| Ray Parker Jr. |
Article Index for Ray |
Website Links For Ray |
Information AboutRay Parker Jr. |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT RAY PARKER JR. | |
| bandleaders | |
| american record producers | |
| american songwriters | |
| 1954 births | |
| living people | |
| grammy award winners | |
Ray Erskine Parker Jr. (born on May 1 , 1954 in Detroit ) is an American guitarist, Songwriter , producer and recording artist known primarily for writing the theme song to the Motion Picture '' Ghostbusters ''. EARLY WORK In the mid-1970s he was a sideman in Barry White 's "Love Unlimited Orchestra", before creating Raydio , an R&B group, in 1977 , with Vincent Bohnam, Jerry Knight, and Arnell Carmichael. Parker appeared briefly in the 1974 film "Uptown Saturday Night" as a guitar player. Parker also wrote songs and did session work for The Carpenters , Rufus and Chaka Khan , Aretha Franklin , Stevie Wonder , Leon Haywood , Temptations , The Spinners , Boz Scaggs , Rhythm Heritage , and Gladys Knight And The Pips . RADIO The group scored their first big hit, with Arista Records , "Jack and Jill" off of their self-titled album in 1978 . The song was # 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, earning a Gold record in the process. Their successful follow-up hit, "You Can't Change That" was released in 1979 , off of the ''Rock On'' album. The song was a Top 10 hit, making it up to # 9 on the Billboard charts during the same year it was released. In 1980, the group became known as Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio, and the group released two more albums: ''Two Places at the Same Time'' in 1980 and ''A Woman Needs Love'' in 1981 . During the eighties Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio had two Top 40 hits ("Two Places at the Same Time" - # 40 in 1980 and "That Old Song" - # 21 in 1981) and their last and biggest hit "A Woman Needs Love," released in 1981, went to # 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 Charts, and # 1 on the R&B Charts for two weeks in 1981. THE SOLO YEARS AND GHOSTBUSTERS Raydio broke up in 1981, while Ray Parker Jr. continued with his solo career, scoring six Top 40 hits, including the hit single " The Other Woman " (Pop # 4) in 1982 and "Ghostbusters" in 1984. Parker was one the first black artists to venture into the then-fledgling world of Music Videos . In 1978 Hollywood producer, Thom Eubank produced several MusicVideos of songs from his first album entitled, "Raydio" on Arista Records. The hit single, "Jack & Jill" was the first released to air on Wolfman Jack's Saturday night television show, "The Midnight Special". The MusicVideos were also transfered to film and projected in movie theaters all over Europe. He also made two different videos for his hit " The Other Woman ". The first was Halloween -themed and centered around a haunted castle with dancing corpses and Vampires . The second was more performance-oriented, with Parker performing the song against a outer space background with backup singers. MTV initially refused to air either video because, at the time, no videos for black artists were shown and, in the case of the "haunted castle" video, Parker was depicted as having interracial relationships, which MTV didn't want to promote. "Ghostbusters" was a title track of the Gold -selling soundtrack of the hit movie '' Ghostbusters '' (but the song has now sold upwards of 28 million units internationally according to Parker in 2007), starring Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd . The single was at #1 for three weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, and at #1 for two weeks on its Black Singles chart. The song was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1984 but lost to Stevie Wonder 's "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from '' The Woman In Red ''. He also made an acting appearance on the 1980s sitcom '' Gimme A Break '' starring Nell Carter . CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING GHOSTBUSTERS Parker was accused of plagiarizing the melody from Huey Lewis & The News song " I Want A New Drug " for his 1984 #1 hit theme to ''Ghostbusters'', released only six months after Lewis' hit reached #6 in the Billboard Hot 100 . This ended with Lewis suing Parker, and the pair Settled out of Court in 1985 . They returned to court once again in 2001 , as Parker sued Lewis for breaching a Confidentiality Agreement forming part of their original out of court settlement which prohibited either side from speaking about it publicly. Lewis had revealed in a VH1 '' Behind The Music '' special that Parker had paid a financial settlement as part of the original agreement. CONTINUED SONGWRITING Ray Parker Jr. also wrote and produced hits for New Edition ("Mr. Telephone Man"), Randy Hall , Cheryl Lynn ("Shake It Up Tonight"), Deniece Williams ("I Found Love") and Diana Ross . He also performed guitar on several songs on La Toya Jackson's 1980 Debut Album . RAYDIO DISCOGRAPHY
RAY PARKER JR. DISCOGRAPHY
Singles EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|