From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Fri Jan 17, 2003  6:20 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Hal Miller (The Rays)
 
HAL MILLER (THE RAYS)

Born Harold MIller, 17 January 1931, Brooklyn, New York City

Hal Miller was the lead singer of The Rays, a group formed in late 1955,
after the break-up of another vocal group from the mid-1950s, The Four
Fellows, who had a # 4 R&B hit in 1955 with "Soldier Boy". Second tenor
Davey Jones left the Four Fellows to team up with Hal Miller (formerly of the
Four Toppers, a forerunner of the Four Fellows), first tenor Walter Ford and
baritone Harry James. The Brooklyn-based Rays immediately fell in with
writer-producers Bob Crewe and Frank Slay, and recorded a single called
"Tippity Top" (Chess 1613) in January 1956, a big-band styled rocker. In
1957 Chess issued a second Rays single, "Second Fiddle" and reissued
it on Argo the same year. By this time, Slay and Crewe had formed their
own XYZ label and asked the Rays to record for XYZ. Their second release
on the label was the monster hit "Silhouettes" (# 3), which was picked up
by Cameo Records for national distribution. If The Diamonds hadn't covered
it (# 10), it might have gone to the very top of the charts. The up-tempo flip,
"Daddy Cool" (also written by Slay and Crewe) charted in its own right and
was revived in 1977 by the UK group The Darts, who scored a big hit with it.
Most of the follow-ups coupled a rocker with a slow song, like for instance
"Elevator Operator"/"Souvenirs of Summertime", which saw a release on
Dutch London (FL 1775), but was not issued in the UK. Two smaller hits on
XYZ followed in the early sixties, "Mediterranean Moon" (# 94) and "Magic
Moon" (# 49, an adaptation of Debussy's "Clair de Lune"). Crewe recorded
the group on his Topix and Perri labels in 1961 and 1962 respectively, with
credit now going to "Hal Miller and the Rays". The group worked on into the
1980s with varying personnel, though Hal remained as lead.

CD: The Rays. XYZ 5000, 27 tracks.