Byrd began his career in Buffalo, New York, on WUFO in the 1960s, discovered and mentored by broadcaster-educator Hank Cameron as a radio prodigy at age 15.
By age 19, he was tapped by radio programmer Jerry Boulding to be a DJ on soul station WWRL, where he created his music infotainment show, "The GBE: The Gary Byrd Experience."
Since the 1980s (after being hired by Percy Sutton & Hal Jackson, co founders of Inner City Broadcasting) he's been a talk show host on WLIB, WBLS and WBAI.
A collaborator with Stevie Wonder, Byrd served as lyricist on Wonder’s "Village Ghetto Land" and "Black Man" on his album Songs in the Key of Life.
[1] Byrd also co-wrote three other songs with Wonder--"Dark N Lovely," a tribute to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, “Front Line,” from the 1982 Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium I album, and "Misrepresented People," for the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s movie Bamboozled, in which Byrd appears, playing himself as a radio talk show host.
George Michael performed "Village Ghetto Land" at a special London tribute to Nelson Mandela, where Wonder sang "Dark-N-Lovely."
"The Crown", 12" version ran for 10 minutes 35 seconds, making it one of the longest tracks ever to appear in the UK Singles Chart.
Currently, his tri-state arts & entertainment community column "Imhotep’s Guide To Black Events" runs weekly in the New York Amsterdam News, one of the nation's oldest African American newspapers.