Conniff is one of the first bandleaders that come to mind when it comes to light music and easy listening.
Conniff was born on November 6, 1916, in Attleboro, Massachusetts, United States, and learned to play the trombone from his father. He studied arrangement music from a textbook.
After serving in the US Army in World War II, he joined the Artie Shaw orchestra and wrote many arrangements for it. He was subsequently hired by Mitch Miller, head of A&R at Columbia Records, as the record arranger in 1954 and has worked with many artists including Rosemary Clooney, Marty Robbins, Frankie Laine, Johnny Mathis, and Guy Mitchell.
Joseph Raymond Conniff (November 6, 1916 – October 12, 2002) was an American bandleader and arranger best known for his Ray Conniff Singers during the 1960s.
He wrote a top 10 single in 1955, selling over a million copies. Among the hit singles Conniff backed with his orchestra (and eventually a male choir) were Johnnie Ray's "Yes Tonight Josephine" and "Just Walkin' in the Rain".
Between 1957 and 1968, Conniff had 28 albums in the American Top 40, the most famous being Somewhere My Love (1966).
In 1969, he topped the album charts in the UK with His Orchestra, His Chorus, His Singers, His Sound, an album released to promote his European tour (Germany, Austria, Switzerland).
He was also the first American popular artist to record in Russia - in 1974 he recorded Ray Conniff in Moscow with the help of a local choir.
His later albums such as Exclusivamente Latino, Amor Amor, and Latinisimo made him very popular in Latin American countries after performing at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival. In Brazil and Chile in the 1980s and 1990s, he was treated like a young pop superstar despite being in his seventies and eighties. He played live in major football stadiums with his eight-man choir.
Ray Conniff died on October 12, 2002, in Escondido, California, after falling and hitting his head on the sink.
http://www.rayconniff.com/