Ray Peterson

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Ray T. Peterson (April 23, 1935 – January 25, 2005) was an American pop music singer.

Ray Peterson was born in Denton, Texas on April 23, 1935. As a boy he had to overcome polio. Blessed with a 4.5-octave singing voice, he embedded his voice to become the Golden Voice of Rock and Roll. Peterson moved to Los Angeles, California where he was signed by RCA Victor Records in 1957. He recorded several songs that were minor hits until "The Wonder of You" made it into the Billboard Top Thirty list (June 15, 1959). The song would later be recorded by Elvis Presley with whom he became close friends.

In 1960, Peterson created his own label with his manager Stan Shulman, Dunes Records, enlisting the help of producer Phil Spector.[1] Peterson scored a Top 10 hit with "Tell Laura I Love Her" [2], and followed that success with "Corrina, Corrina" [3] and "I Could Have Loved You So Well." His last charting hit was "Missing You" [4]. By the mid-1960s he had become something of a phenomenon on the west coast of the United States, appearing live in numerous rock concerts with Paul McCartney lookalike, Keith Allison.

His performances at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, produced by Fred Vail, beginning in 1963 helped fuel a revival of "The Wonder of You" as well as launch his new relationship with MGM Records, an alliance that produced two albums, "The Very Best of Ray Peterson" featuring most of the Dunes singles, and "The Other Side of Ray Peterson", which included many of his nightclub songs. He later moved to Nashville, Tennessee and by the 1970s when the hit records stopped coming, Peterson became a Baptist Church minister and occasionally played the oldies music circuit.

Ray Peterson died of cancer in 2005 in Smyrna, Tennessee and was interred in the Roselawn Memorial Gardens cemetery in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Contents

[edit] Discography

[edit] Singles

Year Title US
Hot 100		 US
AC		 Label
1959 "Goodnight My Love (Pleasant Dreams)" #64 - RCA Victor
1959 "The Wonder of You" #25 - RCA Victor
1960 "Tell Laura I Love Her" #7 - RCA Victor
1960 "Corrina, Corrina" #9 - Dunes
1961 "Missing You" #29 #7 Dunes
1964 "The Wonder of You" #70 -- Dunes

[edit] Notes, references

  1. ^ Rockabilly HoF
  2. ^ #7 on June 27, 1960
  3. ^ #9 on Dec. 19, 1960; produced by Spector; cover of a 1931 Red Nichols hit
  4. ^ #29 on June 29, 1961

[edit] External links

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