Archived News 2011

This website incorporates many pages of Doug Mitchell’s official Ray Conniff Page (www.rayconniff.info), such as the list of original albums, compilations, Ray’s biography etc. Click on the photo on the right to visit it. In order to get back from Doug’s pages to this website, please use the BACK button of your browser.

January 21, 2011: A downlable album of 60 tracks is available from Amazon, featuring selections from “’s Awful Nice”, “Broadway in Rhythm”, “Hollywood in Rhythm”, “It’s The Talk of the Town”, “Young at Heart”, “Say It With Music” and “Memories Are Made of This”: Book of Songs, Vol. 1: 1. Night and Day / 2. Summertime / 3. Unchained Melody / 4. Stranger in Paradise / 5. Harbor Lights / 6. Memories Are Made of This / 7. Brazil / 8. Young At Heart / 9. I'm In the Mood for Love / 10. Too Young / 11. Remember / 12. Deep Purple / 13. Three Coins In the Fountain / 14. A Wonderful Guy / 15. Getting to Know You & I Whistle a Happy Tune / 16. I've Got You Under My Skin / 17. Young Love / 18. Around the World / 19. No Other Love / 20. Just One of Those Things / 21. Tammy / 22. Bali Ha'I / 23. Say It With Music / 24. Temptation / 25. Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise / 26. Yesterdays / 27. Laura / 28. Moments to Remember / 29. Please / 30. The Surrey With the Fringe On Top / 31. Oh, What I Beautiful Morning / 32. I Could Have Danced All Night & I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face / 33. Pacific Sunset / 34. Thanks for the Memory / 35. On the Street Where You Live / 36. Some Enchanted Evening / 37. Younger Than Springtime / 38. It's the Talk of the Town / 39. You're an Old Smoothie / 40. They Say It's Wonderful / 41. Hands Across the Table / 42. Let's Put Out the Lights / 43. Buttons and Bows / 44. Oklahoma! / 45. I'll See You In My Dreams / 46. It's Been a Long, Long Time / 47. Ma, He's Making Eyes At Me / 48. Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah / 49. Deep In the Heart of Texas / 50. These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You) / 51. It's Dark On Observatory Hill / 52. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes / 53. I'll Be Seeing You / 54. Only You (And You Alone) / 55. My Heart Cries for You / 56. You'll Never Know / 57. Love Me Tender / 58. Rosalie / 59. Besame Mucho / 60. Dancing With Tears In My Eyes

February 5, 2011: A 2 CD-set in the “Sound Emotions”-series will be released on the Promo Sound label, featuring “’s Wonderful”, “Begin the Beguine”, “Moonlight Serenade”, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, “Rhapsody in Blue”, “Yesterdays”, “Besame Mucho” and “Brazil”. The series also includes recordings by James Last, Michel Legrand, Ennio Morricone and many others. For details click on the picture on the right to get to a pdf-file. More details about Ray’s twofer here soon. The release date was scheduled for March 1, 2011, but was postponed. No new release date has been set so far (April 17, 2011).

February 12, 2011: It looks as if at long last there will be an official release on the Sony/Columbia label, again. Amazon announced a 3 CD set titled “Original Album Classics” to be released March 28, 2011. More details about this set as soon as I have any.

February 13, 2011: Three new downloads: “That Old Feeling” will be available from February 18, 2011. It features all the tracks of “Dance the Bop!” and “’s Awful Nice” plus “Symphony of Love” (from “The SIngles Collection, Vol. 2”. “Love Is The Sweetest Thing” will become avilable from February 25, 2011. It features selections from “It’s the Talk of the Town”, “Young at Heart”, “Hollywood in Rhythm”, “Broadway in Rhythm” plus “They Tried to Tell Me” (from the currently unavailable CD “The Singles Collection, Vol. 2”). “Remember” will be available from March 11, 2011. It features 30 tracks from Ray’s early albums plus a few tracks from “The SIngles Collection, Vol. 2” (”Cuddle Up a Little Closer”, “Melody for Two Guitars”, and “The Ritz Roll and Rock”). Click on the scans below for more details.

