Randy Crenshaw's True, Tall Tales...
When I first came to town in the mid-'80's, I was hired to sing on a Ray Conniff album. I didn't really know what to expect from Ray, having only heard his records on my grandparents' stereo, or maybe on easy-listening radio. When I arrived at the recording studio and actually saw him, my first shock was that he was wearing a rather obvious wig on his head! It was a gray-haired Prince Valiant-looking one; sort of a "bowl cut" that looked kind of like a leftover from the Beatles mop-top days, or maybe the Little Dutch Boy; except, of course, that the wig hair was all gray with Ray...
My second surprise was that he made all of us singers do a long rehearsal BEFORE the actual recording session started. I thought with pro session singers, you always just jumped in and sightread through the music, but apparently that wasn't the way Ray Conniff did things. He had all of the women sitting in one row of chairs, and then all of the men sitting in another row of chairs directly behind them. It kind of felt like being in Mrs. Nelson's third-grade classroom to me...
My third surprise was that Ray was pretty well deaf by this time in his life. As he ran the rehearsal, he was constantly asking the singers to repeat sections they had already sung correctly, apparently in hopes that by listening to it again, he could somehow hear it better the second time around.
I was singing top tenor on this session (this alone will tell you how long ago the session was!), and we came to a men's soli section in one chart where I had a high B flat to sing, forte. Ray listened to the men singing, then asked, "Who's singing the top B flat? I can't hear it!" I told him that I was singing it, and he told me I wasn't singing it nearly loud enough. We went back through the same section again, and I really sang it out. He complained again that he still couldn't hear the high B flat loud enough. This time he walked directly over in front of me and leaned over towards me, cupping his ear with his hand. The women sitting in front of me giggled.
I thought to myself, "Alright, that's it. He wants loud? I'll GIVE him loud!"... So this time, I just rared back and hollered that high B flat, probably as loud as I've ever sung a note in my life. It was so loud that everyone in the men's row, as well as all of the women in the front row, instantly doubled over with laughter, holding their ears and shaking their heads. "There," I thought. "How's he like THAT loud?"
Ray never reacted at all. He just kind of stood there, looking around at the collapsing singers... It was obvious that he still hadn't really heard the note as loudly as he wanted to, but I think he also may have realized that it had just about destroyed the other singers in the room, judging from their reactions. He couldn't really ask for another run-through of the same section without looking even more foolish, so he had us all take a break, and he kind of wandered off, looking confused...
True story...
| CLICK HERE FOR PHOTO GALLERY... |