Orval Prophet born 31 August 1922

Orval Prophet (31 August 1922 – 4 January 1984) was among the first Canadian country music performers to achieve a career of international scope. He is a second cousin of Ronnie Prophet who is also a country musician. 

Orval William Prophet was born in Edwards, Ontario, now part of Ottawa. During his teens, he sang pop songs within his family and performed at church and community functions. During his early career, he worked on his family's 140 acres (57 ha) farm and was also a carpenter by trade. He changed his focus to country music after he heard Hank Snow's music and concluded that "Western folk-songs would fit my style". During World War II, Prophet worked on his family's farm since health limitations precluded him from military service. He performed for injured soldiers in Ottawa, walking 38 kilometres (24 mi) from his home to their hospital. 

From 1944 to 1949, he performed throughout eastern Ontario in a country band led by Bill Sheppard. In Ottawa, his live radio performances were featured on CFRA's Fiddler's Fling from 1947 to 1951. A Canadian tour with Wilf Carter in 1949 led to Prophet's recording contract with Decca Records by late 1951. This made Prophet the second Canadian (after Hank Snow) to record in Nashville, he was popular in the USA and Canada during the 1950s with singles (for Decca) released under the names Orval (Rex) Prophet, "The Canadian Plowboy," and Johnny Six . 

                                  

Subsequent recordings as Orval Prophet appeared in Canada under the Harmony, Caledon, Broadland, and Acclaim labels and included several LPs and popular singles. During 1954, Prophet became a million-selling artist in terms of record sales following his successful songs. 

He remained based in Edwards throughout most of his career, becoming known as "The Canadian Ploughboy". His initial reason for remaining in Canada was to remain with his girlfriend, except for a few months in 1958 in Nashville, Prophet toured widely in North America and appeared regularly on the WWVA radio show "Wheeling Jamboree" (Wheeling, West Virginia). Other appearances included CBC Television's The Tommy Hunter Show and at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. When Waylon Jennings was working as a radio host prior to his singing career, he sought to adopt Prophet's singing style. Johnny Cash and Dallas Harms also wrote material for Prophet. 

Prophet underwent open heart surgery in 1970 following a series of five heart attacks. Orval charted 16 singles on Canada’s RPM Country charts, including his signature song, Mile After Mile, which was a #1 hit on Canadian radio in 1972. Orval Prophet was honoured with RPM’s Big Country Award for Outstanding Male Performer of the Year in 1978. In 1979 he was inducted into RPM's Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame. In 1981, Orval Prophet recorded his final album, True Blue, produced in Nashville studios by Stan Campbell and released on Acclaim Records. 

He continued to perform until his last concert on New Year's Eve at the end of 1983. On 4 January 1984, Prophet was shovelling snow at his residence in Edwards when he died of a heart attack. He was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Country Music Association Hall of Honor in 1984 and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989. He was survived by his second wife, Laurette Lalonde. His first wife, Lois Haley, died in 1969. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, Canadian Encyclopedia & Country Music Association of Ontario)

Jewel Brown born 30 August 1937

Jewel Brown (August 30, 1937 – June 25, 2024) was an American jazz and blues singer. She performed alongside artists such as Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong. 

Jewel Brown was born in Houston’s Third and attended Blackshear Elementary School and then Jack Yates High School. At an early age she began singing in the choir at Rosehill Baptist Church and first perfomed at the age of nine at the Masonic Temple in the Fourth Ward. Her first professional singing job was at the age of 12 at the Manhattan Club in Galveston. 

She continued singing professionally while in school, however her singing was secondary in importance to her studies. Even before she graduated, her vocals were in demand and she was cutting records by the time she was a teenager. Brown recorded a handful of hit songs with Clyde Otis in the mid-’50s for Liberty Records. During her senior year she turned down an invitation to accompany Lionel Hampton’s group to tour Europe. Upon graduation it was understood in Ms. Brown’s immediate family that she would pursue a singing career full time, she had decided against college because she felt it would be a burden on her parents. 

                                   

Until that time she sang locally with her brother’s group, performing at clubs with her mother accompanying. When she did begin singing with (all male) groups on tour however, her career was almost stifled by the concerns of an extended family member that the entertainment business was unsavory. Ms. Brown’s mother relented against the cynicism and encouraged her daughter toward her chosen goals. On a Los Angeles vacation in 1957 she sat in with organist Earl Grant at the Club Pigalle. She was hired on the spot that night for an engagement that lasted a whole year. From there Ms. Brown went on to Dallas, Texas to work for Jack Ruby. (Yes, that Jack Ruby!) That too lasted for more than a year. 