February 13, 2011: Now available: 11 albums featuring 171 Ray Conniff backings can be downloaded from e.g. iTunes. This series is titled “Ray Conniff Presents Various Artists (Hits from the 50s)”, and includes his arrangements / backings for such artists as Guy Mitchell, Marty Robbins, Johnny Mathis, Johnnie Ray, the Coquettes, Don Cherry, the Bon Bons, the Four Voices, Bernie Nee, Rosemary Clooney, Joan Weber, Eileen Rodgers, Dee Arlen, Jack E. Leonard, Michael Wesley, Monica Lewis and many others. Click on the cover scan on the right to get to iTunes. You may also find the Collector’s Guide useful for details of the recordings, such as recording dates, personnel, studios etc.

March 8/16, 2011, April 17, 2011: The 3 CD set mentioned below (see February 12), titled “Original Album Classics” features Ray Conniff’s albums ‘s Wonderful!, ‘s Marvelous and ‘s Awful Nice. Doug Mitchell wrote, “Overall, very well done! Based on the markings, I suspect that the set was created by Legacy for distribution outside the USA. They recreated the original "6 eye" red labels on the discs, replacing the "Columbia" header with "Original Album Classics" but showing both the Columbia and Legacy logos. The box states "Made in the EU" and mine had a sticker on the wrapper stating that the set was Made In England. The mini-Lp sleeves reproduce the mono covers almost perfectly. The back cover photo on 's Awful Nice looks like it came from an Lp with a bit of shelf wear. The back cover of 's Wonderful is from a later pressing and advertises albums such as It's The Talk Of The Town and Hi-Fi Companion (the first pressing advertised albums for other artists; some pressings had no ads at all). 's Marvelous includes the "listening in depth" ad which was on the original 1957 mono pressing. Now for the audio. 's Wonderful and 's Awful Nice are identical to the USA reissues. This is good news; I was afraid they might use the previous UK reissue of 's Awful Nice which had flaws. The sound level on 's Marvelous is a bit higher than on the previous USA reissue and there might be a bit more bass, hard to tell. The tracks are in the correct order but the first beat is still missing on "Where Or When." The marketing department did a nice job on the box; it has far more "shelf appeal" than earlier sets featuring these albums. All in all, I'm happy with the set and would gladly purchase more. My only real complaint is that there are no "extras" - recording dates, locations, producers and other credits that did not typically appear on Lp covers in those days. The box says that full album credits can be found at www.musicmadesimple.info. The site does have credits for a few of the earlier 5-CD sets but nothing for the new 3-CD sets yet.” Release dates vary, e.g. March 28 in the UK, April 8 in the US, and April 22 in Germany. The 2 CD set titled “Sound Emotions” (see February 5) was not released on March 1 as announced. So far, no new release date has been set.

April 6, 2011: It appears that Sony Music has reissued the Mexican CD+DVD set titled “Las Numero Uno” on Columbia (DV9300160) with the cover photo on the left under the title “MIS FAVORITAS: RAY CONNIFF - GRANDES EXITOS”. As for details of “Las Numero Uno” click here.

May 9, 2011: Four of Ray’s early albums are included in this 2 CD set, which appears to be an “unofficial” release. They are as follows: “Concert in Rhythm, Vol. 1”, “Broadway in Rhythm”, “Concert in Rhythm, Vol. 2” and “Say It With Music”. The set is titled RAY CONNIFF SUS CONCIERTOS EN RITMO 1958-60.

May 15, 2011: An interview with Ray by Gustavo Klein titled “Side Effects (of Living and Being Me)” is available on the Internet. It was conducted in September 2001, one week after 9/11 when Ray was in Brazil on his “World Hits”-tour, and one year before he passed away. It is completely in Portuguese. Click here for a raw translation produced by means of the Google Translation tool. Thanks to Claudio Vital de Souza who discovered the interview.

June 9/18, 2011: On the evening of May 27, 2011 BBC Four showed a 90 minute documentary titled "The Joy of Easy Listening", an in-depth documentary investigation into the story of popular music. From its emergence in the 50s to its heyday in the 60s, through its survival in the 70s and 80s and its revival in the 90s and beyond, the film traces the hidden history of a music that has reflected society every bit as much as pop and rock - just in a more relaxed way. Invented at the dawn of Rock 'n' Roll, easy listening has shadowed pop music and the emerging teenage market since the mid-50s. Contributors include Richard Carpenter, Herb Alpert, Richard Clayderman, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jimmy Webb, Mike Flowers, James Last, Marion Kaempfert and others. Among the "others" is TAMARA CONNIFF (shown here in this screen shot from the show - as well as the photograph of Ray). June 18: The show is now available on YouTube in six parts. Use these links for watching: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6.

