Stevie Wright

Stephen Carlton Wright (20 December 1947 – 27 December 2015) was an Australian singer, songwriter, and musician. Called Australia’s first international pop star, he is best known for being the lead singer of the Easybeats, who are widely regarded as the greatest Australian pop band of the 1960s.Born in Leeds, Wright migrated with his family to Australia at the age of nine, living in Melbourne and later Sydney at the Villawood Migrant Hostel, where he met his future bandmates and formed the Easybeats. Their early hits were co-written by Wright with bandmate George Young, including top ten hits such as "She’s So Fine", "Wedding Ring", "Sorry" and "Women (Make You Feel Alright)". He was lead vocalist on their only international hit, "Friday on My Mind", which peaked at number one in Australia in 1966, the top ten in the United Kingdom, and the top twenty in the United States and Canada.

After the Easybeats disbanded in 1969, Wright fronted numerous groups including the Stevie Wright Band and Stevie Wright & the Allstars; his solo career included the 1974 single "Evie (Parts 1, 2 & 3)", which peaked at number one on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart. Wright had problems with alcohol and drug addiction. By 1976 he was hospitalised and undertook methadone treatment. In the late 1970s he was treated at Chelmsford Private Hospital by Harry Bailey, who administered deep sleep therapy with a combination of drug-induced coma and electroshock.Wright’s life was detailed in two biographies, Sorry: The Wretched Tale of Little Stevie Wright by Jack Marx (1999) and Hard Road: The Life and Times of Stevie Wright by Glenn Goldsmith (2004). On 14 July 2005, the Easybeats, with Wright as a member, were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.