In January 1996 my wife and I traveled to Miami to meet friends and attend a couple of concerts by Ray Conniff, His Orchestra and Singers. We had a wonderful time and, thanks to Manfred Thönicke, we got to meet Ray backstage after each show.

I had smuggled a camera into the Jackie Gleason Theater and took some photos during the concert. Fans in Brazil wanted to see them and, since I was too disorganized to have copies made and mail them, I posted the photos on a website in September 1996. Some fans may remember it: the site originally had a black and white photo of Ray and Billy Butterfield centered on the top.

I had drafted a discography page but abandoned it thinking that there would be little interest. Meanwhile, the search engines had found it and I soon discovered that there was indeed interest in a comprehensive site about the venerable Ray Conniff. By April 1997 I had begun working on the second generation of the site.

With Manfred's help (he scanned more than half of the album covers) the site was completed by September. Fans worldwide reviewed the pages, made corrections and contributed photographs. Among them were Manfred Thönicke, Clemens Krauss, Michael Leach, Warren Pischke, Ken Conlin, Claudine Deman, Jürgen Klaus, Roel Bautista, former Conniff singer-contractor Gene Merlino and, of course, Ray himself.

Ray appreciated my efforts and wrote and called several times. The best thanks I could ever receive came in July 1999 when I was permitted to attend the recording sessions for 's Country and 's Christmas. The year before I had a schedule conflict and had been unable to attend the My Way sessions. I didn't think the opportunity would ever come again. It turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life.

While Ray was actively recording and touring, I continued to keep the pages updated each month with the latest news and CD reissues. After Ray died, my heart was no longer in it and the updates became much less frequent. I had also become very bored with the overall appearance of the site but had little time to do anything about it.

Over the past few years Ray's fans have pestered Sony Music and Collectables for more reissues and, to my surprise, have been successful! We are all grateful to Dan Rivard, Jeff James and engineer Debra Parkinson of Sony as well as Joe Buesgen of Collectables for more than a dozen great reissues and the promise of more to come.

Here it is April 2006 and I still don't have time but I have a renewed interest in keeping this project alive. As I listen to the stereo reissues of the singles, my admiration for Ray's talents continues to grow. So I'll embark on the third generation of the web site which really isn't much more than changing a few fonts, colors, rescanning photos with higher resolution and shuffling the information around a bit. But I'll try to add some new items that might be of interest to fans.

There's one more thing: I've decided to add my opinions. Let's face it, not every recording was a gem. There were a few duds and I think it is about time we stop sugar coating everything Ray did. Is Ray's interpretation of "Hey Jude" as essential to the collection as his arrangement of "The Way You Look Tonight?" Speaking only for myself, no.

Now is as good a time as any to start offending people. So, here goes: the best Ray Conniff album is 'S Awful Nice, not 'S Wonderful! or 'S Marvelous or Ray Conniff Plays The Bee Gees. And the best Christmas album? Christmas With Conniff? Nope! It's We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

If you disagree, please post a message to the Ray Conniff discussion group.

- Doug Mitchell