June 9, 2011: If you are interested in the early days of Ray Conniff’s career, you may be interested in his recordings with singers, such as Johnnie Ray, Johnny Mathis, Marty Robbins, Eileen Rodgers, the Four Voices and many others, the so-called “backings”. They are now available as downloads. In order to find out details, click here for volume 6 as an example. You can also listen to sound samples. For the other volumes, use search engines, such as Google, and look for “Ray Conniff Presents”. All volumes are available from iTunes as well.

June 17, 2011: Have you seen this compilation CD before? Doug found it on ebay and we thought you might like to learn about it. It is titled "RAY CONNIFF - The Ultimate Collection" and was released by Sony Music in 2002 (made in Philippines). The 20 tracks are as follows: Can't Take My Eyes Off You / Music To watch Girls Go By / Angel Of The Morning / Spanish Eyes / Love Is Blue / Beyond The Reef / To You Sweetheart Aloha / Blue Hawaii / Hawaiian Wedding Song / Mrs. Robinson / The Look Of Love / Gentle On My Mind / Climb Every Mountain / I Say A Little Prayer / For All We Know / Besame Mucho / Honey (I Miss You) / Dear Heart / Kiss Me Goodbye / Sounds Of Silence.

June 25, 2011: Just in case you haven’t watched it yet: Use this link to watch a commercial from Sainsbury’s that uses Ray Conniff’s “Walkin’ And Whistlin’” as background music. (Quite a few fans have written to me advising that I should add the link here and thus make it known to all fans, although it was mentioned on the Ray Conniff Yahoo! Group a while ago, already. Well, here you are! Enjoy!)

July 10, 2011: I did some belated spring cleaning on these pages and created new menu buttons. Just in case you find a link that does not work, please let me know. Thank you.

Only two more months until the Ray Conniff Fan Club Convention in Vienna. For details please click on the calendar.

July 15, 2011: “Collection” is the title of a new downloadable compilation of 40 tracks from “’s Wonderful”, “’s Marvelous”, “’s Awful Nice”, “Broadway in Rhythm”, “Hollywood in Rhythm”, and “Say It With Music”. Please note that (although stated otherwise) the recordings of “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” (by Tony Bennett) and “Cry” (by Johnnie Ray) are NOT backed by Ray Conniff.

July 23, 2011: Currently, there is a TV series from Switzerland shown on the German/Swiss/Austrian TV channel “3Sat”, in which Tamara Conniff is one of the commentators. (Tamara speaks German, by the way!) The series is titled “Tonspur - Der Soundtrack meines Lebens”. Last night, the episode with orchestra leader Pepe Lienhard from Sitzerland was shown. (Ray once played trombone in his band.) Click on Tamara’s photo on the right to read her profile and learn more about the series. Zurzeit läuft auf 3Sat eine schweizer Serie mit dem Titel “Tonspur - Der Soundtrack meines Lebens”. Darin kann man Tamara Conniff als Kommentatorin auf Deutsch erleben. Mit einem Klick auf ihr Foto rechts gelangt man zu ihrem Profil. Dort kann man auch mehr über die Serie erfahren. Die 30minütigen Sendungen werden mehrfach ausgestrahlt.

Watch Ray with the Pepe Lienhard Band by clicking here!

July 31, 2011: Ray Conniff fan Rolf Straeter now has his own radio show on Tide 96.0, a radio station from Hamburg, which can be listened to worldwide online. In his programme titled “Melodie und Rhythmus” he plays our music! In the second show on August 17, he will play Ray’s version of “Games That Lovers Play”. Bei Melodie und Rhythmus hört Ihr die großen Stars der fünfziger und sechziger Jahre. Auch eine ganze Menge bedeutender Interpretinnen und Interpreten bis in die späten 80er Jahre sind in einem bunten Musik-Kaleidoskop dabei. Das Ganze ist sehr liebevoll verpackt und zugleich flott serviert von Rolf Straeter. Jeden zweiten Mittwoch um 14:00 Uhr auf TIDE 96.0. Start: Mittwoch, 3. August.

