‘That Old Song’ by Ray Parker Jr.: Doyle’s ‘Not-So-Top-10′ playlist

Ray Parker, Jr. is probably best remembered for his monster #1 hit, “Ghostbusters”, but he has had a lengthy show business career.

He started out as a teenage session musician (playing the guitar) and graduated to playing behind musical giants like Stevie Wonder (on the albums “Talking Book” and “Innervisions”).  He formed his own band, Raydio, and, at first, let others do the singing while he played almost all the instruments.

Their first big hit (and it was a big one) was “Jack and Jill” which hit the top ten in 1978, but did not feature Parker’s vocals.  They had another top-10 hit with “You Can’t Change That”, after which the name of the band was changed to “Ray Parker, Jr. and Raydio).

 By the time “A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do)” rolled around in 1981, Ray was singing lead.  He was a solo act when  “The Other Woman”, “Bad Boy” and “I Still Can’t Get Over Loving You” were all sizable hits before the number one hit “Ghostbusters” rocketed his fame into the stratosphere.

He had one final top-20 hit after that, “Jamie”.  My favorite Ray Parker tune, however, is none of those.  The song I requested of Big Joe is “That Old Song” which peaked at number 21 in 1981.  It has a very 70s sounding synthesizer, but it’s still a great tune.  Apparently not great enough, though, because Big Joe didn’t play it.