Eileen Barton born 24 November 1924

Eileen Barton (November 24, 1924 – June 27, 2006) was an American singer best known for her 1950 hit song, "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake." 

Barton was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her birthdate is often given as 1929, but a certified copy of her birth certificate shows that she was born in 1924. This was done commonly, to shave a few years from a performer's age. Eileen's parents, Benny and Elsie Barton, were vaudeville performers. She first appeared in her parents' act in Kansas City at age 2½, singing "Ain't Misbehavin'," as a dare to her parents from columnist and later radio star, Goodman Ace. At 3½, she appeared at the Palace Theater, doing two shows a day as part of comedian Ted Healy's routine (Healy would go on to put together The Three Stooges). 

Barton soon became a child star. By age 6, she appeared on The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour, a radio program sponsored by Horn & Hardart's Automat, a then-well-known restaurant chain, and, by age 7, in 1936–37, she was working with Milton Berle on his Community Sing radio program, using the name "Jolly Gillette" and playing the sponsor's "daughter" (the sponsor was Gillette Razors). She would ask to sing, he would tell her she couldn't, and she would remind him that her daddy was the sponsor, so he'd let her sing a current hit song. She also was a regular on The Milton Berle Show in 1939. 

Eileen with Frank Sinatra

At 8, she had a daily singing program of her own on radio station WMCA, Arnold's Dinner Club. At 10, she appeared twice on Rudy Vallée's network radio program in 1936. She also acted on radio series such as Death Valley Days. At age 11, she left show business briefly. At age 14 she went on the Broadway stage as an understudy to Nancy Walker in Best Foot Forward, followed by an appearance under her own name with Elaine Stritch in Angel in the Wings. At age 15, she appeared as a guest singer on a Johnny Mercer variety series, leading to her being noticed by Frank Sinatra, who took her under his wing and put her in a regular spot on the CBS radio show that he hosted in the 1940s. She co-starred on Sinatra's show beginning August 16, 1944, and was also part of Sinatra's act at the Paramount Theater in 15 appearances there. 

Her first appearance on record was as part of a V-Disc 12" issued for servicemen, where she sang two cuts ("Great Day" and "Lover, Come Back"). The disc was shared with Frank Sinatra's "I Have But One Heart." She appeared on her own and as a guest performer with such stars as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, and Danny Kaye. In 1945, Barton had her own radio program, Teen Timers. That November, the program's name was changed to The Eileen Barton Show. It was broadcast Saturday mornings on NBC. 

                                   

Her first appearance on a normal record available to the general public was "They Say It's Wonderful" (b/w "You Brought A New Kind of Love To Me") for Mercury in 1946. After cutting a second single ("As If I Didn't Have Enough On My Mind" b/w "One-zy Two-zy") she recorded one single for Capitol Records, "Would You Believe Me?" (b/w "A Thousand And One Nights") with the orchestra of Lyle "Skitch" Henderson, in 1948. 

She met success when she moved to National Records the following year and recorded "If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake" The record became one of the best-selling records on an independent label of all time, charting at #1 best selling in stores for 2 weeks and most played by jockeys for 10 weeks, and altogether on the Billboard charts for over four months. 

After the success of this record, she became a nightclub and stage performer, appearing at all the important clubs in New York City and many others. In the 1950s, she was a featured singer with Guy Lombardo and his orchestra. 

Barton was a regular performer on The Swift Show in 1948, on Broadway Open House in 1951, and on The Bill Goodwin Show in 1951–52.  She moved to Coral Records in 1951 and charted with some cover versions of songs that were bigger hits for other artists, such as "Cry", "Sway", "Pretend", and others. In 1954, she starred in The Eileen Barton Show, a 13-episode transcribed program for the United States Marine Corps. 

In 1956, Barton moved to Epic Records. However, rock-and-roll quickly drove most singers of her generation from the charts and her chart hits dried up in the late '50s. After releasing singles for another four record labels, she retired from studio work in 1963. Despite 17 years of recording, Barton never produced an LP and her recorded output consisted entirely of singles and EPs. She also appeared in motion pictures and television, and continued to perform live until the early 1980s. 

Barton died at her West Hollywood home on June 27, 2006 from ovarian cancer at the age of 81. 

(Edited from Wikipedia)

 

Sonia Delfino born 23 November 1942

                 

Sonia Delfino (November23, 1942- March 20, 2025) is a Brazilian singer who was one of the first to sing bossa nova as well as rock and roll. 