August 4, 2011: This is the cover of the new “Classic Collection”-CD. Judging from the tracks* listed on it, we believe it is the same compilation of tracks released many times on bootleg CDs from Spain. (*Besame Mucho, As Time Goes By, Summertime, Blue Moon, Moon River)

August 22, 2011: Now available as a downloadable album: Ray Conniff’s album “Memories Are Made of This” with the new title, “’s Love”

September 2, 2011: One of Ray’s rarest performances can be watched on YouTube now. It is from Italian television, broadcast in February 1971, when Ray took part in the San Remo Song Festival. Songs performed are “Rose Nel Buio” (Ray’s only song performed in Italian), “Besame Mucho” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”. Click on the picture on the left and ENJOY! Thanks to whoever uploaded the clip.

September 4, 2011: From September 16 to 18, the Ray Conniff Fan Club Convention 2011 will be held in Vienna, Austria. For details, recommendations etc. click here.

September 24, 2011: The 2011 Ray Conniff Fan Club Convention in Vienna was truly WONDERFUL, MARVELOUS and AWFUL NICE. If you want to see some of the pictures taken there, please see entries above re October 10/13, November 17/24, 2011. Then click on a thumbnail of your choice to start a slide show. A full report will follow here in early October.

Ray Conniff’s first Christmas album comes with quite a few different covers when downloaded from internet dealers. Here is the latest creation. More of this kind can be seen by clicking here.

October 8, 2011: To be released on October 28, 2011 on the “Blue Moon” (H’Art) label: four 2-on-1 CDs, featuring:

“‘s Wonderful!” also features “It’s the Talk of the Town”, “’s Marvelous” comes with “Memories Are Made of This”, “’s Awful Nice” also features “Say It With Music”, and “Hollywood in Rhythm” also features “Broadway in Rhythm”.

October 9, 2011: For a report of the 2011 Ray Conniff International Fan Club Convention in Vienna click here.

October 10/13, November 17/24, 2011: The internet photo album of the 2011 Ray Conniff Fan Club Convention in Vienna now contains 500 pictures taken by Alan D., Bernd & Barbara, Christian & Heidi, Claudine, Ann & Francis, Clemens, Steve, Trevor, and Manfred. A second internet photo album features about 220 pictures taken by Igor, Len, Maria, and Ingo & Irmgard.

November 6, 2011: Today Ray Conniff (1916 - 2002) would have been 95, but his music lives on. Right: A picture taken at Ray Conniff’s 80th birthday party during a dance with his wife Vera.

A couple of radio stations paid tribute to bandleader, arranger, trombonist, and composer Ray Conniff on November 6, his birthday. Click on the screen shot on the left to get to an internet page on which you can listen to a four and a half minute tribute by Thomas Mau on German radio station WDR2, during which even the White House Incident is mentioned. Just click on the loudspeaker symbol. You may also find this tribute page in German interesting which shows a great photo from his German TV show “Musik für Millionen”.

November 13/24, 2011: If you are interested in especially created covers for “Christmas with Conniff” and others, please visit my “Downloads” site.

November 28, 2011: UNICOS (Latin America, original release date: July 7, 2009; label: Gold Argent/Zoom, now available from Amazon) Tracks are: Brazil / Besame Mucho / Summertime / All the Things You Are / Smoke Gets in Your Eyes / As Time Goes By / Rhapsody in Blue / Blue Moon / ‘s Wonderful / Only You / Volare / Moulin Rouge Note: These tracks have been released many times on bootleg CDs in Spain, Mexico and other Latin countries, and this compilation CD looks very much like another “unofficial” release. The sound quality may not be perfect!

December 2, 2011: Listen to an excerpt from “Talk Radio” with Ray Breem (1997), during which Ray Conniff talks about his Christmas television show. Click here for the audio file.

December 4, 2012: To be re-released on the Hallmark label on January 1, 2012: Ray’s gold award winning timeless classic album, “Memories Are Made Of This”

December 9, 2011: Listen to Christmas greetings from Ray Conniff by clicking here!

December 13, 2011: Now available from Amazon (USA): CDs by Ray Conniff manufactured on demand, such as these:

Left: These CDs feature 11 tracks from “Christmas with Conniff” (”Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” is missing).

