BEST OF TASTY CLIPS: From sideman to superstar, Ray Parker Jr. gets the call
By Bill Vaughan
Entertainment Writer
As a Detroit teen cutting his musical teeth as a Motown session player to a renowned studio guitarist and a platinum artist fronting his own group, RAY PARKER JR. has arguably played on more hit records than anyone alive.
His storied career was the subject of a fascinating documentary “Who You Gonna Call?,” currently streaming. Films of this type can be difficult with all the clearances necessary, especially about someone with the musical credits of Parker.
In addition to his many hits fronting Raydio like “Jack & Jill,” “You Can’t Change That” and “The Other Woman,” he also worked with Barry White, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Tina Turner, Diana Ross and many other iconic performers.
Under the capable watch of writer and director Fran Strine for over a year, a seamlessly informative and entertaining piece was made. Part of the film details Parker’s longtime relationship with the recently departed Bill Withers and contributions he made to some of his songs, including the classic “Lovely Day.”
“I can’t even describe how much I learned from him,” Parker told Tasty Clips during an interview in 2020. “I didn’t see any sign of him being sick at all. He had a little bit of Parkinson’s. That sort of thing was setting in where he would repeat himself.
“We were close,” Parker added. “When I was a teenager, Bill gave me one of those guitars he’d play. So, for his 80th birthday I bought him a guitar.”
TC: You lost the Academy Award to Stevie Wonder. What was that night like?
RP: “First of all, we weren’t speaking to each other before then. Too much tension in the air and I was sitting right behind him. If you remember, they had me open the 57th Oscars. I sang ‘Ghostbusters’ with the orchestra and they had a big show for 10 minutes. They spent a lot of money. Stevie taught me how to write songs and do everything. So, if you got to lose your Oscar, losing it to Stevie Wonder (for “I Just Called To Say I Love You” from “The Woman in Red”) is about as good as it can get. Besides, I got a funny feeling if I had beat him and took his first Oscar we’d never be speaking again.”
TC: Who would you like to collaborate with that you have not?
RP: “I never worked with Paul McCartney. He’s one of my heroes. I wish I’d had a chance to work with him at least. Just about everybody else I wanted to work with, I played with them before.”
TC: You ever play with Prince?
RP: “I built his first studio. We were real cool. He used to come over my house all the time in the early days. A lot of people don’t know that, but I had the first studio in the house. Prince came and then later he sent Larry Graham over. Larry bought the same equipment as me and cut ‘One In A Million.’ Most of Prince’s early and some later hits were cut on the same Soundcraft board I got him. I knew Prince pretty well.”
TC: James Brown?
RP: “[We] only met one time. The sad part about that was he called me one day when I wasn’t home and sang ‘A Woman Needs Love.’ And boy, you should hear James Brown sing [that]! So, I was trying to get home to take that tape off before it erased or got deleted or something. I’m rushing to make a copy, and we had a power outage and I lost all of my tape signal. That’s them old answering machines when we had the digital memory. Erased it all.”
TC: Let’s go for the trifecta. Michael Jackson.
RP: “Oh yeah, I played with him. I know all The Jacksons. That’s an incredible family. They are the nicest group of people who been exposed to more than the average person. You’d think they’d be a little crazier, but they’re actually pretty good. They’ve held on together through all the stuff they’ve been through.”
TC: What do you listen to these days?
RP: “I like the old stuff on the radio like the Ohio Players, the Gap Band, then I listen to a lot of the new stuff. Every now and then there are some pretty good songs, but when it drags on and the tempo starts to get a little slow and they start rapping about bitches and hos and stuff, then I’m lost. One of my sons is doing EDM music. I like some of that, but the same synthesizer playing the same groove for 10 minutes is rough on me. Maybe there is a little generation gap there. I’ll admit that maybe I’m on the other side of it. I’d never thought I’d get there though. What’s interesting about that is I don’t think the public and the kids feel it either because they can’t remember the song two years later.”
TC: How are you holding up these days?
RP: “Pretty good. My house is like Disneyland. We have the studio, tennis courts and there are a lot of sports we can do. I have all my four sons and their wives and girlfriends and my wife, so there are a bunch of us here. I look at it as family time. Hopefully, you’re in the room with somebody you like.”
For more than 11 years, Bill Vaughan has kept Wave readers up to date with the latest news in entertainment. Now, we are collecting some of those past columns into what we call the Best of Tasty Clips. To contact Vaughan, visit his social media pages on Facebook and Instagram or @tasty_clips, on X @tastyclips, and on LinkedIn to William Vaughan.