Delfino was born Sonia de Campos Veras in Rio de Janiro, Brazil and was the niece of the singer Ademilde Fonseca, who was well known in Brazil. Sonia was only 9 years old when she won a singing contest at a station in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. 

Her professional career began in 1955, on the program Clube do Guri, on TV Tupi, in Rio de Janeiro and began recording 78's for the Copacabana label. 

Her first being Uma valsa para mamãe (Emmanuel Jitay) and also released the Bell of Belém version of the Christmas song Jingle Bells, with the choir of Clube do Guri. She received the Revelation Singer Award, from the hands of the governor of Rio at the time, Carlos Lacerda. Then she recorded her first album which included songs such as: "O Barquinho", "Diga que me Ama", "Bolinha de Sabão". This song, which is by the composer Orlandivo, was a great success at the time.

                                    

From 1960 to 1962, she hosted a television program Alô, Brotos! also on Tupi, alongside singer Sérgio Murilo. She recorded three LPs at Philips, Sônia Delfino canta para a mocidade (1960), Alô, brotos! (1961) and Alô, brotos!, vol. 2 (1962). Her biggest hits are the folk-rock Bimbombey (Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore and Mack David), the twist Diga que me ama (Make Believe Baby, by Ben Weisman and E. Lewis, Philips, 1960) and the bossa nova Bolinha de sabão (Orlandivo; Philips, 1963). 

She was considered by many to be the natural successor of Celly Campelo, who had abandoned her artistic career in 1962, but Sônia preferred to exchange pop-rock for a more adult repertoire, including bossa nova. She participated as an actress in two films: Tudo legal, by Vítor Lima, in 1960, and Um candango na Belacap, by Roberto Farias, in 1961. 

Her career came to a halt when she married a Brazilian diplomat in 1970 and settled abroad. It wasn't until her return in 1983 that she resumed her career, performing in nightclubs such as Rio Jazz Club, Au Bar, Vinícius Bar and Mistura Fina, in Rio de Janeiro, and Tobaco Road, in Miami. In 1998, she participated in the recording of two CDs: "O Amor, O Sorriso e a Flor", which were recorded in honor of the 40-year career of bossa nova and singer Roberto Menescal.

In October 2008, Sonia gave a lecture on Bossa Nova at Yale University, in the United States. In 2012, she joined the group Cantoras do Rádio. That same year, she performed with the group at the Raimundo Magalhães Jr. Theater, at the Brazilian Academy of Letters, for the project “MPB na ABL”. The show was directed, written and presented by Ricardo Cravo Albin. Also in 2012, she participated, alongside the other members of the group, in the opening show of the exhibition “Marlene 90 anos”, at the Cravo Albin Cultural Institute. 

In recent years, despite being quite reclusive, she even made presentations at the traditional Cinelândia Carnival ball, in addition to some shows exalting stars of the Radio Era, such as Marlene, Emilinha Borba and Ademilde Fonseca. In addition to her successes on stage, Sonia was a founding partner of the Brazilian Society for the Administration and Protection of Intellectual Rights (Socinpro).

Sonia died in Rio de Janiro on March 20, 2025. She was 82 years old. 

(Edited from Encyclopedia of Brazilian Music & O Dia)

Jesse Colin Young born 22 November 1941

Perry Miller (November 22, 1941 – March 16, 2025), known professionally as Jesse Colin Young, was an American singer and songwriter. He was a founding member and lead singer of the 1960s group the Youngbloods. 

Young was born Perry Miller in Queens, New York. His parents, originally from Lynn, Massachusetts, were both fans of classical music and encouraged their son to learn piano. In 1959, he won a scholarship to attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and studied classical guitar there until he was expelled. He attended Ohio State University for a semester, but later transferred to New York University in 1961. Young balanced his studies with performances in Greenwich Village; however, he later decided to leave college and become a full-time musician. 

During this period, he decided on his stage name Jesse Colin Young as a blend of the names of outlaws Jesse James and Cole Younger, and Formula One design engineer and team owner Colin Chapman, as he felt like this was a more appropriate name for the music he performed. Young met producer Bobby Scott in the early 1960s, who assisted Young in getting studio time. Young's debut album, The Soul of a City Boy, was released in 1964, the result of a four-hour recording session backed by an acoustic guitar. 

