Dwight Twilley
Encyclopedia
Dwight Twilley is an American pop/rock singer and songwriter, best known for the Top 20 hit singles "I'm on Fire
" (1975) and "Girls" (1984). Twilley and Phil Seymour
performed as the Dwight Twilley Band through 1978, and Twilley has performed as a solo act since then.
met in Tulsa in 1967 at a theater where they had gone to see The Beatles
' A Hard Day's Night
, and soon began writing songs and recording together. They continued their partnership over the next several years under the name Oister. Twilley wrote all the songs and played guitar and piano, Seymour played drums and bass, and both sang leads and harmonies. Guitarist Bill Pitcock IV played lead guitar on most of their tracks.
Twilley attended Edison High School
and went to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College
from 1971 to 1973. Twilley and Seymour eventually decided to leave Tulsa and try to be discovered at a recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee. By sheer chance, the first studio that they wandered into was Sun Studio
, where they met, according to Twilley, "some guy named Phillips." After listening to a cassette of their folk/pop/country blend, Jerry Phillips (son of Sun founder Sam Phillips
) referred them to the Tupelo, Mississippi studio of former Sun artist Ray Harris
, whom both Twilley and Seymour credited for introducing them to rockabilly
and adding a harder edge to their sound.
Ultimately, Twilley and Seymour went to Los Angeles to find a label, where they ironically signed with Shelter Records
, a label co-owned by Denny Cordell
and Tulsa's Leon Russell
, in 1974. Cordell promptly changed the group's name from Oister to the Dwight Twilley Band, which set the seeds for future problems arising from Seymour's anonymity in the partnership.
Their first single, "I'm on Fire
", reached #16 on the charts in 1975 with relatively little promotion, largely because the band was in England recording its first album, tentatively called Fire, with producer Robin Cable at Trident Studios
. The photos used on the single's picture sleeve were low quality from a photo booth
, even less professional than the band's first promo picture (right). The unexpected success of the self-produced "I'm On Fire" caused most of the English tracks to be relegated to a second album, thereafter known as The B Album. Leon Russell then permitted the band to record new tracks at his 40-track home studio, where one of the engineers was Roger Linn
, who also contributed lead guitars and bass to some recordings.
During an appearance on American Bandstand
, the band played what was to be its follow-up single, "Shark (in the Dark)", produced by Twilley, Seymour and Russell. The success of the film Jaws
, however, caused Shelter to reject the single, apparently to keep the group from being perceived as a cash-in novelty act. The eventual follow-up single, "You Were So Warm" backed with "Sincerely", failed due to distribution problems; just after the single was released, Shelter Records collapsed in the midst of a lawsuit between Russell and Cordell. The Dwight Twilley Band's completed album went unreleased for 10 months due to Shelter's switch from MCA Records
to ABC Records
for distribution, and The B Album was left unreleased.
When the album Sincerely was finally released in 1976, it surprisingly failed as well, peaking at #138. During this time, Seymour and Twilley befriended label mate Tom Petty
and contributed backing vocals on several of his tracks, creating a long-lasting friendship.
Shelter then switched distribution again to Arista Records
. ABC elected to keep Petty and J. J. Cale, leaving Twilley alone on the Shelter/Arista label. Pitcock became a credited member of the Dwight Twilley Band during touring and recording of the second album. However, that album, Twilley Don't Mind
, proved to be another commercial disappointment in 1977. Seymour left the band the following year, pursuing a solo career with some success until he developed what proved to be terminal cancer. He died of lymphoma
in 1993, and Twilley still does not perform Dwight Twilley Band songs that featured lead vocals by Seymour.
The Dwight Twilley Band albums were reissued in CD form with bonus tracks by the audiophile DCC Compact Classics label in 1989 and 1990. In 1993, shortly before Phil Seymour's death, the Dwight Twilley Band released The Great Lost Twilley Album
, which collected a fraction of the "hundreds" of early unreleased songs Twilley and Seymour had recorded for Shelter, including several songs from The B Album and Blueprint, as well as a few alternate versions of released songs. However, once again the Dwight Twilley Band fell victim to some label politics, as EMI
bought the rights to Shelter just weeks after the release, and all three of the DCC Dwight Twilley Band albums went out of print again.
