Ray Peterson Lp "Tell Laura I Love her

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Ray Peterson Lp Tell laura I love her...Cover VG+ Record VG+ Buyer to pay $4.00^^^^^^^^^^^"Tell Laura I Love Her", a teenage tragedy song written by Jeff Barry and Ben Raleigh, was an American Top Ten popular music hit for singer Ray Peterson in 1960 on RCA Victor Records, reaching #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Later that same year, the song was recorded and released by Ricky Valance in the United Kingdom, where it went all the way to the #1 spot in the UK Singles Chart.[1] "Tell Laura I Love Her" has been a hit in 14 countries, and has sold over seven million copies.[2]

"Tell Laura I Love Her" is the tragic story of a teenage boy named Tommy who is desperately in love with a girl named Laura. Although they are only teenagers, he wants to marry her, so he enters a stock car race, hoping to win, and use the prize money to buy Laura a wedding ring. The second verse tells how the boy's car overturned and burst into flames—though no-one knows how it happened. Tommy is fatally injured and his last words are "Tell Laura I love her... My love for her will never die." In the final verse, Laura prays inside the chapel, where she can still hear Tommy's voice intoning the title one more time, before it fades Ray T. Peterson was born in Denton, Texas on April 23, 1935.[2][1] As a boy he had polio.[1] Having a four-octave singing voice, Peterson moved to Los Angeles, California, where he was signed to a recording contract with RCA Victor in 1958.[1] He recorded several songs that were minor hits until "The Wonder of You" made it into the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart on June 15, 1959. The song also did well in Australia, stopping at #9 on its chart.[1] The song would later be recorded by Elvis Presley, with whom Peterson became friends. Peterson scored a Top 10 hit with the teenage tragedy song, "Tell Laura I Love Her".[3] In the UK, Decca Records made the decision not to release the latter recording on the grounds that it was "too tasteless and vulgar," and destroyed about twenty thousand copies that had already been pressed. A cover version by Ricky Valance, released by EMI on the Columbia label, was Number One on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks.[4][5]

*****In 1960, Peterson created his own record label with his manager Stan Shulman, called Dunes Records, and enlisted the help of record producer Phil Spector[6] with "Corrine, Corrina".[7] Peterson's dramatic ballad, "I Could Have Loved You So Well", written by Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin[8] and produced by Spector, only reached #57 on the U.S. chart.[2] He then tried another death disc, "Give Us Your Blessing", but this time the record only made #70 in the Hot-100. (The later song was covered by the Shangri-Las five years later and became a Top 30 hit.)

His last charting US-Top-30 hit was "Missing You".[9] By the mid 1960s he had become something of a phenomenon on the west coast of the United States, appearing live in numerous concerts with Keith Allison.

His performances at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, produced by Fred Vail, beginning in 1963 helped fuel a revival of "The Wonder of You," as well as launching his new relationship with MGM Records, an alliance that produced two albums: The Very Best of Ray Peterson which featured most of the Dunes singles, and The Other Side of Ray Peterson, which included many of his nightclub songs. He later moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and by the 1970s when the hit records stopped coming, Peterson became a Baptist Church minister and occasionally played the oldies music circuit. In 1981 he released a Christian folk rock album called Highest Flight, which was also released as My Father's