After having been discovered by Associated Booking Corporation's (ABC) branch manager, Tony Zoppi, she was hired by the legendary Joe Glaser himself and given the opportunity to join either jazz greats Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington. She chose Louis Armstrong and was with Mr. Armstrong from 1961 to 1968. They were sensational years during which Armstrong performed almost continuously both in the U.S. and on four continents. During that time Ms. Brown was immortalized on sound recordings and film. She appears with Louis in the film "Louis Armstrong and All Stars" (1961) and in a duet with Armstrong in the film "Solo", directed by Johnny Winter. They collaborated on many songs, including their hit “Jerry.” 

After worldwide acclaim and exposure with Armstrong (whose ailing health had began to bring a twilight close to his great and illustrious career) she then went on to Nevada headlining shows throughout the Nevada circuit. In 1971, after 23 years of performing, Ms. Brown took leave from the stage and returned to Houston to care for her ailing parents. Later, she opened what soon became a very popular barber and beauty shop with her brother Alphonse. Still, entertainment wouldl forever be her first love. 

She continued to dazzle audiences at local gigs, performances in the United States and on European tours, while continuing to work professionally as an insurance consultant. Jewel Brown had recently been the featured vocalist with The Heritage Hall Jazz Band in its 28th year of traveling worldwide, presenting authentic traditional New Orleans jazz with an all-star complement of famous New Orleans musicians. The Heritage Hall Jazz Band has played for princes, presidents, and just plain folks, thrilling audiences wherever they appear. 

In 1988, Ms. Brown was celebrated as Jazz Artist of the Year at the annual Houston Jazz Festival. Though retired, her generations of fans didn’t allow her musical legacy to be forgotten. In 2007 she was inducted into the Blues Smithsonian and in 2015 she received a Congressional acknowledgment for her contribution to the arts. That same year she teamed up with the Tokyo band Bloodest Saxaphone to record a song in Japanese which resulted in the release of Kaimono Boogie on Mister Daddy-O Records. In 2020, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner set aside December 12, 2020, as Jewel Brown Day. 

In 2022, with more than eighty years behind her, Brown returned to the forefront of show business releasing an album that contained seven of her own songs and three covers, Health issues, including scoliosis, osteoporosis, and partial sight loss in one eye, limited her later career, but she remained active in the Houston music scene. She had recently been treated for colon cancer before her death on June 26, 2024, at the age of 86. 

(Edted from Texas Archival Resources Online, Houston History Magazine & AllAbout Jazz)

 

Dutch Tilders born 29 August 1941

Dutch Tilders (29 August 1941 – 23 April 2011) was a Netherlands-born Australian blues singer-songwriter and guitarist where he was dubbed the “Godfather Of Blues”.  

Born Mattheus Frederikus Wilhelmus Tilders in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, Dutch emigrated to Australia with his parents, four brothers and a sister in 1955. At the age of ten, he was a member of a church choir, but by the time he was twelve, his alto voice broke. No more singing for the boy with the baritone voice. When he was thirteen, he joined a boys choir at a secondary school fooling the choir master into believing he was an alto by singing falsetto. He could still produce those high-pitched notes until his final days. 

His first year in Australia was spent in the Brooklyn Migrant Hostel where his first experience as a performer was in an amateur Black and White Minstrel Show. His very first paid gig, when just fifteen, was at the Collingwood Town Hall where he played the harmonica. On the same bill were Joff Allen and Johnny O’Keefe. Dutch was paid two pounds seven and sixpence, which at the time he was getting for half a weeks wages at Broons timber yard in Brooklyn. It only cost two pounds and sixpence for the taxi home.  He bought his first guitar in 1959 and by 1960 he was playing in the trendy coffee lounges of that time. Making up most of the songs as he went along, he found the blues was exactly the music in which to express his feelings. With no one to teach him, he developed his own style that remains unique to himself. During the mid-to-late 1960s Tilders performed less frequently. 