In 1997, The Right Stuff, a reissue label owned by EMI, reissued Sincerely
and Twilley Don't Mind
with somewhat different bonus tracks from the DCC versions. They both went out of print the following year, when EMI discontinued the label.
The Dwight Twilley Band albums Sincerely
and Twilley Don't Mind
were reissued in a two-disk compilations by Australia's Raven Records
in 2007 with still different bonus tracks.
Finally, in 2009, a tape of the Dwight Twilley Band's October 1976 concert at the Agora Theatre and Ballroom
in Cleveland, Ohio
, which had been recorded for broadcast on Cleveland radio station WMMS
, was remastered and released as a live album entitled Live From Agora
.
on harmony vocals. This lineup released the album Twilley for Shelter/Arista in 1979, although the album's most successful song, "Darlin'", featured backing vocals by Seymour. His next album, Blueprint, co-produced by Jack Nitzsche
, was rejected by Arista after the failure of the 1979 single "Somebody to Love" although it was assigned an Arista release number. Blueprint ultimately was never released, keeping Twilley out of circulation until his Shelter contract expired at the end of 1981.
He then moved to EMI America for Scuba Divers (1982), a combination of rejected Blueprint tracks and new material. His follow-up album, Jungle (1984), produced his second national hit single, "Girls", featuring a counterpoint vocal by Petty, which also reached #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the Billboard
Top Tracks chart. His follow-up single, "Little Bit of Love", reached #77. Unfortunately, Twilley left EMI America at that point, which once again dissipated his momentum from the hit. Twilley's 1986 album Wild Dogs was recorded for Private I Records, a custom label run by independent radio promoter Joe Isgro that was distributed by Epic Records
; however, when Isgro was implicated in a 1986 radio promotion scandal, Private I Records collapsed. Instead, the album was quietly released by Epic's CBS Associated label, where it went largely unnoticed, despite the appearance of the last Twilley/Seymour song, "Shooting Stars".
After the failure of Wild Dogs, Twilley found himself without a label (or a lead guitarist, as Bill Pitcock IV had quit). Twilley wrote a parenting book based on his long-distance relationship with his daughter Dionne, entitled Questions From Dad. He then ironically titled his next album, intended for release in 1994, The Luck. The irony didn't help Twilley with record label executives, and Twilley was unable to secure distribution for it.
In 1996, EMI issued a 21-song Twilley "greatest hits" collection entitled XXI, which included two new songs (one of which had been on The Luck) on its The Right Stuff reissue label, followed by reissues of the two Dwight Twilley Band studio albums the next year. Unfortunately, all three of these releases again went out of print in 1998, when EMI discontinued the label.
However, in 1998, Pitcock rejoined Twilley, and the rise of digital audio meant that placing a record on a major label became less of a priority. In 1999, Twilley released both another rarities collection, Between the Cracks, Vol. 1 (Not Lame Records), made up of songs not owned by Shelter, EMI or CBS, and his first new album in 13 years, Tulsa (Copper Records). In 2001, Twilley finally released The Luck (Big Oak Records), although with some changes to the version he had completed in 1994. he six-song seasonal EP Have a Twilley Christmas (Digital Musicworks International, "DMI") appeared in 2004, followed by two more albums on the same label, his ninth studio album, 47 Moons, in 2005 and his first live album, Live: All Access in 2006.
Tulsa was sold to DMI (now Digital Music Group, Incorporated, or DMGI) in 2004. Additionally, the first two Twilley solo albums Twilley and Scuba Divers are available in two-disk compilations by Australia's Raven Records
. However, Jungle and Wild Dogs have never been released in CD format.
In November, 2007, Twilley's DMGI catalog was acquired by DMGI founder and CEO, Mitchell Koulouris, who moved the artist to his new label, Gigatone. A post-major label retrospective titled Northridge to Tulsa (Twilley lived in Northridge while recording The Luck) was the first to be released by Gigatone (in December 2007). In addition, a new release of 47 Moons with bonus tracks and a remastered edition of Tulsa were also released by Gigatone in December 2007. Finally, seven volumes of outtakes, demos and live recordings in a series titled Rarities was also released by Gigatone. In 2009, Twilley released albums covering some of his favorite songs by The Beatles
and other artists. In 2010 he released the album Green Blimp.
