Don Wright

Who was Don Wright?

Donald John Alexander Wright was a Canadian composer, musician and educator.

He was born in Strathroy, Ontario, where his father owned a piano manufacturing company. He began studying cello and trumpet in childhood, and later formed the Wright Brothers Orchestra with his brothers Clark, Ernest and William. While attending the University of Western Ontario, Wright was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. He subsequently worked as a music teacher in London, and then became station manager of local radio station CFPL, where he created the Don Wright Chorus, whose recordings of popular and light classical music received widespread airplay on the Dominion Network in Canada and the Mutual Broadcasting System and NBC Radio in the United States.

He was married to Lillian Meighen Wright, the daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Arthur Meighen. Their daughter Priscilla sang on a rendition of Warwick Webster's "Man in a Raincoat", arranged by Don, which was an international hit in 1955 and resulted in Priscilla performing the song on The Ed Sullivan Show.