In September 1970, Tilders appeared on TV talent show New Faces and was signed by one of the judges, Ron Tudor, to his Bootleg Records label Dutch made his first self-titled album in 1972 and it was released one year later. His collaborators were Brian Cadd, Phil Manning, Barry Sullivan, Barry Harvey, Laurie Prior and Broderick Smith. In 1975 he started recording for an independent label, Eureka and consequently recorded two direct to disc records with greats Jimmy Conway and Kevin Borich. During the seventies, Dutch fronted such Blues and Boogie bands as the Elks, the Cyril ‘B’ Bunter Band and Mickey Finn. In 1980 he formed the ‘R&B Six’, a band that included Charley Elul (drums), Peter Frazer (sax), Suzanne Petersen (flute and vocals), Mick Eliot (guitar) and Dave Murray (bass and vocals). This band toured Australia extensively. 

                      Here’s “Just A Dream” from above album.

                                    

In the meantime, Dutch also worked solo and toured England with John Mayall, Taj Mahal, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. Returning to Australia, his next album was a joint work with Margaret Roadnight, Australian Jazz of the 70s Vol. 5 The Blues Singers. Most of his tracks on this album were his own originals. This was followed by Break, recorded with musicians from The Foreday Riders and Company Caine. He went on to release a further 12 LPs and three singles. In 1976, according to legend, B.B. King first heard Dutch from backstage and, from the quality of the performance, expected to see a black bluesman. Brownie and Dutch became best mates simply because Brownie believed that the Dutchman was a genuine bluesman, regardless of his racial origins and for some time did a number of combined tours. 

In 1981 Dutch even opened for Billy Connolly! In Australia, he fronted the Cyril B Bunter Band, which has recently re-formed, and also The Elks and Mickey Finn. He played with Jim Conway from Captain Matchbox, Kevin Borich and the Express. He had a long-time backing band, The Blues Club, which included Martin Cooper, Winston Galea, Geoff Achison and Barry Hills. After The Blues Club, he formed The Holey Soles with Ian Clarke, Anthony Harkin and Greg Dodd. In fact, it’s probably easier to list the major Australian blues artists that he hasn’t performed with – and that’s probably because they were still at school! 

During the latter days of his life he mainly performed as a solo artist and/or with his last band called The Legends Band, though he did enjoy getting together with Geoff Achison doing amazing duo chops. Ranking among his favourite guitarists were: Geoff Achison, Kevin Borich and the Emmanuel brothers. In his long career, Dutch won numerous awards (most notedly for his performances with his band, ‘The Blues Club’) recognizing his contribution to the Blues Music Scene. In 2010 his manager announced he had been diagnosed with cancer and a benefit concert was held to help with his treatment costs. He retired from performing in January 2011 due to the illness and ongoing treatment.  On 23 April 2011 Matthew “Dutch” Tilders died, aged 69. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & his own website)

 

Vince Maloy born 28 August 1933

Vince Maloy (28 August 1933 - 14 August 2002) was an American rockabilly singer. 

Vince Maloy was born in Southern Maryland. When he was 6 years old his mother gave him a Roy Rogers guitar and he remembers someone showing him the chords two years later.  He soon was winning prizes in local talent contests, but cut back his guitar playing when he entered high school.  He went to work at his father's excavating business after graduation, and remembers hearing an employee picking out the blues in two fingered style. 

Sitting at home one day in 1956, Maloy saw a singer on "The Milt Grant TV Record Hop.""I said, 'If that guy's done it, maybe I can do it, too'," he said.  "Let me try that." Working with other local musicians they got Web Records in New York City to record his rockabilly song "Honey Baby" and he went to see Grant. "I just got out the record and went up there to tell him about it and he put me on the show," Maloy said.  "I was the first guy I ever knew of who had a record out in Southern Maryland. 

                                   

Over his singing career Vince only had six singles released on as many labels, which included Web, Tait, Angletone, End, Felsted and 1234. The first, and probably the best of these, was "Honey Baby" paired with "Wine Bop Bop" on Web Records (1957). Vince made over 50 appearances on the "Milt Grant Show", the Washington D.C. area's version of "American Bandstand." He also appeared on the Felix Grant Show and the Buddy Deane Show in Baltimore. 

The local musicians playing on various records with Maloy included James "Dirty" Daulton of California on bass and guitar, Kenny Wathen of Breton Bay on lead guitar, Teddy Wathen of Leonardtown on bass, Tommy Ryce of Mechanicsville on electric piano and Ralph Butler of Leonardtown on saxophone.  Maloy later played lead guitar, and sometimes his brother, Rom also joined him on some shows. 

