Grayson Hugh

Grayson Hugh (born October 30, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, Hammond B3 organ player and composer.

Hugh struggled with alcoholism in the 1970s, achieving sobriety in 1980.

In 1980, Hugh released a self-titled album (One in Nineteen Records, 1980).

This album was produced by Ron Scalise, winner of 14 Emmy Awards for audio work with ESPN.

His two other singles "Bring It All Back" and "How 'Bout Us" (a remake of the 1981 Champaign hit recorded with Betty Wright) were also radio hits.

Blind to Reason eventually went gold in Australia.

Hugh moved to New York City in 1986 where he happened to meet producer Michael Baker in an elevator.

Baker was finishing producing The Blow Monkeys's album She Was Only a Grocer's Daughter for RCA Records.

Hugh was hired to sing backup vocals on that album and subsequently signed to RCA Records as singer-songwriter in 1987.

He is best known for his 1988 hit "Talk It Over", and his other blue-eyed soul hits "Bring It All Back" and "How 'Bout Us?".

Hugh was the first generation of his family to be born in the United States, and grew up surrounded by classical music.

His father was classical music radio host Ivor Hugh (born in Hammersmith, England); his mother was born in Shanghai, the daughter of missionary Frank Rawlinson (born in Langham, Rutland, England), who wrote nine books, including a life of Christ in Chinese.

Hugh began playing the piano at the age of three years.

In his early teens, however, rock and roll and soul won out.

He played for a year as the pianist in a black gospel church and studied African drumming.

He studied piano with jazz pianist Jaki Byard and avant garde pianist Ran Blake.

Hugh dropped out of high school during his junior year to focus on his music.

During his 20s, Hugh supplemented his income as a rock and soul musician by accompanying modern dance classes.

This began his association as composer for several well-known choreographers, notably Viola Farber of New York, Prometheus Dance, Rebecca Rice (Boston Ballet) and Christine Bennett of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He briefly attended film school at the University of Bridgeport.

In 1988 "Talk It Over", a song written by Sandy Linzer and Irwin Levine that Hugh arranged, reached the Top 20.

After Hugh had arranged and recorded the song, Olivia Newton-John was given rights of first release, then recorded it herself and released it as a single under the name "Can't We Talk It Over in Bed", which appeared on her album The Rumour.

Hugh subsequently released his version which became a hit.

Hugh toured extensively in 1988 in the US and overseas, at first opening for Dickey Betts, Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson, Sheena Easton and Phoebe Snow, before beginning several years of headlining his own tours.

He broke into the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989 with three singles from his album Blind to Reason (RCA Records, 1988).

Director Ridley Scott heard an advance pressing of Road to Freedom and wanted to put Hugh's music in his film Thelma & Louise (1991).

They eventually settled on two: "I Can't Untie You From Me" and "Don't Look Back" (both of these songs having some additional music contributed by songwriter Holly Knight).

His gospel-tinged arrangement of Bob Dylan's "I'll Remember You" was the featured end-title song for the film Fried Green Tomatoes (1991).

Hugh's second major label album Road to Freedom (MCA Records, 1992) was voted "one of the year's top-ten albums" by Billboard Magazine and received rave reviews.

Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald said: "Have I heard any newcomer in the last decade who excites me as much as this guy? No."

In 1993, the A&R man who signed Grayson to MCA Records (Paul Atkinson) was fired, and Hugh was dropped from the label, along with the other acts Atkinson had signed.

Disillusioned, Hugh left the music industry and moved to North Carolina in 1994, where he formed Grayson Hugh & The Mooncussers.

He continued to write music.

In 1999, Hugh was forced to declare bankruptcy as a result of financial mismanagement by his business team.

Afterwards, he moved back northeast to take a job teaching songwriting at Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1999.

While there, he was commissioned to compose scores for dance companies.

As a result of stress and his mother's declining health, Hugh relapsed into alcoholism.

In 2004, now broke, estranged from his family and friends, and living in a room in a Cape Cod restaurant, Hugh suffered a near-fatal alcohol-induced seizure that left him hospitalized.

In October 2004 he checked into a detox facility and shortly thereafter moved into a sober house in Wareham, Massachusetts.

In 2005, he began meeting with a rehabilitation councilor named Dean Gilmore who happened to be a fan of his.