Bill Wray (born Shreveport, Louisiana) is an American musician, composer and producer. His performing career spanned the mid-1970s through the early 1980s. Since then he has written and produced a variety of artists from glam metal to cajun. He is the brother of fellow musician/composer Jim Wray.
Bill Wray made an appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 with the song "Pinball, That's All" in 1979, peaking at No. 96. [1] [2]
Bill Wray has written the songs "Fool for Your Love" and "So Close" for Diana Ross. Wray and his brother Jim wrote most of the hits ("One in a Million", "Surrender") on Trixter's debut album.
Wray was the producer of EFX at MGM Grand Casino, at the time the most expensive and largest-scaled theater installation in the world. Stars rotated through every two years were Michael Crawford, David Cassidy, Tommy Tune and Rick Springfield. The last three were during Wray's tenure.
Bill Wray used to play at the old Dynasty Club and Common Ground in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There was also the Bill Wray Band which included Greg Worley. As an artist, Wray opened for such artists as Foreigner, Toto, Rick Springfield, The Kinks, BTO, Peter Frampton and Joe Cocker. [3]
Wray produced Driven2Rock at the MGM Grand which gave custom inlaid Melancon Guitars to stars such as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Britney Spears and Michael Waltrip on March 5 and 6th 2004.
Diana Ross is an American singer and actress. She was the lead singer of the vocal group The Supremes, who became Motown's most successful act during the 1960s and one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. They remain the best-charting woman group in history, with a total of twelve number-one hit singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, including "Where Did Our Love Go", "Baby Love", "Come See About Me", "Stop! In the Name of Love", and "Love Child".
Earl Cyril Palmer was an American drummer. Considered one of the inventors of rock and roll, he is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Daniel Earl Hartman was an American pop rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter and original frontman for several bands, including The Soploids, Mak and the Turnarounds, Our Wringer, Last Wing, and Orion. Among songs he wrote and recorded were "Free Ride" as a member of the Edgar Winter Group, and the solo hits "Relight My Fire", "Instant Replay", "I Can Dream About You", "We Are the Young" and "Second Nature". "I Can Dream About You", his most successful song, reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984 and No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart in 1985. The James Brown song "Living in America", which Hartman co-wrote and produced, reached No. 4 on March 1, 1986.
William H. Payne is an American pianist who, with Lowell George, co-founded the American rock band Little Feat. He is considered by many other rock pianists, including Elton John, to be one of the finest American piano rock and blues musicians. In addition to his trademark barrelhouse blues piano, he is noted for his work on the Hammond B3 organ. Payne is an accomplished songwriter whose credits include "Oh, Atlanta". Following the death of Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward on August 12, 2010, Payne is the only member of the group from the original four-piece line-up currently playing in the band.
Farewell is a 1970 live album by Diana Ross & the Supremes. The album was recorded over the course of the group's final engagement together at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, including the final night on January 14, 1970. The show marked Diana Ross' penultimate performance with fellow Supremes members Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong. At the conclusion of the show, new Supremes lead singer Jean Terrell was brought onstage and introduced to the audience.
Trixter is an American glam metal band from Paramus, New Jersey. The band achieved major success in the early 1990s with their top hit, "Give It To Me Good" reaching sixty-five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990. The band disbanded for several years as glam metal lost mainstream popularity.
"Ease on Down the Road" is a song from the 1975 Broadway musical The Wiz, an R&B re-interpretation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Charlie Smalls–composed tune is the show's version of both "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" and "We're Off to See the Wizard" from the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. In the song, performed three times during the show, Dorothy and her friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion dance their way down the Yellow Brick Road and give each other words of encouragement.
David Hungate is an American bass guitarist noted as a member of the Los Angeles pop-rock band Toto from 1976 to 1982 and again from 2014 to 2015, and the son of judge William L. Hungate. Along with most of his Toto bandmates, Hungate did sessions on a number of hit albums of the 1970s, including Boz Scaggs's Silk Degrees and Alice Cooper's From the Inside.
In the Hot Seat is the ninth and final studio album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released on 27 September 1994 by Victory. Recorded at Goodnight L.A. Studios in Los Angeles, it was produced by Keith Olsen.
The Juno Award for "Producer of the Year" has been awarded since 1975, as recognition each year for the best record producer in Canada. It was renamed the "Jack Richardson Producer of the Year" award in 2003, after Jack Richardson who was a noted Canadian record producer.
Phil Cristian, aka Magic Cristian, is an American keyboardist and singer.
EFX was a Las Vegas Strip production show residing at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino which opened on March 23, 1995 and closed on December 31, 2002. When it premiered, it was the most expensive and largest-scaled theater installation in the world. A significant entertainment landmark of the strip for nearly eight years, it was known for changing its headline star every two years. Performers in the lead role were Michael Crawford, David Cassidy, Tommy Tune, and Rick Springfield.
Lenny Pickett is an American saxophonist and musical director of the Saturday Night Live band. From 1973 to 1981 he was a member of the band Tower of Power.
Jerry Hey is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, horn arranger, string arranger, orchestrator and session musician who has played on hundreds of commercial recordings, including Michael Jackson's Thriller, Rock with You, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Workin’ Day and Night and the flugelhorn solo on Dan Fogelberg's hit "Longer". Additionally, he has performed with artists such as George Benson, Nik Kershaw, Al Jarreau, Barbra Streisand, Donna Summer, Earth, Wind & Fire, Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, George Duke, Lionel Richie, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, Aretha Franklin, Patti Austin, among many others.
Robert Berry is an American guitarist, bassist, vocalist and record producer, best known for his work with Hush, 3 with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer, Ambrosia, Alliance, and Los Tres Gusanos. He was previously with The Greg Kihn Band, and as of 2022, he is with progressive band Six By Six on bass, vocals and keyboards, a supergroup with guitarist Ian Crichton (Saga) and drummer Nigel Glockler.
The Wiz is the original motion picture soundtrack album for the 1978 film adaptation of the Broadway musical The Wiz. Although the film was produced for Universal Pictures by Motown Records' film division, the soundtrack album was issued on MCA Records as a two-LP collection. Chiefly produced by Quincy Jones, The Wiz soundtrack features non-sync cast performances by the stars of the film, including Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Mabel King, Theresa Merritt, Thelma Carpenter, and Lena Horne.
Diana Ross & the Supremes Sing and Perform "Funny Girl" is the thirteenth studio album released by Diana Ross & the Supremes on the Motown label, released in 1968. Berry Gordy had Diana Ross & the Supremes cover the songs from Barbra Streisand's Broadway musical Funny Girl original cast LP to tie-in with the September release of the feature-film version of the musical, also starring Streisand. The LP was not a success, and, with a Billboard 200 peak of 150, ranks as the lowest-charting of the Diana Ross-led Supremes albums.
"Waiting to See You" is a song by American singer-songwriter and musician Dan Hartman, which was released in 1986 as a single from the film soundtrack of Ruthless People. It was written by Hartman and Charlie Midnight, and was produced by Hartman. The song was also to be included on Hartman's album White Boy, which was shelved by MCA in 1986.
I Can Dream About You is the fifth studio album from American musician/singer/songwriter Dan Hartman, released on May 3, 1984, by MCA. The album was produced by Hartman and Jimmy Iovine.
James David Hughart is a jazz and pop bass player.