About Gary Morris
Gary Gwyn Morris is an American singer and stage actor who charted a string of hits on the country music charts throughout the 1980s.
Morris is known for the 1983 ballad "The Wind Beneath My Wings", although his credits include more than twenty-five other chart singles on the Billboard country charts, including five No. 1 hits. He has also released nine studio albums, mostly in the country pop vein, with his 1983 album Why Lady Why having earned a gold certification from the RIAA.
Morris was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He has two siblings, a twin sister, Carey, and a younger brother, Mark. Even though Morris was best known for pop-oriented hits in the 1980s, he was descended from a long line of traditional country singers, who sang hard-twang country and also gospel.
Gary's family moved from Fort Worth to North Richland Hills, Texas in the late 1950s. Morris, a good athlete, played four sports at Richland High School, which led to a scholarship with Cisco Junior College in Texas. It was during college that singing became Morris's chosen vocation, and he decided to move to Colorado. He and his two friends formed a trio, and asked a Colorado Springs bartender if they could get up on the bandstand and perform a few songs, and the audience's response convinced Morris to put his college plans on hold and to pursue a performing career.
In the early 1970s, Morris made a living by singing in nightclubs in Denver, Colorado. He also wrote a few commercial jingles for Frontier Airlines. In 1976, Morris signed on with Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign and sang at fundraisers during Carter's campaign. This job led to Morris' performing at the White House following Carter's election. In the audience was Nashville country music producer Norro Wilson, to whom Morris later gave a demo tape. Wilson liked what he heard, and soon signed Morris to his label Warner Bros. Records.
Morris signed his recording contract with Warner Bros. in 1980. After a pair of minor hits landed just inside the top 40 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, he scored his breakthrough hit with "Headed for a Heartache"; that song reached No. 8 on the country chart in late 1981. Two follow-up singles also reached the top 15.
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