Ray Parker Jr.
American musician (born 1954)
Ray Erskine Parker Jr. (born May 1, 1954) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer. As a solo performer, he wrote and performed the theme song for the 1984 film Ghostbusters and also sounds from the animated series The Real Ghostbusters. Previously, Parker achieved a US top-5 hit in 1982 with "The Other Woman". He also performed with his band, Raydio, and with Barry White in the Love Unlimited Orchestra.
Early life
Ray Erskine Parker Jr. was born on May 1, 1954, in Detroit, Michigan, to Venolia Parker and Ray Parker Sr. He attended Angel Elementary School where his music teacher, Alfred T. Kirby, inspired him to be a musician at age six playing the clarinet. He attended Cass Technical High School in the tenth grade.
Parker is a 1971 graduate of Detroit's Northwestern High School.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ray Parker Jr.” as american musician (born 1954). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american musician (born 1954). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q381022. VIAF identifies the subject as 71727082. The Library of Congress control number is n92010270. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1954, 1984, 1982 and 1971.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
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Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ray Parker Jr.”, its source revision and the description used here.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Ray Parker Jr.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.