Ray Ellis

Ray Ellis (born July 28, 1923 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American record producer, arranger and conductor. The orchestration for Billie Holiday's "Lady in Satin" is perhaps his best known work in the jazz vein.

Ellis arranged many hit records in the 1950s and 1960s. Included are classics such as "A Certain Smile" by Johnny Mathis; Broken Hearted Melody by Sarah Vaughan; and "Standing On The Corner" by the Four Lads. In 1970 he produced Emmylou Harris' debut LP "Gliding Bird".

Ellis work encompassed all areas of music, from records to film, commercials, and television. His television theme music credits include "NBC News At Sunrise" with Connie Chung and the original cartoon series "Spider-Man". In the early 1960s, Ellis had a contract to produce his own easy listening record albums with RCA Victor, MGM, and Columbia, the most popular probably being "Ellis in Wonderland".

Ellis has also composed two extended themes for "The Today Show," the first in 1971. It was used as the Friday closing theme (and eventually the show's full-time theme) until the end of the decade. The composers of the musical "Godspell" took legal action because the melody was too echoic of the play's signature song "Day By Day."

As a result, Ellis composed a second "Today Show" theme based on the trademark NBC chimes. That theme was the NBC show's signature from 1980 to 1985 and has appeared irregularly on the morning program ever since.

Using the name of his wife Yvette Blais as a pseudonym, Ellis composed nearly all of the background music for cartoon studio Filmation from 1968 to 1982, according to the booklets for many of the DVDs for the studio's shows. [Mangels, Andy; booklets for Space Sentinels/The Freedom Force, Hero High, The Ghost Busters, Space Academy, Jason of Star Command, and The Secrets of Isis] Before adopting the "Yvette Blais" pseudonym, Ellis used the pseudonym "Spencer Raymond" on 1968's "Fantastic Voyage", "George Blais" on some of Filmation's early 70s output and its feature films, and even the name of his then-teenaged son Marc Ellis on 1969's "The Hardy Boys". (Marc would later become a composer in his own right, assisting his father without credit on later Filmation scores, and even receiving onscreen credit for co-composing the theme music to the 1979 "Flash Gordon" cartoon.) Ray Ellis was directly credited, however, for the Archie Show and Sabrina the Teenage Witch background music.

Ellis, who currently resides in Los Angeles, also composed the music for the 1980s US edition of "Sale of the Century" theme with his brother Marc that includes the Jack Grimsley's score from 1980.

elective discography

*Billie Holiday "Lady in Satin"
*Ray Ellis "Ellis In Wonderland"
*Sarah Vaughan Broken Hearted Melody
*The Drifters "Drip Drop"
*Johnny Mathis "A Certain Smile"
*The Four Lads "Standing On The Corner"
*Emmylou Harris "Gliding Bird"