From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu Mar 14, 2002  1:15 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Don Raye
 
DON RAYE

Born Donald McRae Wilhoite, Jr., 16 March 1909, Washington, D.C.
Died 29 January 1985, Encino, California

Songwriter. From the mid-20s Raye worked as a singer and dancer in
Vaudeville and, later, toured theatres and nightclubs in France and England,
while also writing songs for himself and other performers. After moving to
Hollywood in 1940, Raye was commissioned to write the songs for the
movie "Argentine Nights", in which the Andrews Sisters made their screen
debut. This film and its follow-up, "Buck Privates" (also scored by Raye,
with Hughie Prince), included several songs that integrated elements of
boogie woogie into mainstream popular music, like "The Rhumboogie",
and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", which was nominated for an
Academy Award, and revived successfully in 1973 by Bette Midler.
Raye's other boogie compositions included "Beat Me Daddy (Eight To The
Bar)", "Rock-A-Bye The Boogie", "Scrub Me, Mamma, With A Boogie
Beat", and "Down The Road A Piece", recorded by Amos Milburn (1946),
Merrill Moore (1955) and many, many others. Starting in 1941, a long
partnership with Gene De Paul followed, collaborating on songs for over 20
films. During this period, Raye also collaborated with several other
writers, including Freddie Slack, with whom he wrote "The House Of
Blue Lights". This much-covered song was first recorded by Ella Mae
Morse (who did lots of other tunes by Raye, including her big hit "Cow
Cow Boogie") in 1946. Raye had written a spoken intro for Slack and
Morse that was straight out of Cab Calloway's "Hipster's Dictionary".
The record was a # 8 pop hit and is one of the fifty discs nominated in
"What Was The First Rock 'n' Roll Record?" by Jim Dawson and Steve
Propes (1992).
Raye's productive period was 1940-1955. After the mid-50s, he only wrote
occasionally.