Colour City boy Ray Ray Vanderby found his “soul” in his current offering with an “out-of-this-world” sound made right here in Orange

Ray’s latest album, Comet 2 Comet is an all-Orange affair that brings together local musicians, vocalists, a local sound engineer, and even a dancer, to create a funk-soul sound that’s “far-out”.

After more than 30 years playing music around Australia, Ray has just about done it all with his current disk seeing the talented musician and songwriter venture into new territory — with a little help from his friends.

A self-taught pianist who can’t actually read sheet-music, Ray has shared the stage with the likes of the Stevie Wright Band, the Doug Parkinson Band, been part of a national tour with the Marcia Hines Band, performed with two different line-ups of Blackfeather, and has started numerous bands of his own in all sorts of genres.

For this album, the ever-versatile Ray decided he wanted to take his sound in a new direction, although one heavily influenced by the music of his youth.

“ I've done a lot of albums in a lot of genres depending on where I've been located… so I've done albums in the rock scene and the pop scene, jazz, blues, progressive rock, hard rock — but I'd never done an album in the soul-funk vein, and I was very influenced by that in the 1970s — particularly with bands like Steely Dan, Average White Band, Herbie Hancock's ‘Head Hunters’ album. 

“I got offered a distribution deal with Blue Pie records just recently, and they said a soul-funk album sounds great!”

Ray has sung his own vocals for most of his career but, for this album, he wanted a very particular sound and so recruited local vocalists Cecilia Rochelli, Melissa Stanford, and Barry Patterson.

“I always really loved that 5th Dimension sound, Manhatten Transfer and the Mammas and the Pappas — beautiful vocals and great songs,” said Ray.

“So we started rehearsing some songs just in the living room and had a lot of fun with it… and then Barry came along and it all gelled and came together.”

With former Corrugated Iron band-member Mark Welch and Shane Dickerson, Ray hit the recording studio, working with local engineer Craig Honeysett at the Dotted Eight Studio and bringing in another local guitarist Dave Webb.

“The picture was there, it was all recorded, but then it had to be mixed and that was a long process,” said Ray, shaking his head.

“Craig is probably relieved that it is all finished. because it has been going on for two-and-a-half years! It’s the longest it has ever taken me to do an album, but it has been invaluable because we've been able to record a section, then think about it, listen to it for a couple of weeks, then come back and perhaps add to it.”

With Ray’s health preventing him from performing live gigs, he has put together two music videos to promote the new album — again, recruiting local talent.

“For our first song ‘Funky Space Music’ I decided I wanted a dancer. I phoned a couple of the dance companies here and found Ashlee Wilson, who has recently come back from London and she'd studied at the Rambert School Of Ballet and Contemporary Dance and she is fabulous!,” said Ray, who booked out the Orange Civic Theatre for a day to shoot the video, which you can now find on YouTube.

“We've already shot the second video at the Blind Pig, and we had a lot of fun putting that one together… and in a couple of months we'll put that one out.

“So, it has been a thoroughly enjoyable ride and, I think musicians in Orange should do more networking. Look around you, just see who's around; there are so many talented people in town and I think it adds to the flavour of whatever you are trying to make. And, in this case, I've been very fortunate to meet everybody who has been involved in it,” concluded Ray

Ray Vanderby’s Comet 2 Comet is available for purchase or streaming online.