Young's cover of the George Remaily song "Four in the Morning" received some radio airplay, and in 1965 Young released a second album produced by Scott, Young Blood. Young met guitarist Jerry Corbitt, a folk singer from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the pair decided to form a band as a duo called the Youngbloods (named after Young's sophomore album), touring Canada together. Eventually Corbitt's friend Lowell "Banana" Levinger (guitar and electric piano) and drummer Joe Bauer were added to the band, and the group became the house band for the Greenwich Village night club Cafe Au Go Go. 

                                   

During this period, Young switched from performing guitar to performing bass, as the band already had two guitar players. Signing to RCA Records, the band released their debut single "Grizzly Bear" in 1966, and their debut album The Youngbloods in 1967. The group's first album contained the song "Get Together", written by Chet Powers, and was released as a single in 1967 to moderate success; however, after its use in a 1969 public service commercial for the National Council of Christians and Jews, it became an international hit. The group released a second album Earth Music just a few months later and became prolific, releasing three more albums in the next few years: Elephant Mountain in 1969, Good and Dusty in 1971 and High on a Ridge Top in 1972. 

Young built a recording studio next to his home in Inverness, California, where he began recording his solo album Together, released in 1972 through Warner Bros. Records. Due to the album's success, Young disbanded the Youngbloods after their final album in November 1972, High on a Ridge Top. Young's fourth solo album, Song for Juli (1973), was a sleeper hit, staying on the Billboard 200 for almost a year. Young toured his fifth album, Light Shine (1974), as an opening act for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Young's third Warner album, Songbird (1975), was his highest charting album (reaching number 26 in the U.S. and number 20 in Canada), and his further Warner releases, the live album On the Road (1976) and Love on the Wing (1977), all charted on the Billboard top 200 albums chart. 

In 1978, Young switched labels to Elektra Records, releasing American Dreams (1978). His follow up The Perfect Stranger (1982), and a further album on Cypress Records titled The Highway Is for Heroes (1987) did not meet with as much commercial success as his previous works. In 1993, Young and his wife Connie founded Ridgetop Music, a label based out of their home in Inverness, in order to re-release Young's 1970s catalog on CD, and as an outlet to release new music including Makin' It Real (1993), Swept Away (1994), and the compilation album Crazy Boy (1995). 

From 2001 Young released the albums  Walk the Talk, followed by Songs for Christmas in 2002 and  Living in Paradise with Artemis Recordsin 2004. Young quit performing music in 2012, at the time when he was diagnosed with "chronic Lyme disease". He was inspired to start performing again in 2016, after being impressed by the musicians at his son's graduation recital at the Berklee College of Music. After touring for a year, Young recorded a new solo record with the College band, Dreamers, which was released in February 2019 on BMG. 

Although his voice showed the wear of time by 2020 his guitar work was still stellar and he continued to perform live as late as 2023, but by that time was suffering from cardiac complications of atherosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease and he died from a heart attack at the Aiken Regional Medical Center home in Aiken, South Carolina on March 16, 2025.

(Edited from Wikipedia & The Daily Mail)

 

Joe Carson born 21 November 1936

Joe Carson (21 November 1936 - 28 February 1964) was an American country music performer, active from the early 1950s to early 1960s. 

Little Joe Carson was born Joe Franklin Carson to Henry Monroe and Jo Carson in Holliday, Texas, a small town near Wichita Falls in northwest Texas. He was the last of nine children, the sixth son, seven years younger that his closest sibling, J. M. His parents split up when he was young and he was reared by his mother in nearby Brownwood; his father (known by his middle name Monroe) moved into Wichita Falls, where several older brothers also moved. 

The Carson family was a musical one, “We all sang,” says brother J.M. although none besides Joe would pursue music as a profession (J. M. would give a music career a half-hearted stab after his younger brother's death). Both parents, in particular, loved music and sang, but it was probably his mother Jo who really passed on the talent -- and love -- for music to her son. Whatever the case, Joe became seriously interested in music while quite young and by his early teens was making guest appearances with area bands. In 1951, he travelled to Dallas to enter a talent contest at the new Bob Wills Ranch House. He came in second, winning a $50 bond. 

                                   

Carson may not have won a recording contract, but the experience did serve to push him closer to turning pro. He continued to gig around Brownwood and among the bands he undoubtedly sat in with were Hamilton's Texas Wranglers. A decade later, he would cut a song by the band's fiddler, Bobby Swinson, Three Little Words Too Late. By early 1953, now 16, he was appearing daily on KCNC in Fort Worth with the Bayou Valley Folks and Jimmy Blanton. At sixteen he joined The Southernaires, who were the house band for the Southern Club in Lawton, Oklahoma, which was a major venue for many of the top country performers of the day, like Hank Williams, Tex Ritter, Little Jimmy Dickens, and Lefty Frizzell. Another member of the Southernaires was a young guitar player named Tommy Allsup, who would later become famous for playing lead guitar for Buddy Holly on that last, fateful tour of early 1959. 

