Danny Wilson (band)

Danny Wilson were a Scottish pop band formed in Dundee in 1984. The band was best known for its 1988 UK number 3 hit single "Mary's Prayer".

The band served as a launchpad for the career of Gary Clark, who also played in the 1990s bands King L and Transister before becoming a successful songwriter for other artists including Natalie Imbruglia, Liz Phair, Nick Carter, k.d. lang and former Spice Girls Melanie C and Emma Bunton. Other former members of the band have played in Simple Minds, Deacon Blue and Swiss Family Orbison.

History

Background and early history

Gary Clark and Ged Grimes grew up together in Dundee, Scotland and played together in school bands. Influenced by soul and pop artists such as Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Burt Bacharach, and Hal David, they eventually moved to London, where they played in the bands Perfect Strangers and Dream Kitchen during the early 1980s. Neither band met with success: circa 1984, while still in London, Clark and Grimes noticed that talent scouts and journalists were beginning to follow the soul and pop scenes in Scottish cities. Returning to Dundee, they teamed up with Gary Clark's younger brother Kit to form a new band called Spencer Tracy (named after the film star of the same name). Meet Danny Wilson generated two more singles: "Davy" and "A Girl I Used to Know", both of which preceded the successful reissue of "Mary's Prayer" but neither of which matched its success.

The split was amicable, with all three members supporting – and sometimes playing on – each other's future projects. A compilation album, Sweet Danny Wilson, was released by Virgin Records in 1991 (containing a bonus album of live recordings called Three-In-A-Bed Romp). This was followed in 1995 by a compilation album entitled The Best Of Danny Wilson.

In 2025 the band joined with independent record label Cherry Red Records to release the 5-disc anthology Complete Danny Wilson, a career-encompassing release which included both of the band's studio albums, the b-sides and rare tracks which had featured on Sweet Danny Wilson, and for the first time commercially, the full recording of the band's 1st October 1989 show at the "Town & Country Club" (now known as the O2 Forum Kentish Town).

The songs which Gary Clark had written for the unrecorded third Danny Wilson album ended up on his 1993 solo album Ten Short Songs About Love (on which both Ged Grimes and Kit Clark performed).

In 1991, Kit Clark released a solo EP called Lovedung on Reverb Records. He went on to play with his own bands Pony and Swiss Family Orbison during the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2010 he began to perform as a solo artist.

Having spent time as a music writer for computer games, Ged Grimes is currently the bass player for Simple Minds (and has also played with another high-profile Scottish rock band, Deacon Blue).

Occasional reunions (1993, 2014)

On 30 October 1993, Gary Clark and former Bible frontman Boo Hewerdine (who were friends and songwriting collaborators) played a full-length concert at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, sharing the stage throughout while alternating songs written by one or the other or by both together. Both Ged Grimes and Kit Clark played in the five-piece concert band, which played a number of Danny Wilson songs. In effect, this was a version of Danny Wilson fronted by both Clark and Hewerdine, although the evening was billed very much as friends playing together rather than a formal reunion.

The Danny Wilson trio would not reunite on stage for another twenty-one years. In mid-2014 (around the time Gary Clark returned to live in Dundee following many years of being based in London or Los Angeles), the band briefly and secretly reformed to play a short set at a friend's wedding in Dundee. Clark announced afterwards that there were no plans to extend the reunion and that it had taken place as a favour.

On 24 September 2014, the band reunited for their first true public performance in twenty-five years, playing "Mary's Prayer" at the opening ceremony of the Ryder Cup at Glasgow Hydro (alongside other performers, including Texas, Amy Macdonald, Twin Atlantic, Eddi Reader and Midge Ure). Emphasizing Kit Clark's solo career and Ged Grimes' ongoing work with Simple Minds, Clark once again stated that the performance was "unlikely to herald a permanent reunion".

Members

Principal members

Gary Clark – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, harmonica, etc.
Kit Clark – guitars, backing and lead vocals, keyboards, harmonica, percussion, etc.
Ged Grimes – bass guitar, upright bass, keyboards, backing vocals, etc.

Discography

Albums

{| class="wikitable"

! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Year

! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Album

! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Label

! scope="col" colspan="2"|Peak chart positions

! style="width:45px;"|US

! style="width:45px;"|UK

| 1987

| Meet Danny Wilson

| rowspan="4"|Virgin Records

| align=center | 79

| align=center | 65

| 1989

| Bebop Moptop

| align=center | —

| align=center | 24

| 1991

| Sweet Danny Wilson

| align=center | —

| align=center | 54

| 1995

| The Best of Danny Wilson

| align=center | —

| 2025

| Complete Danny Wilson

| rowspan="1"|Cherry Red Records

| align=center | —

| colspan="6" style="text-align:center; font-size:9pt;"| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that territory.

Singles

{| class="wikitable"

! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Year

! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Single

! scope="col" colspan="5"|Peak chart positions

! style="width:45px;"|AUS

! style="width:45px;"|GER

! style="width:45px;"|US Adult

! style="width:45px;"|US Pop

! style="width:45px;"|UK