Vince also hosted three radio shows over the years. In the 1960s, Vince established himself as a night club performer. He took his routine to Las Vegas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and played all over the Washington D.C. area. During this time, Vince became good friends with Link Wray, sometimes sharing the stage with Link and the Wraymen. It was hard work, and he had to play harder and faster than the established entertainers. Despite the fun he had making records and entertaining crowds, Maloy eventually decided he could not find true success as a musician and around 1970, he left the music business and joined the North Beach Maryland Police Department, advancing through the ranks and becoming the Chief of Police. 

In the late 80’s Vince and his wife Shirley began competitive dancing and on January 23, 1994 they won the Gold Division of the West Coast Swing Dance World Championship in Nashville Tennessee. One of the highlights of their dancing was an appearance on TNN's Club Dance TV show, where a spotlight feature was broadcast on Vince and Shirley. Meanwhile Vince went on to law enforcement duties for the Federal Government and retired after a successful career in 1997. Vince and Shirley then operated a successful antique business in Leonardtown Maryland.  Vince continued to operate the business, both at a storefront and on eBay after Shirley's untimely death in 2000. That year Vince found several reel-to-reel tapes full of unreleased songs in his attic that may one day see the light of day. 

In the summer of 2001, Vince went back into the studio for the first time in just over thirty years. He went  to Vinylux Records and sat in with members of the East Coast's best traditional rockabilly band, The FleaBops. He worked up a new version of "Indeed I Do" with the music of an unreleased song Vince did in 1959, "Be My Chick". 

After a long battle with leukemia, Vince Maloy passed away in Maryland on August 14, 2002.

(Edited from This Is My Story & Vince Maloy tripod website)

Joe Weaver born 27 August 1934

Joe Weaver (August 27, 1934 – July 5, 2006) was an American Detroit blues, electric blues and R&B pianist, singer and bandleader. His best known recording was "Baby I Love You So" (1955), and he was a founding member of both the Blue Note Orchestra and the Motor City Rhythm & Blues Pioneers. 

Weaver was born in Detroit, Michigan. He learned to play the piano from the age of nine. While at Northwestern High School he teamed up with another student, Johnnie Bassett, to form Joe Weaver and the Blue Notes. They played jump blues and jazz numbers in the early 1950s, and won numerous talent contests, including several at the Warfield Theater in Hastings Street. This led to becoming the house band there, backing both Little Willie John and John Lee Hooker. In 1953, Joe Von Battle, owner of JVB Records recorded their instrumental "1540 Special", which Was eventually released by De Luxe Records. 

                                  

Weaver and his band later became session musicians for Fortune Records. During this time they provided accompaniment to Nolan Strong & the Diablos and Andre Williams. Their debut album, A Fortune of Blues (1954), was credited to Joe Weaver & His Blue Note Orchestra. The album Baby I Love You So was issued the following year. Neither release was a commercial success, but they brought Weaver to the attention of Berry Gordy Jr. They played on early Tamla recordings, notably the Miracles' million-selling "Shop Around". Their tenure there was short-lived, but Blue Note Orchestra members James Jamerson, Eddie Willis, and Benny Benjamin later were among Motown's in-house backing musicians, the Funk Brothers. 

Over his lengthy but staggered career, Weaver worked with various musicians including the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, John Lee Hooker, Nathaniel Mayer, the Miracles, Martha Reeves, Nolan Strong & the Diablos, Andre Williams, Nancy Wilson, and Stevie Wonder. In addition, Weaver was a session musician in the early days of Motown Records and played in the house band at Fortune Records. He was a key figure in the 1950s Detroit R&B scene. 

But Weaver never enjoyed the commercial success or creative fame afforded so many of his musical progeny -- upon learning of his wife's abrupt departure in the middle of a tour, he abruptly retired from music to return to Detroit and care for his young daughters, accepting a job at the Ford Motor Company and spending the next three decades working the assembly line. Upon retiring from Ford in 1999, Weaver and Johnnie Bassett mounted a new incarnation of the Blue Note Orchestra, traveling to the Netherlands to record a new LP, Baby I Love You So, for the Dutch label Black Magic. In 2002. It is not to be confused with his 1955 single and album releases of the same title. 