In 1954, Carson signed his first record deal with Mercury Records, releasing four singles which went nowhere. But Carson was a popular live act (appearing around this time on the Big D Jamboree out of Dallas, TX), and had no problem securing a deal with Capitol in late 1956 after the Mercury contract ended. Though the Capitol files say that Ken Nelson produced the sessions, pretty much everyone agrees that Joe Carson's old friend Tommy Allsup was really in charge. Unfortunately, the two Capitol singles Carson recorded were not successful, and after making one more failed single for the D label in 1959, Joe Carson went back on the road, still searching for that one hit record that would put him over the top. 

In 1954, Carson signed his first record deal with Mercury Records, releasing four singles which went nowhere. But Carson was a popular live act (appearing around this time on the Big D Jamboree out of Dallas, TX), and had no problem securing a deal with Capitol in late 1956 after the Mercury contract ended. Though the Capitol files say that Ken Nelson produced the sessions, pretty much everyone agrees that Joe Carson's old friend Tommy Allsup was really in charge. Unfortunately, the two Capitol singles Carson recorded died a quick death, and after making one more failed single for the D label in 1959, Joe Carson went back on the road, still searching for that one hit record that would put him over the top. 

Carson's live act continued to impress, mainly because he was one of the greatest honky-tonk singers to ever step behind a microphone, right up there with Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, George Jones and Johnny Paycheck. He managed to secure a contract with Liberty Records in 1962, and after one flop single, "Shoot The Buffalo", that elusive first hit showed up - in the form of Willie Nelson. Nelson was a big fan of Carson's, having seen him a number of times in Texas, and wrote a song for Joe called "I Gotta Get Drunk (And I Shore Do Dread It)". Joe recorded it on January 9, 1963, under the eye of his good friend Tommy Allsup, and it became a smash Top Ten hit on the country charts upon its release in May of 1963. The follow-up, "Helpless" (featuring a young Glen Campbell on guitar and backing vocals), also became a Top 20 country hit in August. 

After one more single, "Double Life", in January, 1964, Carson went back on the road. After a concert in Wichita Falls, TX on February 28th (in which, reportedly, the last song Carson sang was "The Last Song"), Carson packed his gear and got in his car. Unfortunately, he never made it home. He died in an auto accident at the age of 27, on 28 February 1964. He was 27 years old, leaving a wife, a young son, and the prospects of one of the greatest careers in country music history. 

(Edited from Bear Family notes & On The Record blog)

Ray Hoff born 29 December 1942

Raymond Terrence Charles Hough (29 December 1942 - 19 March 2010), who performed as Ray Hoff, was an Australian rock 'n' roll and R&B singer from the late 1950s to mid-1970s. He led Ray Hoff & the Off Beats from 1959 to 1967, which issued a self-titled album.

Ray Hoff was the sixth child of Margaret and William "Sydney" Hough (born c. 1900). Sydney had died on 3 December 1942, weeks before Hoff was born. Hoff grew up in Sydney's Enfield. In 1958, as a vocalist, he teamed with Leon Isackson on drums and Jimmy Taylor on piano to perform at the Leichhardt Police Citizens Boys Club He formed the first line-up of Ray Hoff & the Off Beats in 1959 with Isackson and Taylor joined by John Ryan on bass guitar and Darby Wilson on guitar. 

The Off Beats had a variable line-up, John Ryan's brother Vince provided saxophone in the early years. In 1964 the group released a single, "Little Queenie", via RCA, which is a cover version of Chuck Berry's 1959 track. It reached the No 3 on the top 40 on the local Sydney pop charts. His final line-up in that city was Taylor with Mike Downes on rhythm guitar and Col Risby on lead guitar; all three left to join Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs in 1965. 

                                  

Hoff relocated to Adelaide and then to Perth.  There he formed a new line-up of the Off Beats with Graham Bartlett on guitar, Robert Blom on saxophone, David Birkbeck on trumpet, Ken McBarron on saxophone, Warwick Findlay on drums, John Gray on bass guitar and Basil V'Delli on keyboards. The group signed with Clarion Records, which issued two singles, "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go" (May 1966) and "Tossin' and Turnin'" (October). The group's debut self-titled studio album also appeared in that year via Clarion and was distributed by Festival Records. 

Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, described how, "the group featured one side of live cuts and one side of studio material. Among obligatory covers of 'Got My Mojo Working', 'In the Midnight Hour' and 'Mercy Mercy' was the wild instrumental 'My Good Friend Mary Jane'." The group disbanded in 1967, McFarlane felt "The band's style of rock'n'roll was raw with a strong R&B; base. The band made little headway, despite several years of slogging around the Sydney dance/discotheque circuit." 

Hoff formed a briefly existing blues duo with Andre De Moller (ex-Blue Dogs). Malcolm J Turnbull of the Australian Folklore Unit observed, "both veterans of the rock scene, teamed up to cater for hard-core blues fans, and played to packed Thursday night houses at the Quitapena before trying their luck in the east." By 1971 Hoff had joined the Likefun, "an ambitious rock'n'roll revue band", in Perth. Other members were Morri Pierson on vocals, Shirley Reid on vocals, John Tucak on bass guitar, Alan Wilkes on organ and Stevie Wright on vocals (ex-the Easybeats). 

Hoff became "one of the most active Australian performers in Vietnam during the war", where he met his future wife, Kay Kirby, who was a go-go dancer. He returned to Sydney where he left, "full-time performance and became successful in automotive detailing." He was diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and subsequently had two strokes; Ray Hoff died on 19 March 2010, aged 67.

(Edited from Wikipedia) 

 

Jerry Fuller born 19 November 1938

Jerry Fuller (November 19, 1938 – July 18, 2024) was an American songwriter, singer, and record producer, best known for writing over 1,100 songs, many of which became major hits, including two number ones. 

Jerrell Lee Fuller was born in Fort Worth, Texas on November 19, 1938, to a musical family. Both of his parents were singers. His father, Clarence Fuller, had sung for fiddler and bandleader Bob Wills back in the days when the Light Crust Doughboys band was baking. Mother Lola Fuller did more of the direct music teaching in the family, setting Jerry Fuller and Bob Fuller in motion as the singing Fuller Brothers. The former quickly decided to go on his own, including penning his own numbers. Other family members eventually showed up on Jerry Fuller's production schedule, including Jimmy Fuller and his band Angus and background singer Claudine Fuller. 

                                   

Jerry Fuller was 21 when he showed up in Los Angeles, having already cut ten sides of his own for a small Texas label, Lin owned by Joe Leonard. Jerry was unable to build a following outside Texas so he moved to Los Angeles, hoping to find a place in the thriving South California music scene. Soon he was signed by Challenge Records, for which he would record a total of 23 singles (1959-1966). 

His rockabilly version of "Tennessee Waltz" made No. 63 on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned him an invitation to appear on American Bandstand. In 1961, he wrote "Travelin' Man" which was originally intended for Sam Cooke. Ricky Nelson recorded it instead and the record sold six million copies worldwide. Fuller wrote 11 of Nelson's recordings, including the US Top 10 hits "A Wonder Like You", "Young World", and "It's Up to You". 

Jerry & The Champs

Fuller toured as a featured singer with The Champs, whose other members included Glen Campbell, Jimmy Seals, and Dash Crofts, before a period in the U.S. Army where he spent two years stationed in New York at Seneca Army Depot, still writing songs and entertaining the troops there. On his return in 1963, Challenge / Four Star moved him to New York City to run its east coast operation. There he discovered a garage band, The Knickerbockers, and produced their 1965 hit "Lies”. In 1965, Fuller married Annette Smerigan, and they had two children; the couple had first been introduced by Glen Campbell. 

In 1967, he moved to Columbia Records as a producer. His first discovery was Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, whom he found in a San Diego bowling alley lounge. He wrote and produced the group's hits "Young Girl"  "Lady Willpower" and "Over You". He also produced Mark Lindsay, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, and O.C. Smith, for whom he produced the hits "The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp" and "Little Green Apples". At Columbia, Jerry also produced Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, Billy Joe Royal and others. He left Columbia in 1970 to start his own company, Moonchild Productions, Inc. and his own publishing firm, Fullness Music, writing and producing the hit "Show and Tell" for Al Wilson in 1973. 