Solo
I'm on Fire (Dwight Twilley Band song)
"I'm on Fire" is the debut single by the Dwight Twilley Band released in April 1975. The single peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1975. "I'm on Fire" was later included on the Dwight Twilley Band's first album Sincerely released in July 1976....
" (1975) and "Girls" (1984). Twilley and Phil Seymour
Phil Seymour
Phil Seymour was an American power pop drummer, singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known for the singles "I'm On Fire" and "Precious to Me". He had a major role in the seminal pop group Dwight Twilley Band...
performed as the Dwight Twilley Band through 1978, and Twilley has performed as a solo act since then.
The Dwight Twilley Band
Twilley and Phil SeymourPhil Seymour
Phil Seymour was an American power pop drummer, singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known for the singles "I'm On Fire" and "Precious to Me". He had a major role in the seminal pop group Dwight Twilley Band...
met in Tulsa in 1967 at a theater where they had gone to see The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
, and soon began writing songs and recording together. They continued their partnership over the next several years under the name Oister. Twilley wrote all the songs and played guitar and piano, Seymour played drums and bass, and both sang leads and harmonies. Guitarist Bill Pitcock IV played lead guitar on most of their tracks.
Twilley attended Edison High School
Edison Preparatory School
Thomas Edison Preparatory School is a public school located in midtown Tulsa, Oklahoma serving students from the sixth grade to the twelfth grade.-Overview:...
and went to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College
Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College
Located in the small former mining town of Miami, Oklahoma, Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College, commonly referred to as NEO, is a two-year community college with programs in Agriculture, Livestock Judging, Nursing, Physical Therapist Assistant, Theatre, Social Science, and a variety of other...
from 1971 to 1973. Twilley and Seymour eventually decided to leave Tulsa and try to be discovered at a recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee. By sheer chance, the first studio that they wandered into was Sun Studio
Sun Studio
Sun Studio is a recording studio opened by rock pioneer Sam Phillips at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 3, 1950. It was originally called Memphis Recording Service, sharing the same building with the Sun Records label business...
, where they met, according to Twilley, "some guy named Phillips." After listening to a cassette of their folk/pop/country blend, Jerry Phillips (son of Sun founder Sam Phillips
Sam Phillips
Samuel Cornelius Phillips , better known as Sam Phillips, was an American businessman, record executive, record producer and DJ who played an important role in the emergence of rock and roll as the major form of popular music in the 1950s...
) referred them to the Tupelo, Mississippi studio of former Sun artist Ray Harris
Ray Harris
Ray Harris was an American rockabilly musician and songwriter. He formed a band with Wayne Powers, and wrote the songs "Come On, Little Mama" and "Greenback Dollar, Watch and Chain". He eventually recorded these at Sun Records with Sam Phillips. He has also produced artists at Hi Records...
, whom both Twilley and Seymour credited for introducing them to rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
and adding a harder edge to their sound.
Ultimately, Twilley and Seymour went to Los Angeles to find a label, where they ironically signed with Shelter Records
Shelter Records
Shelter Records was a U.S. record label started by Leon Russell and Denny Cordell that operated from 1969 to 1981. The company established offices in both Los Angeles and Tulsa, Russell's home town, where the label sought to promote a "workshop atmosphere" with a recording studio in a converted...
, a label co-owned by Denny Cordell
Denny Cordell
Denny Cordell was an English record producer. He is notable for his late 1960s and early 1970s productions of hit singles for The Moody Blues, The Move, Procol Harum and Joe Cocker.-Career:...
and Tulsa's Leon Russell
Leon Russell
Claude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
, in 1974. Cordell promptly changed the group's name from Oister to the Dwight Twilley Band, which set the seeds for future problems arising from Seymour's anonymity in the partnership.
Their first single, "I'm on Fire
I'm on Fire (Dwight Twilley Band song)
"I'm on Fire" is the debut single by the Dwight Twilley Band released in April 1975. The single peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1975. "I'm on Fire" was later included on the Dwight Twilley Band's first album Sincerely released in July 1976....
