Imhotep Gary Byrd (born March 14, 1949) is an American, New York City-based radio talk show host and executive producer, radio DJ, poet, songwriter, music recording artist and producer, rapper, writer and community advocate/activist. Byrd began his career as a radio DJ in Buffalo at age 15. In 2015, he celebrated 50 years as a radio personality. For over 30 years, he’s been a talk show host at WBLS and WLIB radio in New York City.
Gary Byrd and the GB Experience was an American male/female vocal/instrumental group, who had a single titled "The Crown", in the UK Singles Chart. It was released on the Motown label, entered the chart on 23 July 1983 at number 21, and rose to a high of number 6; it remained in the chart for 9 weeks. It had previously been released in the US on Stevie Wonder's short-lived Wondirection label but did not receive the proper promotion because its release coincided with the purchase of Motown by MCA Records, where the small label was overlooked.
Radio
Byrd began his career in Buffalo, New York, on WUFO in the 1960s, discovered and mentored by broadcaster-educator Hank Cameron as a radio prodigy at age 15. As a teen, he integrated Buffalo broadcasting as a radio personality on the general market McLendon station WYSL. By age 19, he was tapped by radio programmer Jerry Boulding to be a DJ on soul station WWRL-AM, where he created his music infotainment show, "The GBE: The Gary Byrd Experience."
Since the 1980s (after being hired by Percy Sutton & Hal Jackson, co founders of Inner City Broadcasting) he's been a talk show host on WLIB, WBLS and WBAI. During the 1990s, he created the "Global Black Experience," a live broadcast for the Apollo Theater.
During the 1980s, Byrd was also a radio and television personality in England, hosting shows on the BBC and other British networks. His 1984 BBC television special with Gil Scott Heron and James Brown earned national awards.
Currently, Byrd can also be heard nationally as "The Voice" of Sirius XM’s "Soul Town" Channel ("Classic Soul & Motown.") His New York City public broadcasting program on Pacifica, "Radio GBE," a weekly talk and music program, is heard live every Friday night from 6:00pm –8:00pm on WBAI-FM and at WBAI.org.
Music
Byrd is also a poet, author, performer, spoken word artist, and lyricist. A collaborator with Stevie Wonder, Byrd served as lyricist on Wonder’s "Village Ghetto Land" and "Black Man" on his album Songs in the Key of Life. Byrd also co-wrote three other songs with Wonder--"Dark N Lovely," a tribute to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, “Front Line,” from the 1982 Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I album, and "Misrepresented People," for the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s movie Bamboozled, in which Byrd appears, playing himself as a radio talk show host. Over the years, his music has been sampled and covered by high profile artists. George Michael performed "Village Ghetto Land" at a special London tribute to Nelson Mandela, where Wonder sang "Dark-N-Lovely." Byrd has also written songs for other artists from Kurtis Blow’s "Feelin Good" to "I Cry" for Millie Jackson, which have been sampled dozens of times by a long list of hip hop artists including 50 Cent, Nas and several others.
Byrd wrote, performed and released his own first single "Every Brother Ain't a Brother" on Real Thing Records after demand for the original poem from his WWRL overnight radio audience, on his overnight show "The GBE: The Gary Byrd Experience."
As an artist on RCA Records in the 1970s, Byrd also recorded his first album, Presenting The Gary Byrd Experience. And, later the single "Soul Traveling" with Jimmy Castor & The Bunch, also on RCA Records. James Brown "The Godfather of Soul" dedicated the song "Mind Power" from his Big Payback album to Byrd.
"The Crown", 12" version ran for 10 minutes 35 seconds, making it one of the longest tracks ever to appear in the UK Singles Chart. It was written by Gary Byrd and Stevie Wonder, and presented a wide-ranging historical narrative of human progress (beginning with the ancient Egyptians and continuing to the present day) with an emphasis on African heritage. It featured spoken/rapped verses by Byrd, with one verse sung by Wonder and Crystal Blake. Byrd described the song at the time thus: "The idea is not that black, white or anyone is better, but that we all have our place. We've all made contributions - and mistakes too. Wearing the crown is reaching the top of your potential. You could be a writer or you could be a mechanic, but you can still wear the crown."