Returning to his Texas roots, Fuller began to write songs for the country market and continued to thrive both as a songwriter and a producer, most notably with “Love Me” by Collin Raye. Fuller did return to recording as a singer at a few points after his burst of songwriting and producing success, including an album for MCA in 1979, “It’s My Turn Now.” Beginning in the late ’90s, he started recording some of the greatest hits he’d enjoyed as a writer or producer, in his own interpretations, culminating in four volumes of “From the Vault” released in 2016-18. 

Fuller's accomplishments speak for themselves, including 28 gold/platinum records, over 40 Top Ten hits, more than 250 national chart records, and a host of awards and accolades, including 12 BMI achievement awards and 5 BMI "Million-Air Awards." 

Fuller died from lung cancer at his home in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, on July 18, 2024, at the age of 85.

(Edited from Wikipedia, This Is My Story, Variety & Rocky 52)

 

Chris Rainbow born 18 November 1946

Christopher James Harley, known by the stage name Chris Rainbow (18 November 1946 – 22 February 2015), was a Scottish pop-rock singer and musician, and an influential figure in 70s British and Scottish radio. 

Born in Glasgow, Rainbow worked through a variety of occupations including doing promotional work for Dream Police, contributing cartoons to Glasgow underground paper The Word and studying at the Society for Psychic Research. Rainbow had a stutter which wasn't apparent when he sang. His first experience in a band occurred just two years before he went solo, in his hometown of Glasgow in a group known as Hope Street. 

He and his bandmates had been given a contract to record and publish with a London company; but in 1973, Polydor's Nicky Graham heard a demo of a trio of Rainbow's self-penned numbers and he secured his own four-year contract thanks to Norman Jones, a friend of the singer's who submitted the tape. Following this in 1974 he adopted the stage name “Rainbow” to avoid confusion with Steve Harley who was a popular singer with Cockney Rebel at the time. 

In addition to his recording deal with Polydor, Rainbow signed a deal to publish with Warner Bros. U.K. Jones, who changed his name to Van Den Berg, took on the task of managing his friend's career, and Rainbow went on to put out two albums with Polydor, Looking Over My Shoulder and Home of the Brave. Five singles followed: "Living in the World Today," "All Night," "Mr. Man," "Give Me What I Cry For," and "Solid State Brain." When Jones relocated to California in 1977, Rainbow hired David Knights, formerly of Procol Harum. Knights remained Rainbow's manager through 1986. During this time, Rainbow also wrote advertising jingles for BBC Radio 1 and Capitol Radio. 

                                   

In 1978, his contract with Polydor ended and within a week he joined the stable at EMI. The company released his White Trails album and the singles "Body Music" and "Ring Ring." Just after brief foray into disco funk with Max Middleton on a one off single under the worrying banner of "Maximum Penetration”, Chris was one many artists who was dropped by EMI in their turn of the decade clear out. 

Alan Parsons Project

In 1979, Rainbow also began his decade long association with The Alan Parsons Project, recording on many of their albums from Eve through Alan Parsons' 1999 solo album, The Time Machine. He also appeared on other Alan Parsons's associated works, such as Panarama's Can This Be Paradise in 1982 (with Ian Bairnson and German keyboard player Hermann Weindorf), and Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons's Freudiana in 1990. Rainbow toured with Jon Anderson in 1980 and did vocal work on Song of Seven in 1980 and Animation in 1983. 

In the early 1980s, Rainbow joined Camel, appearing on the albums The Single Factor and Stationary Traveller, and performing with them on their 1982 and 1984 tours, recordings of which were released as the album Pressure Points. Rainbow would do vocal work on Heart Of The Universe, a solo album by Ton Scherpenzeel who was the keyboardist of Camel in 1984. 

From 1986 through 1998, Rainbow produced records in Scotland. He also performed session work during this time for such artists as Parsons, Elaine Paige, Culture Club, Eric Woolfson, Lenny Zakatek, and Tomoyasu Hotei. He also spent almost two decades working as producer for Runrig, a group that performed Scottish-Gaelic rock. The River Detectives, another group from Scotland, also worked closely with Rainbow. 

Rainbow built and ran the Vital Spark Music Studio on the Isle of Skye where several artists including Donnie Munro, Blair Douglas, and KT Tunstall recorded albums.  Rainbow started recording again as a solo performer in 2000, with the album In a Perfect World under his real name of Chris Harley, planned to hit store shelves during the summer of 2001. However, the album was never released. Chris Rainbow died on the Isle of Skye 22 February 2015 after battling Parkinson's disease; he was 68 years old. 

(Edited from AllMusic, & Wikipedia)