Ray Singer
Encyclopedia
Ray Singer is a British record producer and owner of Singer Records. Singer was instrumental in launching the careers of Peter Sarstedt
, David Sylvian
, Japan
, and Ana Silvera
.
He appeared on TV shows with The Who
, The Small Faces
, and The Kinks
and was a featured artist on ‘Gadzooks!’, a weekly BBC 2 TV show with Marianne Faithful and Lulu
. Always more interested in production/arrangement, he had the opportunity to work with seminal record producers Shel Talmy
(The Kinks
, The Who
) and Jimmy Miller (Traffic
, The Rolling Stones
), an experience that led him to eventually produce for Chris Blackwell’s Island Records
. He also attended the London School of Film Technique and formed a band called Nirvana (UK band)
, with fellow film student [Alex Spiropolous].
They were signed to Island Records
and recorded Tiny Goddess which was a small hit in the UK.
As a songwriter he had success with French chanteuse Françoise Hardy
, whose version of ‘Tiny Goddess’ (‘Je Ne Sais Pas Ce Que Veux’) went to number one in the French charts. Singer also went on to write and produce for French star Michel Polnareff
.
. Ray took him into the studios for Island and recorded ‘Peter Sarstedt’, an album of his compositions. From these sessions came the million selling "Where Do You Go To, My Lovely" No-one at that time could have guessed a five minute song with just guitar, accordion and cello would go on to become a cult classic and number one in twenty-six countries.Hits that followed included "Frozen Orange Juice" and "I'm A Cathedral".
, David Sylvian
, Joan Armatrading
and Ana Silvera
.
Some of this work was produced by his own production company, Rocking Horse Productions, which he co-founded with Simon Napier-Bell
. He also produced Japan’s first albums "Adolescent Sex" and "Obscure Alternatives".
He then went to New York where he was signed to make albums for RCA
, ABC
and UNI Records. He came back to London and worked mostly at Olympic Studios in Barnes with top musicians including - The Average White Band’s bass player Alan Gorrie
and guitarist Onnie McIntyre, guitarist Chris Spedding
, drummer Jim Gordon
and bass player Herbie Flowers
.
Singer also started producing for German label Ariola Hansa and had hits with ‘When You Walk In The Room’ and ‘It’s Only Make Believe’ by boy band Child
, as well as producing the first two albums for David Sylvian
's Japan
. He then went on to have hits with Joan Armatrading
’s ‘Rosie’ and Robin Sarstedt’s ‘My Resistance Is Low’.
commercials featuring actor Rutger Hauer. Singer’s graduation from the London Film School
and his interest in movies led him onto producing the soundtracks for the award winning British movie "Another Country" starring Rupert Everett
and Colin Firth
and in Hollywood, "Waiting for the Light", starring Shirley Maclaine
and Terri Garr. Television soundtracks followed, including the acclaimed BBC adaption of John Le Carre’s ‘A Perfect Spy’, Anthony Horowitz’s ‘The Gift’ and ‘South by South-East’ and the Lynda La Plante
series ‘Civvies’ which won the Ivor Novello
Award for best music.
movie, The Darjeeling Limited
, with Owen Wilson
, Adrien Brody
and Anjelica Huston
, which features Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where Do You Go To, My Lovely’, led to Singer Records releasing ‘[The Lost Album’ ] by Peter Sarstedt , which has become an i-Tunes best seller.
Other artists featured on Singer Records are Suggs
from Madness, Toyah Wilcox and Imaani from Incognito
.
He has just finished working on singer-songwriter Ana Silvera
's forthcoming album, co-produced alongside Brad Albetta (Martha Wainwright
, Teddy Thompson
).
Peter Sarstedt
Peter Eardley Sarstedt is an Anglo-Indian singer-songwriter.-Career:Sarstedt was born in India and attended Victoria Boys' School in Kurseong, in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. His family relocated to England in 1954...
, David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
, Japan
Japan (band)
Japan were a British New Wave group, formed in 1974 in Catford, South London. The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement .- History :The band began as a group of friends...
, and Ana Silvera
Ana Silvera
Ana Silvera is a contemporary alternative London born singer-songwriter, known for the intense poeticism of her lyrics, her classical piano style and her work with choirs....
