Mr. Wright died Dec. 4 in Cambridge Hospital after a series of strokes and after contracting pneumonia, said his twin brother Steve of Biddeford, Maine. He was 64 and lived in Cambridge.
“Wright’s death leaves a great hole in the New England country music community,’’ said Gerry Katz, a board member of the Boston Bluegrass Union. “He was a great songwriter, bandleader, and friend.’’
Peter Wolf, vocalist for the J. Geils Band and a longtime friend, said Mr. Wright “was ahead of the curve, back when country music was not trendy.’’
Mr. Wright once called Boston “absolutely the only place in the world that hates country music’’ and acknowledged the challenges of performing country music in New England.
“I’ve had to fight the authenticity battle all my life,’’ he told the Globe in 2000. “Maybe I didn’t grow up listening to the Grand Ole Opry, but I’ve spent the last 30 years listening to Merle Haggard and playing country music. The truth is that white people can sing the blues and Northerners can sing country. I’ve never accepted this idea of geographical barriers.’’
Mr. Wright evoked Boston in songs such as “They Tore Down the Hillbilly Ranch,’’ about a club where he had performed in Park Square. And Fenway Park was fodder for his music in “The Red Sox Song.’’
He also became friends with Peter Gammons, a former Globe baseball columnist who is now with the MLB Network and NESN.
“I’m saddened; he was a great balladeer and character,’’ said Gammons, who wrote the liner notes for Mr. Wright’s album “Takin’ Old Route One.’’
Darrell Scott, who played guitar with Mr. Wright’s band before releasing solo albums in Nashville, said that “playing with Lincoln was like getting a Ph.D. in honky-tonk music.’’
Born in Boston, Mr. Wright initially lived in Mattapan and Norwell. He was in second grade when his family moved to Sanford, Maine, where his father managed a trucking company terminal and his mother was a payroll clerk at a hospital.
