singles in the US Billboard country chart during 1986 and 1987, including "That's One to Grow On" which peaked at #35.^[2][13] His country albums included From Where I Stand in 1986, and he made several appearances at Charlie Daniels' popular Volunteer Jam concerts.^[8] He also sang on a number of TV and radio jingles.^[5] In 1997, he released the album Diamond Cuts, including both new songs and re-recordings of older material.^[2]

In 2000, Wigan Casino DJ, Kev Roberts, compiled The Northern Soul Top 500, which was based on a survey of northern soul fans.^[14] Gray's "Out On The Floor", a 1966 recording which had been a British chart hit in 1975, was placed in the Top 10. "Drift Away" became a hit again in 2003, when it was covered by Uncle Kracker on his No Stranger to Shame album. The recording was a duet between Kracker and Gray, who was also featured in the video. It placed at #19 in the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2003.

Death[link]

On December 6, 2011, Gray's official website stated that he had died.^[15] According to the Associated Press, he died at his home in Nashville, Tennessee after a long battle with cancer.^[16] Sources differed as to his age; his official site stated he was 71, while the AP stated he was 69.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• Look (Stripe, 1963)
• Dobie Gray Sings For "In" Crowders (Charger, 1965)
• Pollution (Prophecy/Atlantic, 1970)
• Pollution II (Prophecy/Atlantic, 1971)
• Drift Away (Decca/MCA, 1973)
• Loving Arms (MCA, 1974)
• Hey Dixie (MCA, 1975)
• New Ray Of Sunshine (Capricorn, 1976)
• Let Go (Capricorn, 1977)
• The Best Of Dobie Gray (Gallo, 1978)
• Dobie Gray & Mary Wells (Gusto Inc., 1978)
• Midnight Diamond (Capricorn, 1978)
• Dobie Gray (Infinity, 1979)
• Welcome Home (Equity / Robox, 1981)
• From Where I Stand (Capitol/EMI/Amer., 1986)
• Love’s Talkin’ (Capitol/EMI/Amer., 1987)
• Dobie Gray: His Very Best (Razor & Tie, 1996)
• Diamond Cuts (Dobie Gray Prods., 1998)
• Soul Days (CDMemphis, 2001)
• Dobie Gray: The Ultimate (Universal Hip-O, 2001)
• Songs Of The Season (Dobie Gray Prods., 2001)
• Dobie Gray: A Decade of Dobie (1969–1979) (UMG/Select-O-Hits, 2005)

^[17]

Chart singles[link]

Featured singles[link]

See also[link]

• List of best-charting U.S. music artists
• List of soul musicians
• List of disco artists (A-E)
• List of Decca Records artists

Footnotes[link]

External links[link]

• Dobie Gray official website
• Dobie Gray discography