.
Early Years: 1960s - 1970s
Ray Singer was born in Tonbridge, Kent and raised in Brighton. He first became involved in music by forming a skiffle group as a student in Brighton, and in 1964 made his first records as a singer under the wing of Jeffrey Kruger, who signed him to his independent label Ember Records after seeing him sing in a charity show.He appeared on TV shows with The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
, The Small Faces
The Small Faces
The Small Faces were an English rock and roll band from East London, heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston, although by 1966 Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan as the band's...
, and The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
and was a featured artist on ‘Gadzooks!’, a weekly BBC 2 TV show with Marianne Faithful and Lulu
Lulu (singer)
Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...
. Always more interested in production/arrangement, he had the opportunity to work with seminal record producers Shel Talmy
Shel Talmy
Shel Talmy is an American record producer, songwriter, arranger best known for his work in London with The Who and The Kinks in the 1960s, with a role in many other English bands including Cat Stevens and Pentangle...
(The Kinks
The Kinks
The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
, The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
) and Jimmy Miller (Traffic
Traffic (band)
Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...
, The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
), an experience that led him to eventually produce for Chris Blackwell’s Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
. He also attended the London School of Film Technique and formed a band called Nirvana (UK band)
Nirvana (UK band)
Nirvana were a United Kingdom-based progressive rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though the band only achieved limited commercial success, they were acclaimed both by music industry professionals and critics...
, with fellow film student [Alex Spiropolous].
They were signed to Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
and recorded Tiny Goddess which was a small hit in the UK.
As a songwriter he had success with French chanteuse Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Madeleine Hardy is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style. She is married to the singer and movie actor Jacques Dutronc.-Biography:...
, whose version of ‘Tiny Goddess’ (‘Je Ne Sais Pas Ce Que Veux’) went to number one in the French charts. Singer also went on to write and produce for French star Michel Polnareff
Michel Polnareff
Michel Polnareff, born in Nérac on 3 July 1944, is a French singer-songwriter who was very popular from the mid-1960s until the early 1980s...
.
Singer/Sarstedt Collaboration
Whilst working in Paris he discovered a busker from London, the singer-songwriter Peter SarstedtPeter Sarstedt
Peter Eardley Sarstedt is an Anglo-Indian singer-songwriter.-Career:Sarstedt was born in India and attended Victoria Boys' School in Kurseong, in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. His family relocated to England in 1954...
. Ray took him into the studios for Island and recorded ‘Peter Sarstedt’, an album of his compositions. From these sessions came the million selling "Where Do You Go To, My Lovely" No-one at that time could have guessed a five minute song with just guitar, accordion and cello would go on to become a cult classic and number one in twenty-six countries.Hits that followed included "Frozen Orange Juice" and "I'm A Cathedral".
1980s - 1990s
Singer was eventually to settle in London, becoming best-known for his work with British singer-songwriters, including Peter SarstedtPeter Sarstedt
Peter Eardley Sarstedt is an Anglo-Indian singer-songwriter.-Career:Sarstedt was born in India and attended Victoria Boys' School in Kurseong, in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. His family relocated to England in 1954...
, David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
, Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist...
and Ana Silvera
Ana Silvera
Ana Silvera is a contemporary alternative London born singer-songwriter, known for the intense poeticism of her lyrics, her classical piano style and her work with choirs....
.
Some of this work was produced by his own production company, Rocking Horse Productions, which he co-founded with Simon Napier-Bell
Simon Napier-Bell
Simon Napier-Bell has undertaken many jobs in the music industry, including bandboy, manager, producer, songwriter, journalist and author and gourmet...
. He also produced Japan’s first albums "Adolescent Sex" and "Obscure Alternatives".
He then went to New York where he was signed to make albums for RCA
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
, ABC
ABC Records
ABC Records was an American record label, founded in New York City in 1955 as ABC-Paramount Records. It originated as the main popular music label operated the Am-Par Record Corporation, the music subsidiary of the American Broadcasting Company . ABC-Paramount Records' first president was Samuel H....
and UNI Records. He came back to London and worked mostly at Olympic Studios in Barnes with top musicians including - The Average White Band’s bass player Alan Gorrie
Alan Gorrie
Alan Gorrie is a Scottish bassist, guitarist, keyboardist and singer. He is a founding member of the Average White Band and remains one of two original members in the group's current line-up....
and guitarist Onnie McIntyre, guitarist Chris Spedding
Chris Spedding
Chris Spedding is an English rock and roll and jazz guitarist, best known for his session work. Allmusic states - "Spedding is one of the UK's most versatile session guitarists, and has had a long career on two continents that saw him tackle nearly every style of rock and roll, as well as...
