Everything about Ray Williams Producer totally explained
Ray Williams, (born in
1947,
London,
England), is an
A&R music publicist. He is best known as the man who discovered
Elton John and introduced him to lyric writer
Bernie Taupin. Williams has been a prominent figure of the music and film industry for many years as a
press agent,
A&R head, artist manager, film music producer, and publisher.
During the 1960s, Williams worked with Cathy McGowan, who presented "Ready Steady Go". He was also a press agent for a number major artists such as
Sonny & Cher,
Cream,
Robert Stigwood, and for
Brian Epstein's Saville Theatre. He eventually moved up to head the A&R department for
Liberty Records, where he signed upcoming artists who went on to achieve major successes with
Jeff Lynne (Idle race and
ELO),
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and
Mike Batt, among others.
By this time Williams’ reputation for discovering major talent was gaining credence. In 1967, he discovered
Elton John and introduced him to
Bernie Taupin, thereby setting in motion one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the modern era. Williams managed John for his first five albums. He also launched and managed Stealers Wheel (Gerry Rafferty) and The Blues Band.
Since 1984, Williams has been one of Europe’s leading film and television music producers. His impressive credits include Bernardo Bertolucci's "
The Last Emperor" (1988), which collected the
Academy Award,
Golden Globe Award,
Grammy and the L.A. film critics’ award for best score and "The Sheltering Sky" (1990), which won the Golden Globe and L.A. film critics’ award.
The year 1996 brought more success as Williams produced the soundtrack for Lars Von Triers' "Breaking The Waves", a critically acclaimed film and winner of the Grand Prix Award at Cannes and an Academy Award nomination in Hollywood.
From 1997 to 2002, Williams went on to produce and supervise several soundtracks including
Saving Grace, the film which won Robert Redford‘s
Sundance Festival Best Film Award, and
Dancer in the Dark, Lars Von Trier’s classic film starring
Björk, which went on to win the coveted Palme d'or Award for best film at the
Cannes Film Festival.
During this period, Williams was instrumental in the acquisition of Bill Lowery’s legendary Atlanta-based Lowery Music Publishing Group for Sony Music Entertainment. The catalogue included the songs "Be Bop a Lula", "Young Love" and "Rose Garden". He was appointed as Sony’s consultant for three years to oversee the transition of the business.
Williams currently (2007) runs his own music publishing/production company, "Crumbs Music" and continues to sign new artists, composers, and catologues.His latest project is on Crumbs-The Label is Ali Campbell's(UB40) album 'Running Free' featuring Smokey Robinson, Katie Meluar,Lemar,Beverley Knight,Robin Campbell and Bitty McLean.
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