Don Ray

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Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
The Garden of Love
  US 113 09/23/1978 (11 weeks)
Singles
Got to Have Loving
  US 44 09/23/1978 (16 weeks)

Don Ray , real name Raymond Donnez (born September 9, 1942, presumably in Germany; † March 7, 2019 ) was a Franco-German disco musician and music producer.

biography

Little is known about Raymond Donnez personally, but he is said to have been born in Germany in 1942 to French parents. As a teenager he grew up in France and was active as a keyboardist and arranger on the pop scene in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1963 he often worked as a session musician on recordings of Johnny Hallyday . 1977 began his collaboration with the Euro-Disco producer Alec R. Costandinos on his album Romeo & Juliet . He played in Costandinos' studio bands Sphinx and Sumeria and was a musician on Cerrone's album productions . In addition, from 1973 he worked several times as arranger and conductor at the Grand Prix d'Eurovision , including the French victory of Marie Myriam in 1977 with L'oiseau et l'enfant .

One of his first own big productions was the debut album Do not Let Me Be Misunderstood by Santa Esmeralda in 1977. The title track , the disco version of a blues songs by the Animals had announced in 1964, was a worldwide hit and the album reached under Platinum in Germany and gold in the USA. A year later he brought out his own album under his stage name as a musician, Don Ray. It was called The Garden of Love and was in turn produced by Cerrone. The title song reached number 4 on the US dance charts, and the album and one other song made it into the official US charts. But it remained his only major personal success.

With the end of the disco era, Donnez concentrated again on arranging and producing and he worked with French musicians such as Johnny Hallyday, Michel Sardou , Sylvie Vartan , Elsa Lunghini , Michel Delpech and the French- Canadian Celine Dion .

Discography

Albums

  • The Garden of Love (1978)

Songs

  • Body and Soul (1978)
  • Standing in the Rain (1978)
  • Got to Have Loving (1978)

swell

  1. ^ The Billboard Albums by Joel Whitburn , 6th Edition, Record Research 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
  2. ↑ Top Pop Singles 1955-2006 by Joel Whitburn , Record Research 2007, ISBN 978-0-89820-172-7 .
  3. ↑ La sessionographie 1964 (and following), Johnny Hallyday Le Web, accessed on 3 July 2018
  4. ^ Raymond Donnez (Biography), And the conductor is ..., accessed July 3, 2018
  5. ↑ Don Ray in the US Dance Club Songs

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ray, Don
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Donnez, Raymond (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-French disco musician and music producer
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Germany
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 2019