Ray Welch, 68; ad man was voice of Hub radio commercials

By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff  |  June 29, 2007

Click any audio file on Ray Welch's website and his voice, familiar and friendly, pours from the speakers as smooth as aged Scotch into a glass. For those who listened to Boston radio stations in the 1980s and '90s, it is the voice of commercials past.

"Probably the greatest characteristic was that it was a nonannouncer's voice," said Geoff Currier, a longtime friend who ran an advertising agency with Mr. Welch. "He sounded like a regular person talking to you. He was wry, he was nonthreatening, he was friendly, but he was very believable."

Through those commercials Mr. Welch became a household voice. By writing copy for many advertising campaigns, he wove his conversational wit into the fabric of everyday life, reaping scores of industry awards along the way.

Mr. Welch died of cancer Sunday in his house in Bristol, R.I., where he had moved in part because he happened upon an inviting pub nearby and felt at home. He was 68.

While stories about Mr. Welch's advertising work are legion -- and, he would be happy to note, occasionally unprintable -- his greatest talent was for friendship, an art he practiced deftly on a level few reach.

Nearly 500 contacts filled his address book. He was a close companion to everyone from the guy whose elbow brushed his at Aidan's Pub & Grub in Bristol to people he only knew as epistolary sparring partners, exchanging e-mail in written gabfests that could fill dozens of pages on a single topic.

"He didn't grow up with any brothers, but I think he was really good at finding them in business, on the golf course, at the poker table, in the pub," said his wife, Gail. "And they were friends from every walk of life."

"He had all these circles of friends," said Currier, who lives in West Tisbury. "There's an advertising circle, which is a pretty good sized one in New England. Then he moved to Bristol and became a figure at Aidan's, the pub down there. Then he had a whole other golf circle at the country club. Then he had his poker circle. There was some overlap, but the circles were huge."

Mr. Welch was born in Boston and grew up mostly in Gloucester, where the course of his life was set. Unfiltered Camel cigarettes began appearing between his fingers when he was a teenager, a practice that chiseled the sound of his voice.

"You have to drink a lot of Scotch and smoke a lot of cigarettes to get that, so I don't think a lot of people have it," Currier said, chuckling. "He paid the dues for that. He used to joke, 'My vocal range goes from A to A.' "

From that single note Mr. Welch coaxed a world of nuance, however. His voice was "very avuncular, masculine, but kind of warm," Currier said. "It had a real appeal to it."

While in Gloucester, Mr. Welch worked for a neighbor who was blind, and who asked him to record the dictionary. The experience forced Mr. Welch to learn and pronounce obscure words, honing his speaking talent and expanding his intellect. He received a scholarship to Dartmouth College, which he attended after graduating from Gloucester High School.

"At Dartmouth, he was on full scholarship, but he had no extra money, so he made his spending money playing poker and shooting pool," his wife said.

An English major, he edited the college's humor magazine, then set out to find work in advertising. Mr. Welch went to Boston and initially was a copywriter with Atlas Advertising, then at Harold Cabot Advertising before becoming creative director at Ingalls Advertising. Then he left the security of an agency.

"Ray was one of the first guys who went freelance intentionally," Currier said. "Guys would get laid off and scramble for a while, but Ray made a judgment and decided to freelance."

One day, while running a kind of creative co-op in what had been the kitchen area of the restaurant atop the Hotel Bradford, Mr. Welch met an aspiring copywriter. "I walked into his office looking for a job," his wife said, "and he said: 'You're hired. What do you do?' " They married 33 years ago.

Along with Currier, a copywriter, and Tyler Smith, a designer, Mr. Welch launched Welch Currier Smith in 1979. For more than a decade the shop was known for its creativity and conviviality.

During his years in Boston's advertising scene, Mr. Welch was the voice of radio advertisements for many companies, including Tweeter, Wayland Golf, J.C. Hillary's, and NESN.

Currier once suggested his voice was becoming too well-known. Mr. Welch disagreed, but paused during their discussion to call directory assistance for a telephone number they needed.

"The operator immediately recognized his voice, and I said, 'Case in point,' " Currier said, laughing.

They closed their shop in the early 1990s and Mr. Welch returned to freelancing. He and his family moved to Bristol a decade ago, when he wanted to move from Sudbury and a friend suggested he look around Narragansett Bay.

"In Bristol, he asked somebody where to go for lunch, went into this place called Aidan's, and he said, 'This is it,' " Currier said.

Soon after, the Welches bought a house about a mile away from the pub. Since moving, Mr. Welch has written and published a memoir, "Copywriter," which is excerpted on his website, www.raywelch.com . Also on the site are radio commercials he recorded and MP3 files of Mr. Welch reading chapters from his book, among them a recollection of an unforgettable helicopter ride.

Mr. Welch had been working on other writing, including a memoir of his devotion to golf that begins: "For fifteen years now, the golf course has been my temple. And God knows, it's been kinder to this old agnostic than any church of my childhood."

In addition to his wife, Gail, Mr. Welch leaves four daughters, Samantha Welch Colt of Montpelier, Claudia of Albuquerque and Prince Edward Island, Brodie of Corvallis, Ore., and Casey of Oakland, Calif.; two granddaughters; and a grandson.

Rather than a conventional memorial service, friends of Mr. Welch will gather at 2 p.m. July 7 in Aidan's Pub, where he had met with his compatriots every Friday to try to solve the world's problems.

"Ray wasn't much for memorials and funerals," his wife said. "The idea was to have an event that he would have enjoyed going to. Nothing would please him more than people sharing a laugh telling Ray stories, and there were some funny ones."

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