In 2002, Weaver recorded with fellow Detroit veterans Stanley Mitchell and Kenny Martin, billed as the Motor City Rhythm & Blues Pioneers. The resultant self-titled album was released by Blue Suit Records. At the 2003 Great Lakes Folk Festival, Weaver performed as part of the Detroit Blues Revue with Johnnie Bassett and Alberta Adams. In May 2006, Weaver was granted a Distinguished Achievement Award at the Detroit Music Awards. 

Weaver died Monday, July 5, 2006 in Providence Hospital in Southfield, Michigan of complications from a stroke at the age of 71. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)

Nik Turner born 26 August 1940

Nik Turner (26 August 1940 – 10 November 2022) was an English musician, best known as a member of space rock pioneers Hawkwind. Turner played saxophone and flute, as well as being a vocalist and composer. While with Hawkwind, Turner was known for his experimental free jazz stylisations and outrageous stage presence, often donning full makeup and Ancient Egypt-inspired costumes. 

Nicholas Robert Turner was born in Oxford into a family with theatrical leanings. When Nik was 13 the family moved to Margate, where he worked on the local funfair during the summer holidays. There, he met Robert Calvert, another future member of Hawkwind. The young Turner fell in love with rock’n’roll and idolised James Dean; he completed an engineering course then briefly worked for the Merchant Navy. He took clarinet and saxophone lessons and wandered around Europe for a while, picking up jobs here and there, and while he was working for a travelling rock’n’roll circus at Haarlem in the Netherlands he met Dave Brock, who was playing at the circus. 

Back home, Brock was forming Hawkwind, and Turner, who had a van, was heading for a job as roadie. But at a rehearsal he mentioned that his saxophone was in the van outside. “The guys suggested I bring it in, and have a blow, and they were impressed enough to invite me to join the band, as well as be the road manager.” When they heard that there was a gig down the road in Notting Hill, they arrived uninvited and were given a 15-minute slot. 

They played a song based on a John Coltrane riff. “It was very well received,” Turner recalled, “the organisers ultimately offering us a record deal, airplay and work.” They established themselves as a thrilling live act at free festivals, and the Pretty Things guitarist Dick Taylor produced their 1970 self-titled debut album, which declared the era of space rock open: “We are trying to levitate [people’s] minds,” as the sleeve notes put it. 

                                   

Indeed, a series of mind-bending albums followed, such as In Search of Space, Space Ritual and Warrior on the Edge of Time, as well as the hit single Silver Machine, on which Lemmy sang lead vocal (Turner claimed credit for persuading the future Motörhead frontman to switch from electric guitar to bass for Hawkwind, and played a saxophone eulogy at his funeral). Many of their classic songs were written or co-written by Turner, including Brainstorm and Masters of the Universe. Turner was realistic about his own contribution. “It’s the overall feel rather than the individual parts of the music that we’re interested in,” he said. “I don’t have any illusions about my technical ability.” 

Hawkwind went on to become one of the greatest live attractions of the 1970s, their stage show enhanced by the frequently disrobed exotic dancer, the 6ft Miss Stacia – as well as Turner’s costumes, often inspired by Ancient Egypt. But his vision of a free jazz/rock hybrid led, in a sense, to his dismissal from the band in 1976 after colleagues complained that he persisted in playing over them. He travelled to Egypt, where he persuaded the authorities to play the flute inside the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Back home he got together with Steve Hillage and other members of Gong – fellow travellers of inner space – in an outfit named Sphynx to augment the recordings, with Turner intoning words from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Their efforts culminated in the 1978 album Xitintoday. 

Brock invited Turner back in 1982 to sing lead vocals on a forthcoming Hawkwind tour, but sacked him again two years later. Between his Hawkwind stints Turner had formed a psych-rock outfit, Inner City Unit; he reassembled them for a couple of albums, then toured for several years with the jazz-inflected Nik Turner’s Fantastic All Stars. In 2000 he joined some of his former Hawkwind colleagues in the band Space Ritual, but when they began calling themselves Xhawkwind, Dave Brock sued successfully for the naming rights. 

In March 2013 Turner turned up at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas playing an official gig at Rebels Honky Tonk bar billed as Nik Turner (ex-Hawkwind) playing predominantly Space Ritual songs. He also guested on stage with The Soft Moon at Hotel Vegas the previous night. Turner also played saxophone and narrated "Brainstorm" on the Warfare album (2017 High Roller Records). In March 2019 he appeared in Austin, Texas, with ex-Hawkwind members Alan Powell and Michael Moorcock in an event called Hawkfest, At the Laugharne Weekend 2019, Damo Suzuki played the Fountain Inn with his all-star Sound Carriers which included Euros Childs and New Order drummer Stephen Morris. Nik Turner joined them at the end of their set. 