", reached #16 on the charts in 1975 with relatively little promotion, largely because the band was in England recording its first album, tentatively called Fire, with producer Robin Cable at Trident Studios
Trident Studios
Trident Studios was a British recording facility, originally located at 17 St. Anne's Court in London's Soho district. It was constructed in 1967 by Norman Sheffield a drummer of former 1960's group The Hunters and his Brother Barry....
. The photos used on the single's picture sleeve were low quality from a photo booth
Photo booth
A photo booth is a vending machine or modern kiosk that contains an automated, usually coin-operated, camera and film processor. Today the vast majority of photo booths are digital. Traditionally photo booths contain a seat or bench designed to seat the one or two patrons being photographed...
, even less professional than the band's first promo picture (right). The unexpected success of the self-produced "I'm On Fire" caused most of the English tracks to be relegated to a second album, thereafter known as The B Album. Leon Russell then permitted the band to record new tracks at his 40-track home studio, where one of the engineers was Roger Linn
Roger Linn
Roger Linn is an industrial designer, mainly of electronic drum machines, and has recently branched out into guitar effects pedals. His products have become underground hits, being used on many famous recordings...
, who also contributed lead guitars and bass to some recordings.
During an appearance on American Bandstand
American Bandstand
American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
, the band played what was to be its follow-up single, "Shark (in the Dark)", produced by Twilley, Seymour and Russell. The success of the film Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
, however, caused Shelter to reject the single, apparently to keep the group from being perceived as a cash-in novelty act. The eventual follow-up single, "You Were So Warm" backed with "Sincerely", failed due to distribution problems; just after the single was released, Shelter Records collapsed in the midst of a lawsuit between Russell and Cordell. The Dwight Twilley Band's completed album went unreleased for 10 months due to Shelter's switch from MCA Records
MCA Records
MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...
to ABC Records
ABC Records
ABC Records was an American record label, founded in New York City in 1955 as ABC-Paramount Records. It originated as the main popular music label operated the Am-Par Record Corporation, the music subsidiary of the American Broadcasting Company . ABC-Paramount Records' first president was Samuel H....
for distribution, and The B Album was left unreleased.
When the album Sincerely was finally released in 1976, it surprisingly failed as well, peaking at #138. During this time, Seymour and Twilley befriended label mate Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
and contributed backing vocals on several of his tracks, creating a long-lasting friendship.
Shelter then switched distribution again to Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
. ABC elected to keep Petty and J. J. Cale, leaving Twilley alone on the Shelter/Arista label. Pitcock became a credited member of the Dwight Twilley Band during touring and recording of the second album. However, that album, Twilley Don't Mind
Twilley Don't Mind
Twilley Don't Mind is the second album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded and released in 1977 on Shelter Records, distributed at the time by Arista Records. The band consisted of Dwight Twilley , Phil Seymour , and Bill Pitcock IV...
, proved to be another commercial disappointment in 1977. Seymour left the band the following year, pursuing a solo career with some success until he developed what proved to be terminal cancer. He died of lymphoma
Lymphoma
Lymphoma is a cancer in the lymphatic cells of the immune system. Typically, lymphomas present as a solid tumor of lymphoid cells. Treatment might involve chemotherapy and in some cases radiotherapy and/or bone marrow transplantation, and can be curable depending on the histology, type, and stage...
in 1993, and Twilley still does not perform Dwight Twilley Band songs that featured lead vocals by Seymour.
The Dwight Twilley Band albums were reissued in CD form with bonus tracks by the audiophile DCC Compact Classics label in 1989 and 1990. In 1993, shortly before Phil Seymour's death, the Dwight Twilley Band released The Great Lost Twilley Album
The Great Lost Twilley Album
The Great Lost Twilley Album was the third and final studio album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded in 1974 through 1980 and released in 1993 on Shelter Records...
, which collected a fraction of the "hundreds" of early unreleased songs Twilley and Seymour had recorded for Shelter, including several songs from The B Album and Blueprint, as well as a few alternate versions of released songs. However, once again the Dwight Twilley Band fell victim to some label politics, as EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
bought the rights to Shelter just weeks after the release, and all three of the DCC Dwight Twilley Band albums went out of print again.
