Ray Peterson was born in Denton, Texas on April 23 1939. As a
boy he had to overcome polio. Blessed with a 4-octave singing voice, he
idolized the vocal sounds of fellow Texan, Roy Orbison. Peterson moved
to Los Angeles, California where he was signed by RCA Victor Records in
1957. He recorded several songs that were minor hits until "The
Wonder of You" made it into the Billboard Top Thirty list. The song
would later be recorded by Elvis Presley with whom he became close
friends. In 1960 Ray Peterson scored a Top 10 hit with "Tell Laura
I Love Her," and followed that success with "Corrina, Corrina,
and I Could Have Loved You So Well." By the mid-1960s he had become
something of a phenomenon on the west coast of the United States,
appearing live in numerous rock concerts with Paul McCartney lookalike,
Keith Allison. Ray Peterson died of cancer in 2005 in Smyrna, Tennessee
and was interred in the Roselawn Memorial Gardens cemetery in
Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
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