(Level 4) Co-written with the talented songwriter/saxophonist, Jon Negus, this piece has a lyric about being thankful for what life has to offer. This mid-tempo, gospel-inflected funk number is inspirational without being preachy, and will have your audience on its feet at the rousing conclusion. Especially good with able gospel soloists. SSAATTBB with rhythm.

View all charts by Gary Fry

GARY FRY is heard by millions of people every day. For nearly twenty years, first as a writer and former partner of Com/track and now as a member of the creative team at Catfish Music, he has crafted music for thousands of television and radio commercials for such major corporations as McDonald's, Sears, Kellogg's, United Airlines, Nintendo, Kraft, Anheuser-Busch and many others. Recently, the production of music for records has become a focus, particularly in the area of children's records. Three albums for Kid Rhino Records featuring Ronald McDonald led to a two-album Looney Tunes project for Warner Brothers. Visual Records has just released Winds of Bali, an "enhanced CD" with forty minutes of Fry's original compositions synchronized to nature photographs of that island paradise. Commissions and concert works are a part of Fry's output that he finds particularly rewarding. Fourteen times in the past five years the renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus have commissioned original works and arrangements from him including their own, now-standard Christmas song, Christmas in Chicago. Fry also occasionally composes music for motion pictures and television. Film credits include Cease Fire, Retreads, Trancers IV and Trancers V. Music education has long been one of Fry's primary interests. He is a frequent lecturer, clinician and guest conductor at public schools, colleges and universities. Fry graduated from the University of Miami at Coral Cables, FL with a double major in Music Theory/Composition and Music Education. Upon graduation, Fry taught junior high school general music for a year while studying arranging and film scoring at the Eastman School of Music. He then immersed himself in a wide varity of musical roles in the New York City area including work for artists like Barbara Streisand, Bette Midler, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, and John Denver. He wrote numerous vocal and instrumental arrangements and compositions, played keyboards on recording sessions, functioned as an assistant to Quincy Jones during the recording of the soundtrack for The Wiz, wrote commercials and performed in various venues both as a member of a jazz/pop group and as a solo performer. Relocating briefly to Los Angeles, Fry continued to freelance until joining Com/track in Chicago as a staff writer-producer in 1980, becoming a full partner in 1984. Augmenting his training in traditional arranging and orchestration with state-of-the-art electronic music capabilities, Fry works extensively with the Synclavier digital music system in his own 48-track recording studio.