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Dobie Gray was born on July 26, 1940, to a family of sharecroppers in Simonton, Texas (some sources cite Brookshire, Texas, as Gray's place of birth, but he claimed on his official website that he hails from Simonton. Moreover, his birth name has been variously cited as either Lawrence Victor Ainsworth or Laurence Darrow Brown). Gray's Baptist minister grandfather introduced him to gospel music. Dobie also listened to country/western and rhythm-and-blues music as a kid.
He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s. His seventh recorded single, "Look at Me", was his first chart success. Dobie had a top-20 hit with the catchy "The 'In' Crowd" in 1965. The follow-up song, "See You at the Go-Go", was only a modest success. While in Hollywood Gray took acting classes and acted in stage productions of "A Raisin in the Sun," "The Amen Corner," "Look Homeward Angel," "Rhinoceros," and the hugely popular hippie counterculture musical "Hair" (he stayed with this play for two and a half years). He sang with the band Pollution in the early 1970s. In 1973 he scored his biggest and most beloved smash with the supremely mellow and soothing "Drift Away", which reached #5 on the pop charts, has been covered by many major artists (among them Elvis Presley and Ray Charles) and has since become a staple on classic rock radio stations. Dobie played a lead role in the blaxploitation feature Mean Mother (1973) and appeared as himself in the comedy Out of Sight (1966).
Dobie's sound changed from soul to country in the mid-'70s. He relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, and had modest country chart hits with such songs as "That's One to Grow On" and "From Where I Stand." In addition, Gray enjoyed a nice sideline career as a songwriter; among the artists he penned songs for are Charley Pride, George Jones, Johnny Mathis, Conway Twitty, John Denver, B.J. Thomas and Tammy Wynette. Moreover, Dobie did radio and TV commercial work for such high-profile companies as Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Allstate, Chevrolet, Buick, and Kraft. He toured in Europe, Australia, and Africa (he performed for integrated audiences in South Africa during the apartheid era). His songs are featured on the soundtracks to such movies as Uptown Saturday Night (1974) (in which he sings the titular theme song), Casey's Shadow (1978), Casino (1995) and Wonderland (2003). In 2003 he sang a duet with rap artist Uncle Kracker on a hip-hop cover of "Drift Away;" the cover peaked at #1 on the charts for 28 weeks. Gray died at age 71 from cancer on December 6, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee.
