Ray Williams (producer)

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Ray Williams
Birth name	Ray Williams
Born	1947
Origin	London, England
Occupation(s)	Producer, Publicist, Entrepreneur
Years active	1965 – present
Label(s)	Crumbs Productions Ltd.
Associated acts	Elton John
Website	http://www.crumbsmusic.com

Ray Williams, (born in 1947, London, England), is an A&R music publicist. He is best known as the man who discovered Elton John and introduced him to lyric writer Bernie Taupin. Williams has been a prominent figure of the music and film industry for many years as a press agent, A&R head, artist manager, film music producer, and publisher.

During the 1960s, Williams worked with Cathy McGowan, who presented "Ready Steady Go". He was also a press agent for a number major artists such as Sonny & Cher, Cream, Robert Stigwood, and for Brian Epstein's Saville Theatre. He eventually moved up to head the A&R department for Liberty Records, where he signed upcoming artists who went on to achieve major successes with Jeff Lynne (Idle race and ELO), The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Mike Batt, among others.

By this time Williams’ reputation for discovering major talent was gaining credence. In 1967, he discovered Elton John and introduced him to Bernie Taupin, thereby setting in motion one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the modern era. Williams managed John for his first five albums. He also launched and managed Stealers Wheel (Gerry Rafferty) and The Blues Band.

Since 1984, Williams has been one of Europe’s leading film and television music producers. His impressive credits include Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" (1988), which collected the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Grammy and the L.A. film critics’ award for best score and "The Sheltering Sky" (1990), which won the Golden Globe and L.A. film critics’ award.

The year 1996 brought more success as Williams produced the soundtrack for Lars Von Triers' "Breaking The Waves", a critically acclaimed film and winner of the Grand Prix Award at Cannes and an Academy Award nomination in Hollywood.

From 1997 to 2002, Williams went on to produce and supervise several soundtracks including Saving Grace, the film which won Robert Redford‘s Sundance Festival Best Film Award, and Dancer in the Dark, Lars Von Trier’s classic film starring Björk, which went on to win the coveted Palme d'or Award for best film at the Cannes Film Festival.

During this period, Williams was instrumental in the acquisition of Bill Lowery’s legendary Atlanta-based Lowery Music Publishing Group for Sony Music Entertainment. The catalogue included the songs "Be Bop a Lula", "Young Love" and "Rose Garden". He was appointed as Sony’s consultant for three years to oversee the transition of the business.

Williams currently (2007) runs his own music publishing/production company, "Crumbs Music" and continues to sign new artists, composers, and catologues.His latest project is on Crumbs-The Label is Ali Campbell's(UB40) album 'Running Free' featuring Smokey Robinson, Katie Meluar,Lemar,Beverley Knight,Robin Campbell and Bitty McLean.