Music Career

Yank’s father succumbs to a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of thirty-six. Six months later, his five year-old brother dies following an open-heart surgery. Yank was deeply hurt and disoriented by such a sad turn of events.

Family circumstances led to Yank leaving his home behind and moving to Israel to live on a kibbutz. Yank had been given a Stratocaster guitar and Gibson amplifier by his Uncle Louis and his mother for his bar mitzvah. He was born with a love of music and a gift for performing. It wasn’t until Yank found himself living in Israel as a teenager that he realized that his musical gifts could support him financially.

Yank smiles when he recalls those “flower power” years, especially the time when he shared the stage with Jimmy Hendrix, the great rock guitarist, at the Café Wa in Greenwich Village.

His manager, Ben Kaye, also managed the “Baronnets”, a popular Quebec group of the time. It is during that period that Yank met Rene Angelil, who would become the manager and husband of mega-star Celine Dion. At the time, Rene was a member of the “Baronnets”. A few years later Celine Dion would become a Global Village Champion.

Yank Barry was lead singer of the Kingsmen in 1968 and 1969 after an audition process with two founding members, Mike Mitchel and Dick Peterson of the Kingsmen and their managers. According to the band’s website www.louielouie.org “Yank Barry has done more for the song Louie Louie around world than any other member, raising millions of dollars for charity. He has also re-familiarized the new generation with our hit Louie Louie.”

Yank mixed the first quadraphonic album named Quadrophonic along with Robert Lifton and Ben Lanzarone at Regent Sound Studios in New York in 1970. The album was a Bob Crewe production with Ben Lanzarone as the solo artist on piano accompanied by a philharmonic orchestra. This was the first quadraphonic album released to the general public.

Yank co-wrote a number of the songs featured in this epic auditory experience which included quadraphonic tracks. The leather bound album sets are sought after collectibles. The diary of Mr Gray put him on the cover of many trade magazines not to mention the Mike Douglas show, the Merve Griffin show and the Sally Jessie show as a featured guest.

Following the success of The Diary Of Mr. Gray Yank immersed himself in music productions by arranging, writing or producing major artists such as Ben E. King, Englebert Humperdinck, Gary U.S. Bonds and Tom Jones. He developed a special mixing technique that still bears his name today. But Yank’s world was not just music; he started to get involved with social causes. Yank was commissioned by the White House, (Richard M. Nixon) to write and compose “Welcome Home P.O.W.s” In 1975 to help raise money for the American P.O.W. families. Furthermore, he used profits from his rock-opera to help various drug-rehab programs in the United States.