Bill Ramsey

William McCreery Ramsey (17 April 1931 – 2 July 2021) was an American-German jazz and pop singer, journalist and actor famous for his German-language hits. He returned to Germany a year after he had served compulsory military service with the U.S. Air Force there. Active as a singer of jazz and pop already as a soldier, he made a career in different fields of musical entertainment. He sang and recorded German schlager, also German-language cover versions of English hits, jazz and swing. He appeared in films and television series, and ran popular series on radio and television as presenter. Biography William McCreery Ramsey, called Bill, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of a teacher and an advertising manager for Procter & Gamble. In his youth, he sang in a college dance band. He began to study sociology and business from 1949 to 1951 at Yale University in New Haven and sang jazz, swing and blues in the evenings. His greatest influences were Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington and Louis Jordan. Due to the Korean War, compulsory military service was again introduced in the US and Ramsey served with the U.S. Air Force in Germany. During this time period, he appeared in clubs like the in Frankfurt. He was discovered by an employee of the American Forces Network (AFN), and hired to entertain troops. There Ramsey advanced to executive producer and though still in service, spent more time on appearances at festivals. As of 1953, he appeared with, among others, band leaders Ernst Mosch, Paul Kuhn, Kurt Edelhagen and James Last. The jazz pianist and music producer organized an appearance with Hessischer Rundfunk for Ramsey in 1955. There he did playback recordings for the musical film (Love, dance and 1000 hits) with Peter Alexander and Caterina Valente. Upon his discharge from the military in 1957, he continued his studies in the U.S. and returned to Frankfurt a year later. Gietz took Ramsey under contract in 1958 and in the same year his first single with Polydor was released. It was a small but respectable success and launched the style, with which ”the man with the black voice” would land hits in the future. The music was oriented on the Anglo American pop music hits of that period. Among Ramsey's hits published in the 1950s and 1960s were German-language cover versions of Hank Ballard, The Beatles, Fats Domino, Ivory Joe Hunter, Roger Miller, Elvis Presley, Jimmie Rodgers, Andy Williams, Sheb Wooley and others.