Tony Carey

Antony Laurence Carey (born October 16, 1953, Turlock, California) was a rock and heavy metal keyboardist and Hammond organ player for the band Rainbow from 1975 to 1977 whose career as a soloist, participant in other bands, producer, etc., began in 1971 and continues to expand. With the band Rainbow, Carey appeared on the studio album Rainbow Rising (1976) and on the live albums On Stage (1977) and Live in Germany (1994). Carey performed the keyboard introduction to "Tarot Woman", the first track on the Rainbow Rising album and the keyboard solo on "A Light in the Black", the last cut on the album. He had a minor hit in the early 1980s with "I Won't Be Home Tonight", and then a bigger hit in 1984 with "A Fine, Fine Day", which reached #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks charts. A follow-up single, "The First Day of Summer", reached #33 on the Hot 100 in July 1984. Both songs are featured on the album, Some Tough City, which hit #60 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Carey opened for Night Ranger on many dates of their 1984 tour in support of this album. His 1985 follow-up album, Blue Highway, did not score a hit. He also fronted the science-fiction-themed group Planet P Project (initially called just Planet P), which he used as a vehicle for his solo work. Planet P Project released two albums, Planet P (on Geffen Records) in 1983 and Pink World (on MCA Records) in 1984, for which he wrote the lyrics and music, sang the lead vocals, and played most of the instruments. Session performers on lead guitar, saxophones, programming, and drums on some tracks made up the rest of the group. The first album was released on CD in 1992, retitled Planet P Project. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.