In 1997, The Right Stuff, a reissue label owned by EMI, reissued Sincerely
Sincerely (Twilley album)
Sincerely is the debut album from the Dwight Twilley Band, released in 1976 on Shelter Records. The band consisted solely of Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour , although touring band member Bill Pitcock IV played lead guitar on every song except for "Sincerely" itself...
and Twilley Don't Mind
Twilley Don't Mind
Twilley Don't Mind is the second album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded and released in 1977 on Shelter Records, distributed at the time by Arista Records. The band consisted of Dwight Twilley , Phil Seymour , and Bill Pitcock IV...
with somewhat different bonus tracks from the DCC versions. They both went out of print the following year, when EMI discontinued the label.
The Dwight Twilley Band albums Sincerely
Sincerely (Twilley album)
Sincerely is the debut album from the Dwight Twilley Band, released in 1976 on Shelter Records. The band consisted solely of Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour , although touring band member Bill Pitcock IV played lead guitar on every song except for "Sincerely" itself...
and Twilley Don't Mind
Twilley Don't Mind
Twilley Don't Mind is the second album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded and released in 1977 on Shelter Records, distributed at the time by Arista Records. The band consisted of Dwight Twilley , Phil Seymour , and Bill Pitcock IV...
were reissued in a two-disk compilations by Australia's Raven Records
Raven Records
Raven Records is an Australian record label that specializes in retrospectives and reissues or recordings by American, British and Australian artists.Raven Records was established in 1979 by Glenn A. Baker, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito....
in 2007 with still different bonus tracks.
Finally, in 2009, a tape of the Dwight Twilley Band's October 1976 concert at the Agora Theatre and Ballroom
Agora Theatre and Ballroom
The Agora Theatre and Ballroom is a concert club located in Cleveland, Ohio. The Agora name was previously used by two other Cleveland venues in succession, the latter of which was destroyed by fire in 1984...
in Cleveland, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, which had been recorded for broadcast on Cleveland radio station WMMS
WMMS
WMMS — branded 100.7 WMMS: The Buzzard — is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, widely recognized as one of the most influential rock stations in America throughout much of the history of FM broadcasting...
, was remastered and released as a live album entitled Live From Agora
Live from Agora
Live From Agora was the fourth and final album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded live in October 1976 and released in 2009 on Gigatone Records...
.
Solo Years
After the demise of the Dwight Twilley Band, Twilley continued as a solo act, keeping Pitcock on lead guitar and adding Susan CowsillSusan Cowsill
Susan Claire Cowsill is a musician, vocalist and songwriter. She is the youngest member of The Cowsills and the only daughter of parents Bud and Barbara Cowsill.-The Cowsills:...
on harmony vocals. This lineup released the album Twilley for Shelter/Arista in 1979, although the album's most successful song, "Darlin'", featured backing vocals by Seymour. His next album, Blueprint, co-produced by Jack Nitzsche
Jack Nitzsche
Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an arranger, producer, songwriter, and film score composer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others...
, was rejected by Arista after the failure of the 1979 single "Somebody to Love" although it was assigned an Arista release number. Blueprint ultimately was never released, keeping Twilley out of circulation until his Shelter contract expired at the end of 1981.
He then moved to EMI America for Scuba Divers (1982), a combination of rejected Blueprint tracks and new material. His follow-up album, Jungle (1984), produced his second national hit single, "Girls", featuring a counterpoint vocal by Petty, which also reached #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Top Tracks chart. His follow-up single, "Little Bit of Love", reached #77. Unfortunately, Twilley left EMI America at that point, which once again dissipated his momentum from the hit. Twilley's 1986 album Wild Dogs was recorded for Private I Records, a custom label run by independent radio promoter Joe Isgro that was distributed by Epic Records
Epic Records
Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...
; however, when Isgro was implicated in a 1986 radio promotion scandal, Private I Records collapsed. Instead, the album was quietly released by Epic's CBS Associated label, where it went largely unnoticed, despite the appearance of the last Twilley/Seymour song, "Shooting Stars".
After the failure of Wild Dogs, Twilley found himself without a label (or a lead guitarist, as Bill Pitcock IV had quit). Twilley wrote a parenting book based on his long-distance relationship with his daughter Dionne, entitled Questions From Dad. He then ironically titled his next album, intended for release in 1994, The Luck. The irony didn't help Twilley with record label executives, and Twilley was unable to secure distribution for it.
