Ray Hildebrand, whose recording with a friend, Jill Jackson, of a love song he wrote in college, “Hey Paula,” became a No. 1 hit in 1963 and brought them instant fame as Paul and Paula, died August 18 at his home in Overland Park, Kan. He was 82.
His son-in-law, Larry Sterling, said the cause was dementia.
“Hey Paula” was a sweet, romantic ballad about a couple about to get married. Mr. Hildebrand had written it at the request of a friend whose girlfriend’s name was Paula, but the emotion behind it was for Judy Hendricks, an ex-girlfriend with whom Mr. Hildebrand wanted to reunite.
The song has started a musical conversation by Mr. Hildebrand, who sings in part:
Hey, hey, Paula.
I want to marry you.
Hey, hey, Paula.
No one else could ever do that.
When Mrs. Jackson replies, she sings:
Hey Paul.
I’ve been waiting for you.
Hey, hey, hey Paul.
I also want to marry you.
The popularity of “Hey Paula” slowly evolved and then exploded. It started as a song that Mr. Hildebrand and Mrs. Jackson sang on a 15-minute radio show she had in Brownwood, Texas, where they both attended Howard Payne College (now university). The show’s disc jockey told them listeners liked the song, and suggested they record it.
They recorded a 45rpm record in a Fort Worth studio, and the song, released on the small Le Cam label, became a regional hit. Recognizing the song’s potential, Mercury Records soon bought their contract and the recording and re-released it on the Philips label.
“They changed our names,” Mr Hildebrand told Link Howard Payne magazine in 2012. “We called the song ‘Paul and Paula’ by Jill and Ray, and they called it ‘Hey Paula’ by Paul and Paula, what better marketing.”
Released in late 1962, “Hey Paula” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the second week of February 1963, replacing “Walk Right In” by the Rooftop Singers. It remained at No. 1 for three weeks. Paul and Paula’s next single, “Young Lovers,” peaked at No. 6 in late April.
They were touring England in the spring when “Hey Paula” rose to No. 8 on the Melody Maker chart and they met the Beatles in a BBC television studio.
In June, they sang “First Quarrel” on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand,” and later joined Mr. Clark as part of a roster that also included Gene Pitney, Lou Christie, Bob B. Soxx and The Blue Jeans. , the Crystals and Ruby and the Romantics.
But when the Clark tour reached Cincinnati in late July, Mr. Hildebrand realized he had had enough of the road. At the end of a show, he told Mrs. Jackson that he was stopping the tour. He felt he had no control over his life.
“So at five in the morning in Cincinnati I wrote Dick Clark a note and slid it under his door,” he said at an event held two years ago by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, a ministry of sports, in which he participated . dedicated much of his life to it. “I said, ‘I’m so sorry.'”
For the remainder of the tour, Mr. Hildebrand said in an interview with the website Classic Bands that Mr. Clark filled in for him on “Hey Paula.”
Once off the tour, Mr. Hildebrand started dating Miss Hendricks again. They married in early 1964 and remained together until her death in 1999.
Jill Jackson, now called Jill Landon, said she supported Mr Hildebrand’s decision to leave the Clark caravan. “It was the right thing for him to do,” she said on the phone.
She and Mr. Hildebrand released three albums in 1963. They continued to perform together occasionally for a while, reuniting until recently at oldies shows and other events.
Raymond Glenn Hildebrand was born on November 21, 1940 in Joshua, Texas. His father, Walter, was a school principal; his mother, Alma (Wood) Hildebrand, was a teacher. After attending Navarro Junior College in Corsicana, Texas, he transferred to Howard Payne College on a basketball scholarship.
In the summer of 1962 he got a job at the university swimming pool and, to save money on housing, lived in the gymnasium. In the silence of the gym, he started writing songs.
He was asked by a teammate to write a song about his girlfriend Paula. Another teammate listened to an early version of the song, narrated in full by Paul, and suggested a change.
“He said, ‘You should let the girl sing back to the man,'” Mr Hildebrand recalled in the Link magazine interview. At first, he said, he thought the suggestion was ridiculous, but then he agreed to do it, turning the song into conversation.
After completing his undergraduate degree in English in 1964, Mr. Hildebrand embarked on a new career as a contemporary Christian singer and songwriter. He recorded albums under his own name and, from the 1980s, with a partner, Paul Land, in an act that mixed music with comedy.
From 1967 to 1981, he served as program director for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the organization’s national office in Kansas City, Missouri. It was primarily a musical job: writing songs with pop melodies and performing them at conferences and summer camps for young athletes. He continued to perform at Fellowship events for many years.
“He brought a lot of fun and laughter to the stage,” Wayne Atcheson, a former assistant director of the organization, said in a telephone interview. “You never knew what he’d say to get a belly laugh.”
Mr. Hildebrand was inducted into the Fellowship’s Hall of Champions in 2003.
He also worked as a television producer and real estate appraiser.
He is survived by his daughter, Heidi Sterling; his son, Michael; seven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and a brother, Steve.
Looking back on “Hey Paula” many years later, Mr. Hildebrand said he understood its appeal.
“I think one of the things ‘Hey Paula’ had was that it seemed like a couple were dating over the air,” he said in the Classic Bands interview. “They sang back and forth to each other. You had your Steve and Eydies, but they weren’t in the teenage pizza-and-peanut butter songs.
He added: “It was marketable. It was cute.”