, drummer Jim Gordon
Jim Gordon (musician)
James Beck "Jim" Gordon is an American recording artist, musician and songwriter. The Grammy Award winner was one of the most requested session drummers in the late 1960s and 1970s, recording albums with many well-known musicians of the time, and was the drummer in the blues-rock supergroup Derek...
and bass player Herbie Flowers
Herbie Flowers
Herbie Flowers is an English musician specialising in bass guitar, double-bass and tuba. He is noted as a member of Blue Mink, T...
.
Singer also started producing for German label Ariola Hansa and had hits with ‘When You Walk In The Room’ and ‘It’s Only Make Believe’ by boy band Child
Child
Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...
, as well as producing the first two albums for David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
's Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. He then went on to have hits with Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist...
’s ‘Rosie’ and Robin Sarstedt’s ‘My Resistance Is Low’.
Film & TV Music
He started to work with film composer Michael Storey and went on to produce over one hundred TV commercials, including the groundbreaking Levi’s and GuinnessGuinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
commercials featuring actor Rutger Hauer. Singer’s graduation from the London Film School
London Film School
The London Film School is a private film school in London and is situated in a converted brewery in Covent Garden, London, close to a hub of the UK film industry based in Soho. The LFS was founded in 1956 by Bob Dunbar as The London School of Film Technique...
and his interest in movies led him onto producing the soundtracks for the award winning British movie "Another Country" starring Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett
Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...
and Colin Firth
Colin Firth
SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...
and in Hollywood, "Waiting for the Light", starring Shirley Maclaine
Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...
and Terri Garr. Television soundtracks followed, including the acclaimed BBC adaption of John Le Carre’s ‘A Perfect Spy’, Anthony Horowitz’s ‘The Gift’ and ‘South by South-East’ and the Lynda La Plante
Lynda La Plante
Lynda La Plante, CBE is an English author, screenwriter and former actress, best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series....
series ‘Civvies’ which won the Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...
Award for best music.
2000 - Present Day
Ray has recently set up his own studios in North-West London and his own label Singer Records. The success of the Wes AndersonWes Anderson
Wesley Wales Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials....
movie, The Darjeeling Limited
The Darjeeling Limited
The Darjeeling Limited is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson, and starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman. It was written by Anderson, Schwartzman, and Roman Coppola...
, with Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...
, Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody
Adrien Brody is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist . Winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 at age 29, he is the youngest actor to do so...
and Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
, which features Peter Sarstedt’s ‘Where Do You Go To, My Lovely’, led to Singer Records releasing ‘[The Lost Album’ ] by Peter Sarstedt , which has become an i-Tunes best seller.
Other artists featured on Singer Records are Suggs
Suggs (singer)
Graham McPherson , better known as Suggs, is an English singer, actor, former radio DJ, TV personality, and most famous as the frontman of the band Madness.-Early life:...
from Madness, Toyah Wilcox and Imaani from Incognito
Incognito (band)
Incognito is a British band, as well as one of the members of the United Kingdom's acid jazz movement. Their debut album, Jazz Funk, was released in 1981, with thirteen more albums following, the last of which, Transatlantic RPM, was released in 2010....
.
He has just finished working on singer-songwriter Ana Silvera
Ana Silvera
Ana Silvera is a contemporary alternative London born singer-songwriter, known for the intense poeticism of her lyrics, her classical piano style and her work with choirs....
's forthcoming album, co-produced alongside Brad Albetta (Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright is a Canadian-American folk-rock singer-songwriter. She is the daughter of American folk singer and actor Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folk singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle...
, Teddy Thompson
Teddy Thompson
Teddy Thompson is a British folk and rock musician. He is the son of folk-rock musicians Richard and Linda Thompson and brother of singer Kamila Thompson...
).