In 1996, EMI issued a 21-song Twilley "greatest hits" collection entitled XXI, which included two new songs (one of which had been on The Luck) on its The Right Stuff reissue label, followed by reissues of the two Dwight Twilley Band studio albums the next year. Unfortunately, all three of these releases again went out of print in 1998, when EMI discontinued the label.
However, in 1998, Pitcock rejoined Twilley, and the rise of digital audio meant that placing a record on a major label became less of a priority. In 1999, Twilley released both another rarities collection, Between the Cracks, Vol. 1 (Not Lame Records), made up of songs not owned by Shelter, EMI or CBS, and his first new album in 13 years, Tulsa (Copper Records). In 2001, Twilley finally released The Luck (Big Oak Records), although with some changes to the version he had completed in 1994. he six-song seasonal EP Have a Twilley Christmas (Digital Musicworks International, "DMI") appeared in 2004, followed by two more albums on the same label, his ninth studio album, 47 Moons, in 2005 and his first live album, Live: All Access in 2006.
Tulsa was sold to DMI (now Digital Music Group, Incorporated, or DMGI) in 2004. Additionally, the first two Twilley solo albums Twilley and Scuba Divers are available in two-disk compilations by Australia's Raven Records
Raven Records
Raven Records is an Australian record label that specializes in retrospectives and reissues or recordings by American, British and Australian artists.Raven Records was established in 1979 by Glenn A. Baker, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito....
. However, Jungle and Wild Dogs have never been released in CD format.
In November, 2007, Twilley's DMGI catalog was acquired by DMGI founder and CEO, Mitchell Koulouris, who moved the artist to his new label, Gigatone. A post-major label retrospective titled Northridge to Tulsa (Twilley lived in Northridge while recording The Luck) was the first to be released by Gigatone (in December 2007). In addition, a new release of 47 Moons with bonus tracks and a remastered edition of Tulsa were also released by Gigatone in December 2007. Finally, seven volumes of outtakes, demos and live recordings in a series titled Rarities was also released by Gigatone. In 2009, Twilley released albums covering some of his favorite songs by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and other artists. In 2010 he released the album Green Blimp.
The Dwight Twilley Band
- Sincerely (1976, reissued 1989, 1997, 2007)
- Twilley Don't MindTwilley Don't MindTwilley Don't Mind is the second album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded and released in 1977 on Shelter Records, distributed at the time by Arista Records. The band consisted of Dwight Twilley , Phil Seymour , and Bill Pitcock IV...
(1977, reissued 1990, 1997, 2007) - The Great Lost Twilley AlbumThe Great Lost Twilley AlbumThe Great Lost Twilley Album was the third and final studio album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded in 1974 through 1980 and released in 1993 on Shelter Records...
(1993) - Live From AgoraLive from AgoraLive From Agora was the fourth and final album from the Dwight Twilley Band, recorded live in October 1976 and released in 2009 on Gigatone Records...
(2009)
Solo
- Twilley (1979, reissued 2006)
- Scuba Divers (1982, reissued 2006)
- Jungle (1984)
- Wild Dogs (1986)
- XXI (1996) - greatest hits
- Between the Cracks, Vol. 1 (1999)
- Tulsa (1999, remastered 2007)
- The Luck (2001)
- Have A Twilley Christmas (EP, 2004; expanded and remastered, 2005)
- 47 Moons (2005, reissued 2007)
- Live: All Access (2006)
- Northridge to Tulsa: The Best of Dwight Twilley 1997-2007 (2007)
- Rarities, Volume 1 (2007)
- Rarities, Volume 2 (2008)
- Rarities, Volume 3 (2008)
- Rarities, Volume 4 (2008)
- Out Of The Box (2009)
- Rarities, Volume 5 (2009)
- Rarities, Volume 6 (2009)
- Rarities, Volume 7 (2009)
- Rarities, Volume 8 (2009)
- The Beatles (2009)
- Green Blimp (2010)
- Soundtrack (2011)
Videos
The Dwight Twilley Band- "Looking For the Magic" (with Tom Petty)
Solo
- "Girls" (music video, with Tom Petty)
- "I'm on Fire" (live)