Bobby Wright

John Robert Wright Jr. was born on 30 March 1942 in Charleston, West Virginia, the middle child and only son of the country singers Kitty Wells and Johnnie Wright. His sisters were Ruby Wright and Carol Sue.

He spent most of his boyhood in Louisiana, where his parents performed regularly on the radio and television show Louisiana Hayride. He appeared with them on the show at the age of eight and began taking part in their recordings about three years later. In 1958 the family moved back to Nashville, where his parents became headliners at the Grand Ole Opry. Known to family and friends as Bobby, he graduated from Madison High School, where he played baseball, basketball and football.

After high school Wright went to Los Angeles. He had heard that the director Peter Tewksbury was looking for a young Southern boy who could play guitar, and although he did not win that role, his screen test was seen by the producer of McHale's Navy. He was cast as Willy Moss, the PT-73 radio operator, and played the part for the whole run of the series. He also appeared in the western comedy Pistols 'n' Petticoats as a robber named Bud Bunnoy.

While McHale's Navy was still in production he began working in music, contributing to one of his mother's albums in 1965. When the series ended he moved back to Nashville and started a recording career, signing with Decca and later recording for ABC and United Artists between 1967 and 1979. He charted 21 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart; Here I Go Again, released in 1971, was his biggest hit.

Wright appeared with his parents and sisters on the Kitty Wells Family Show, a syndicated television programme, and then toured with his parents for decades as the Kitty Wells, Johnnie Wright and Bobby Wright family show, until they retired from the road in 2007. With them he played the International Festival of Country Music at Wembley in 1974 and the Peterborough Country Music Festival in 1988.

Wright married Brenda Kay Davis, and they had two daughters, LeAnn and Kamela. He had four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He lived in Madison, Tennessee, the Nashville suburb where he had grown up.

Bobby Wright died peacefully at his home in Madison, Tennessee, on Tuesday 27 October 2026, surrounded by loved ones. He was 84. No cause of death was given in his obituary, published by Austin and Bell Funeral Home.

He was predeceased by his parents, Kitty Wells and Johnnie Wright, his sister Ruby Wright Taylor and a nephew, and survived by his daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and his sister Sue Sturdivant. His funeral was arranged for 3 November 2026 at Spring Hill Funeral Home in Madison, with the family asking for privacy at the graveside.

Wright belonged to one of country music's best known families and was part of its touring show for some four decades. To television audiences he remained the young radio operator Willy Moss, and at his death he was the last surviving member of the McHale's Navy cast.