RAY PARKER, JR. TUNES OUT RAYDIO

RAY PARKER, JR. TUNES OUT RAYDIO

VERNON GIBBS

Ray Parker, Jr. didn't sing lead on his first hit, released under the name Raydio (very clever) because back then Ray Parker, Jr. probably didn't like the sound of his own voice and probably didn't even think he could sing very well. Ray Parker, Jr. didn't put out his first hit single "Jack And Jill" under the name Ray Parker, Jr. because let's face it, what kind of logo can you come up with with the name Ray Parker, Jr.? With Raydio, the possibilities were endless, but after the money started rolling in with the first hit single, Ray Parker, Jr. decided he wanted to be rich and famous. Raydio became Ray Parker, Jr. & Raydio, and finally just Ray Parker, Jr. But what would you have done if you played all the instruments, wrote and arranged all the songs, sang most of the lead and produced the whole thing in a studio in your basement? That sounds suspiciously to me like a solo effort, and something tells me we'll never see the name "Raydio" on hot wax again.

Ray Parker, Jr. didn't become one of the richest musicians in Hollywood before he was 25 because he is sentimental. He set out from his hometown of Detroit while still in his teens because he was determined to make it in L.A. Back in the Motor City, he had amassed quite a reputation as the funkiest teenage guitar player in town, having played behind many of the acts who came through the famed 20 Grand club. But Detroit didn't have enough action for a youngblood with a hot guitar (this was postMotown), and Ray followed the advice of that rider of the purple sage who advised young men to go West. Once in L.A., he quickly became the hottest young session guitarist in town, amassing credits with everyone from Barry White to Rufus and spending time playing in Stevie Wonder's barfd (you can still see Ray playing "Superstition" on reruns of Sesame Street). When it was time for Ray to put his own band together, he was already rich enough to buy a house and put a studio in the basement. His albums cost him little or nothing to record. He gets no less than $100,000 every time he starts an album. That's a good return on an investment.

Since his first hit single, "Jack And Jill"—a naughty little ditty about what those two were really doing up on that hill—Parker has quietly concocted an impressive string of hit singles, most of which were also big pop hits. They include "You Can't Change That," "A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do)," "Two Places At The Same Time" and the revolutionary "The Other Woman." Every album he's released has gone gold. I say he's done all this quietly because if Rick James or Prince had made a similar string of pop hits, or if either one of them had ever cut a balls-to-the-walls rock 'n' roll jam like "The Other Woman," they would be certified as funk/rock visionaries instead of their current status as funk/rock visionaries without attendant string of pop hits.

Because he isn't wild or controversial, Parker's accomplishments tend to get lost in the shuffle. For instance, with all the talk about Prince bridging the gap between funk and rock by replacing the synthesizer with the guitar and thus giving birth to technopop (I'm oversimplifying this, of course), no one seems to recall that "Jack And Jill" came out a full two years before "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and that the synthesized bass on "Jack And Jill" on the LP it came from was roaring and swelling with all the force the new music picked up on two years later. Ray's sound has always been cleaner than Prince's, but unlike many of the artists who used the synthesizer as soon as it became available (the Ohio Players for example), Ray, like Prince, wasn't using the synth as a substitute for strings, horns or electric bass, but for its own devious perversion of electricity. That ought to qualify him for some recognition as a visionary, since deviation seems to be a prer requisite for inclusion in the club.

Ray Parker, Jr.'s greatest accomplishment, however, was "The Other Woman." Once again, it was about one year ahead of it's time. Parker had long dabbled in rock 'n' roll, but by the time he cut "The Other Woman," the funk/rock conclusion was being reached by Prince's synth whooshes and over-miked drums, and Ray had no choice but to go back to the "roots" and cut a funk rock tune with a genuine rock 'n' roll guitar, stripped down hot and boiling the way Chuck Berry might record a rock riff today if he felt like being bothered.

But Ray Parker, Jr. is almost an institution after five gold albums in a row, and black radio is in the business of playing hits, not making aesthetic judgments on the artistic preferences of young men in Rolls Royces. And pop radio is in the same business, so "The Other Woman" was also a big pop hit. But who knows what business AOR radio was in last year? Because they refused to play a rock 'n' roll smash that was a hit in formats that don't ususally play rock V roll smashes! If Ray had waited another year to put out "The Other Woman," he would have caught the AOR shift to "new" music and might even have gotten his mug on MTV.

Poor Ray. Now all he can do is polish his gold albums in the apartment building he owns in Hollywood and field phone calls from record companies offering him millions of dollars to sign on for another five years. What a life. But at least he knows that no matter what happens in the '80s (including not getting another hit), he won't be ahead of his time. This is his time.