Nik Turner, who spent his last years in Carmarthenshire died in Cardiff, Wales, November 10 2022 at the age of 82.  (Edited from Wikipedia & various sources)

Ray Heindorf born 25 August 1908

Raymond John Heindorf (August 25, 1908 – February 3, 1980) was an American composer and songwriter who was noted for his work in film. 

Raymond John Heindorf was born August 25, 1908. in Haverstraw, New York. He grew up in Mechanicville, New York, where he moved to when he was about 10 years old. In 1926 he graduated from Mechanicville High School. He was interested in cars and machinery; he loved to play pool with his father, the late John J. Heindorf, at the Railroad YMCA, where he was the Railroad Express agent. Ray took a business course at the Mechanicville High School. 

His genius at the piano was reflected in his speed on the typewriter. He had an excellent rating, but decided that business was not to be his field of endeavor. He graduated with the Class of 1926 and during his high school days he played the piano at the State Theatre (now demolished) to earn extra money. Ray eventually met Arthur Lang for a job, saying he was an arranger of dance music, and thus began a long friendship. When sound pictures took the place of the silent films, Ray and Lang decided to move to Hollywood. His first picture was The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) at MGM and subsequently went on the road playing piano for Lupe Vélez.

Ray met and married Maxine Roswod a dancer in 1932.. They divorced in 1938 having a son Michael Ray Heindorf who himself would become an orchestrator at Warner Bros. Michael passed away in 2002, his wife Mary the following year. They had no children. After completing the engagement with Lupe Velez, Ray joined Warner Bros., composing and/or arranging and conducting music exclusively for the studio for nearly forty years. In 1948 he succeeded Leo F. Forbstein as Music Director upon Forbstein's death in 1948. 

Heindorf, along with George Stoll at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, were jazz aficionados well known in the black entertainment community for employing minority musicians in their studio music departments. He undertook the musical direction of Judy Garland's comeback film A Star is Born (1954) and made a cameo appearance as himself in the premiere party sequence where Jack Carson's character congratulates him on a great score. In 1954 he sued Warner Bros for $20,000 because they refused to allow him to use the title "Musical Director". He lost. 

                                   

Among Heindorf's other screen credits are 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1935, Dames, The Great Lie, Knute Rockne All American, Kings Row, Night and Day, Tea for Two, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Jazz Singer, Calamity Jane, No Time for Sergeants, The Helen Morgan Story, The Music Man, Marjorie Morningstar, Damn Yankees, and Auntie Mame. Ray left Warners officially in 1965, only to return in 1968 to do one final picture, Finian's Rainbow. His last work was for Jack L. Warner in a Columbia Pictures film, 1776 (1972). 

Heindorf & Virginia Mayo

Ray married Lorraine Marie Grey in 1942 and had two daughters. They divorced in 1963. Between 1943 and 1969, he was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards, 17 nominations for Best Score and 1 nomination for Best Song. Heindorf won three, in the category of Best Score of a Musical, for Yankee Doodle Dandy, This is the Army, and The Music Man. His wins for the former two films made him the first to accomplish consecutive wins in a musical category. 

Ray & Kathryn Grayson

Heindorf was a friend and admirer of jazz pianist Art Tatum. For their mutual friends, he hosted two Tatum piano performances at his Hollywood home in 1950 and 1955. Heindorf recorded these private concerts, which were issued as Art Tatum: 20th Century Piano Genius on the Verve label. Also the recording of the score for Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) took place in his home and not the studio. 

Heindorf & Doris Day

Until his death, Ray lived in Los Angeles, having moved from Encino. Shortly before he died, Ray had completed an oral history, which was done at the request of Yale University and was conducted in Ray's home by Irene Kahn Atkins, Gus Kahn's daughter. Heindorf  passed away on February 3, 1980, aged 71, at Tarzana California Medical Center, ending an era of music that will never be the same again. His funeral service was held at St. Francis de Sales Church, Shermain Oaks, CA, and he is buried at San Fernando Valley Mission Cemetery. His favorite baton was buried with him. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & IMDb)