Del.icio.usRay Conniff
Fact Sheet
| Musical genre: | Easy Listening |
| Birthday | 6 November 1916 |
| Sign | Scorpio |
| Birthplace | Attleboro, Massachusetts, USA |
| Date of death | October 12, 2002 (age 85) |
After he was in the army in World War II, he was hired by Mitch Miller , then head of A & R at Columbia Records as their home arranger, and he worked with several artist, among those were Rosemary Clooney, Marty Robbins, Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis, Guy Mitchell and Johnnie Ray. He wrote a top 10 arrangement for Don Cherry's "Band of Gold" in 1955, a single that sold more than a million copies.
Amongst the hit singles he backed with his orchestra (and eventually with a male chorus) were "Yes Tonight Josephine" and "Just Walkin' In The Rain" by Johnnie Ray, "Chances Are" and "It's Not For Me To Say" by Johnny Mathis, "A White Sport Coat" and "The Hanging Tree" by Marty Robbins, "Up Above My Head" a duet by Marty Robbins & Johnnie Ray and "Pet Me, Poppa" by Rosemary Clooney. He furthermore backed the albums "Tony" by Tony Bennett, "Blue Swing" by Eileen Rodgers, "Swingin' For Two" by Don Cherry and half the tracks of "The Big Beat" by Johnnie Ray.
In these early years he produced parallel to the backings under his own name some similar sounding records for the Columbia label Epic Records under the name of Jay Raye, amongst them a backing album and singles with Somethin' Smith & The Redheads, an American male vocal group.
Due to the success of his backings Mitch Miller allowed him to make his own record, and this became the successful "'S Wonderful", a collection of famous standard songs that were recorded with an orchestra and a wordless singing chorus (4 boys, 4 girls). In the same vein he released a lot more albums, amongst them "Dance The Bop" (1957), "'S Marvellous" (1957), "'S Awful Nice" (1958), "Concert In Rhythm" (1958), "Hollywood In Rhythm" (1958), "Broadway In Rhythm" (1959), "Concert In Rhythm, Volume II" (1959),. In 1959 he started the Ray Conniff Singers (12 girls and 13 boys singing words) by releasing the album "It's The Talk Of The Town". Extraordinarily successful was the first of four Xmas albums,"Christmas With Conniff" (1959).
Musically different, but highlights in Conniff's career anyway are two albums he produced in co-operation with Billy Butterfield who was an old buddy from earlier swing days, one called "Conniff Meets Butterfield" (1960) featured Butterfield's solo trumpet and a small rhythm group, the other entitled "Just Kiddin' Around" (after a Conniff original composition from the 40's), released 1963, featuring additional trombone solos by Ray himself. Both albums are pure light jazz and did not feature any voices.
Later in the 60's he produced an average of two instrumental and one vocal albums a year. Between 1957 and 1968, he had 28 albums in the American Top 40, the most famous one being "Somewhere my love"(1966). The title track of the album (also called "Lara's Theme") was written for the film Doctor Zhivago (1965), and was a top 10 single in the US. The album reached the Top 20 too. Ray Conniff won a Grammy for his rendition.
He topped the album list in Britain in 1969 with "His Orchestra, His Chorus, His Singers, His Sound". He also was the first American popular artist to record in Russia - in 1974 he recorded "Ray Conniff in Moscow" with help of a local choir. His later albums like "Exclusivamente Latino", "Amor Amor" and "Latinisimo" made him very popular in Latin-American countries.
Ray Conniff sold about 70 million albums world-wide and continued performing until his death in 2002. He is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
Recently, a compilation 2 CD set, titled "The Essential Ray Conniff" was released, featuring many rare and a couple of previously unreleased tracks.