December 18, 2011: The first CD release in 2012 will be a “twofer” on the Blue Moon label, featuring Ray’s excellent albums “’s Continental” and “So Much in Love”. To be released in February, a 2 CD-set titled “All Or Nothing At All”, which will probably feature all the tracks of “Somebody Loves Me”. More details here as soon as I get them. And the last CD release for 2011 is to be “Sound Emotions”, to be available from December 30. For details see entry below for February 5, 2011.

December 24, 2011: The scan on the left is from the iTunes store. Click on the picture to listen to Christmas greetings from Ray Conniff and the Singers. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL, Manfred

December 31, 2011: Vera Conniff donated Ray's arrangements to the Library of Congress in Washington for learning purposes. She wrote, “Ray always wanted to help young people to learn about music.”

December 28, 2010 / January 2, 2011: The 4 CD set (”RECUPERA TUS CLÁSICOS”) shown below is available in Mexico. It features 3 original albums (”’s Continental”, “Memories Are Made of This”, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”) and a compilation, titled “Latino”. Tracks on the latter are as follows: Besame Mucho / Tico Tico / Green Eyes / Patricia, It's Patricia / Lisbon Antigua / Kiss Of Fire / Brazil / Volare / La Mer / Malagueña / Lady Of Spain. For enlargement, please click on the cover scan. As “Tico Tico”, “Green Eyes”, “Lisbon Antigua” and “La Mer” are from “’s Continental”, buyers of this set obtain these tracks twice. Doug Mitchell owns the set and wrote, “Thought you might like to see the Lp sleeves of that new 4CD set from Mexico. Far more care was put into the artwork than the sound! The "Lp sleeves" are like those on the other recent boxsets from Mexico. Not quite as nice as the Percy Faith reissues from Japan but nice to see some original artwork included. - The suitcase on the back cover of “'s Continental” was from the Mexican Lp. - Unlike the previous CD reissue, the track order of “Latino” is as it appeared on the original Mexican Lp. They included the back cover photo but not the liner notes. - “Memories” is from the USA Lp. The back cover of the Mexican Lp had no photo (or notes). - "Raindrops" included the b&w back cover photo of Ray and altered song sequence. The sound quality is not good. “Latino” is much different than the previous Mexican reissue.” Thanks a lot, Doug, for this information and warning. For scans of the single CDs, please use the links above. BE WARNED! THE SOUND QUALITY IS AWFUL! This 4 CD set will be marketed in Europe as well, e.g. from Amazon Germany from February 1, 2011. Achtung, Fans in Deutschland: Diese 4 CD-Box wird ab 1. Februar bei Amazon erhältlich sein. Wie oben beschrieben ist die Klangqualität ausgesprochen schlecht.

January 8, 2011: I've done some house-cleaning here at The Ray Conniff Page. All of the 2010 News has been archived on its own page, which is now located here. Unfortunately, my software does not feature a search function. However, if PC users use Ctrl+F and type in a certain word, they might come across the news item looked for easily. Best wishes to you all, Manfred

January 9, 2011: New from Amazon: a downloadable album with 20 tracks titled “LOVE SONGS (FROM RAY WITH LOVE)”. Tracks are as follows: Besame Mucho / Love Letters In the Sand / Unchained Melody / Only You (And You Alone) / Love Is a Many Splendored Thing / Symphony of Love / Night and Day / Smoke Gets In Your Eyes / Easy to Love / Stella By Starlight / It Had to Be You / Cheek to Cheek / Love Is the Sweetest Thing / My Heart Stood Still / Love Me Tender / People Will Say We're In Love / I'm In the Mood for Love / Love Letters / If I Loved You / Hello, Young Lovers Tracks were taken from Ray’s albums "Say It With Music", "Memories Are Made of This", 's Awful Nice", It's The Talk of the Town", "Young at Heart", "Hollywood in Rhythm" and "Broadway in Rhythm". Click on the cover scan on the left for audio samples and further details.

Watch Ray with the Pepe Lienhard Band by clicking here!

August 22, 2011: Now available as a downloadable album: Ray Conniff’s album “Memories Are Made of This” with the new title, “’s Love”

September 4, 2011: From September 16 to 18, the Ray Conniff Fan Club Convention 2011 will be held in Vienna, Austria. For details, recommendations etc. click here.