Ray Parker Jr.

Ray Parker Jr. is one of those guys who could have had a perfectly respectable career as a session guitarist and R&B hitmaker — and then he wrote Ghostbusters, and suddenly the whole world knew his name. Growing up in Detroit, he was playing on Motown sessions as a teenager, which tells you everything about the kind of instincts this man has. "The Other Woman" from 1982 is an underrated gem that proves he had serious pop chops before the supernatural hook came along. But honestly, that Ghostbusters theme is a genuine piece of pop genius — infectious, funky, and so locked into the cultural moment that it still sounds cool forty years later. A Hollywood Walk of Fame star is well earned for a songwriter who gave the world one of the most recognizable hooks ever recorded.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Name (English)

Ray Parker Jr.

Name (Japanese)

レイ・パーカー・ジュニア

Reading

れい・ぱーかー・じゅにあ

Born

May 1, 1954 (age 72)

Origin

Detroit, Michigan, United States

Occupation

songwriter / guitarist / record producer / bandleader / composer

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Horse

High school

Northwestern High School

Awards & achievements

• star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

• Official sitehttp://www.rayparkerjr.com
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/rayparkerjr/
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray%20Parker%20Jr.
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AC%E3%82%A4%E3%83%BB%E3%83%91%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A5%E3%83%8B%E3%82%A2
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q381022

Tags

• Michigan
• songwriter
• guitarist
• record producer

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.