Ral Donner – US Rock’n’Roll Singer

His remarkably similar voice to Elvis Presley made it difficult for him to establish a reputation as a singer in his own right.

In spring 1961 an 18 year old Chicago lad recorded and released a track called ‘Girl of my Best Friend‘ the singers voice certainly sounded familiar, was it Elvis Presley? No! well who is it? It was Ral Donner who natrually sounded remarkebly like the king of Rock’n’Roll.

Born Ralph Stewart Donner on 10th February 1943. Ral shared a love of music with his family, which included 2 brothers and a sister, he was singing at 3 years old often imitating ‘Al Jolson’.

By the age of 12 he was a regular fixture at school assemblies, singing hits of the day by artists like Eddie Fisher and Kay Starr.

Elvis had exploded on the music scene in 1956, and Ral was one of the many youngsters motivated to form his own rock’n’Roll band. In 1959 Ral was fronting a band called ‘The Gents’.

In the same year he recorded and released his first record “Tell Me Why” and “That’s All Right With Me”, the track was recorded in Memphis and issued on the ‘Scottie’ label (Scottie 1310).

The single failed to chart, but not deterred his next release done better, being a fan of Elvis Presley he decided to record one of his songs that had been released on the album “Elvis is Back”.

He cut his version in Miami, the final version of the song was offered to George Goldner, the owner of the record label ‘Gone’. Goldner liked what he heard and issued the song (Gone 5102) in the spring of 1961.

Donner appears to be the first singer to have successfully cover an Elvis song. Although RCA had not released the Elvis recording on a 45rpm single format. The resulting 45rpm rewarded Donner and Gone with a top 20 hit.