Close Encounters of the Celebrity Kind audiobook

Close Encounters of the Celebrity Kind Audiobook Narrator

Brian Gari is the narrator of Close Encounters of the Celebrity Kind audiobook that was written by Brian Gari

Brian Gari is celebrating fifty years of songwriting and has written almost nine
hundred songs. He had his first song published at fifteen and recorded at seventeen.
He signed with Vanguard Records in 1975, recording for them through 1976. For
the next few years he performed his songs in New York comedy and cabaret clubs
such as the Ballroom, Reno Sweeney, Catch a Rising Star, the Improv, the Comic
Strip, and the Copa. All along he was writing what was to become his first
Broadway musical, Late Nite Comic, which debuted in October of 1987 at
the Ritz Theatre (now the Walter Kerr.) The album made the top ten for film and
show albums at Tower Records. His songs have been performed and/or recorded by
such artists as Margaret Whiting, the Tokens, Jana Robbins , Kaye Ballard,
Lesley Gore, and Andrea Marcovicci. Brian conceived A Hard Time to Be Single,
a musical revue which premiered in October of 1990 and had successful runs at
Don’t Tell Mama, Eighty-Eights, and Steve McGraw’s in New York City, with a CD
released as well. Brian has produced over a dozen CDs and DVDs on his
grandfather, Eddie Cantor, as well as writing a new musical about him which is
previewed in Brian’s CD Songs for Future Musicals. Love Online
was Brian’s 1997 CD about a romance that ensues via the online-computer
experience. The long awaited follow up, I Can’t Make You Free was
released in 1999. His next release, Brian Sings Wilson, was a salute to
Beach Boys composer Brian Wilson and has received rave reviews. Coincidentally,
Brian became the consulting producer and composer for the E! True Hollywood
Story of the Beach Boys for the Entertainment Television Network. He even
recorded a Christmas CD entitled The Man with All the Toys in true Beach
Boys tradition with songs from both Brians. His next release was entitled Previously
Unreleased and featured songs that were written and recorded over a period
of fifteen years. Brian renewed his friendship with the great Neil Sedaka and
produced a collection of Sedaka rarities released under the title The
Brooklyn Demos. His dedication to Sedaka continued with writing the book
for the box set for the Bear Family label in Germany. Brian also completed a
new album of his own songs for Yvonne Roome. His longtime appreciation of the
music of Brazil resulted in an exciting collection of songs called Here I
Come Brazil. His next CD celebrated the music of “We’ve Only Just Begun”
songwriters Roger Nichols and Paul Williams. In 2010 his collection of songs He’s
an Old Cat got enormous amounts of attention on YouTube and Facebook and
features guest artists Pete Anders and Don Ciccone. In 2012 with the success of
his first book, We Bombed in New London, Brian had his second book
published almost by accident. He had just remarried, and within six months his
wife, a nurse, recognized some disturbing signs of heart trouble. In just two
days, he was undergoing open heart surgery, which saved his life. The book, A
Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Stress Tests, tells that story and
its connection to his famous grandfather. Later, Brian was reminiscing about
all the famous people he had encounters with during his lifetime and decided to
write a book about those experiences. His Close Encounters of the Celebrity
Kind has over thirty stories that include people like Brian Wilson, Neil
Sedaka, Little Richard, Dick Clark, The Beatles (including a special John
Lennon story), Johnny Mathis, Robin Williams, Soupy Sales and of course, Eddie
Cantor! Early in 2014, Brian was going through some old tapes and found a near
perfect concert from 1978 that featured many rare songs he performed, including
the first version of “The Coffee Shoppe” that Margaret Whiting later recorded.