The original Ray Conniff Club was founded by a
lady from England, Lois Hollands, in the early
60s. (She is the lady on the left in the picture
above with Ray and his daughter Patty.)
After she passed away in the 70s, I
decided to take over her presidency and
informed the members about Ray’s
recordings, new releases, concert tours,
etc. with a “Ray Conniff Newsletter”, which
soon turned into a magazine, titled “’s
Conniff”. Until 2003 it was issued 3-4 times
a year and mailed worldwide.
Ray was honorary president of the International Ray Conniff Fan Club.
Although he did not finance the magazine and other publications, such as
photo albums, he always contributed material and thus supported my
work, because the fans were always most important to him. Since he
passed away in 2002, the fan club magazine was practically replaced by
Doug Mitchell’s website (www.rayconniff.info) on the Internet and mine.
Although back copies of
“’s Conniff” are no longer
available, two great
publications still are: With
the help of our dear
friend John Gay from
Wales, two Ray Conniff
photo albums were
produced for the fan
club. One is entirely in
black and white,
whereas the other one
is completely in colour.
Ray himself provided
many rare photographs from his archives and was
most pleased with the layout (done by Clemens Krauss) and the quality.
These two high gloss publications are a must for every Ray Conniff fan.
Copies can still be ordered. Payment can be made by PayPal. Enquire
for prices inclusive of postage. Each shipment comes with a free copy of
's Always Conniff, a 68 page publication to pay homage to Ray (see
cover below). This memorial edition features the last picture taken of
Ray in the Palm Springs Stroke Center during a sing-along, with Johnny
Mann at the piano, Tamara Conniff's eulogy and David Theriault's funeral
speech, tributes from fans, coverage of his death from around the world,
condolence letters, and much more.
The fan club does not exist any more, but
quite a few ardent fans from around the
world still meet every two years for “Fan Club
Conventions”. So far, they have taken place
in Hamburg, London, Basle, Barcelona,
Dublin, Rome, Paris, Chantilly, Amsterdam,
Berlin, Cardiff, Vienna, Lille and Roubaix,
Essen and Düsseldorf, Haarlem and
Amsterdam, and Brussels/Bruges. In 2016
we celebrated 100 Years of Ray Conniff and
issued a special edition of the fan club
magazine.
Left: The cover of an edition of “Conniff and
Rhythm”, the fan club magazine of the
International Ray Conniff Club, whose
president Lois Hollands was. It is
impossible to reproduce complete
magazines because of poor print quality,
but reprints of a couple of articles will
become available here.
For a report of the recording sessions of
the “Turn Around Look At Me”-album by
Lois Hollands click here.
In 1966, a Club Party was held in London.
Lois Hollands’ report was featured in
edition No. 23. You can read and download
it by clicking here.