About Me
Ray Vanderby was born in Sittard, Holland, the son of a coal miner and carpenter, immigrated to Australia and settled in Orange NSW with his family at the age of 10. He attended Orange High School and it was at the Methodist Church Sunday school hall in Anson st. where he first layed his hands on a piano at age 11. He immediately went to lessons after it was revealed he had a natural talent and for the next 12 months studied cabaret, standards,musicals and show tunes. With the help of his parents he got his first Hammond organ, an M100, and within one year he became the youngest semi-professional Hammond organist in Australia at the age of 12. He played a 4 year residency in the ballroom of the Hotel Canobolas Orange for Geoff Riley, playing weddings and private functions. He took old time dancing lessons with Harry Brewer’s Dance Academy so he could play the correct tempos for country shows at the Molong Golf Club etc. He studied Bach, Debussy, Grieg and Mussorgsky with Canon Gordon Smee. He played the pipe organ and hymns for the congregation of the Orange Baptist Church until the age of 16 when he started a piano tuning apprenticeship with W.H. Palings & Co. His boss Ian Mcmaster showed him his first minor blues scale and on that day he went home to his mother and said: "look mum look, look what I have found!"This changed everything and opened a whole new door as he began to study jazz and blues artists like Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield, John Mayal, Jimmy Smith, Andrea Previn, Dave Brubeck, Mike Knock, Don Burrows and George Golla. It wasn’t long before Vanderby found rock n’ roll and so began a love affair with bands ELP, Yes, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Manfred Man, Moody Blues, Frank Zappa etc. He formed his own progressive rock band “Eros†and began jamming in shearing sheds around Orange and also at The Canobolas Hall on the side of Mt. Canobolas. He entered "Eros" in Hoadley’s Battle of the Sounds and they became Central West NSW runners up. Eros supported Sherbet and Richard Clapton on one of their Central West tours. Vanderby moved to Sydney at age 20 where Eros was based in St. James rd. Waverley and they performed shows at The Royal Hotel and Astra Hotel Bondi, Governors Pleasure Hotel Parramatta, Bondi Lifesaver and other venues until the band disbanded. Being a qualified piano tuner he was summoned to tune the piano of a Mr. Young who happenned to be George Young of the Easybeats. Through George he toured with Stevie Wright and from there went on to perform as a sideman with Blackfeather, Band of Light, Leo De Castro, Doug Parkinson, Marcia Hines, Shona Laing, John English, JPY, supporting international acts Osibisa, Boomtown Rats and Joe Cocker. The rock n’ roll lifestyle of drugs and alcohol took it’s toll and after 20 years of alcoholism, drug addiction, ending up homeless and rehabs, he finally surrended and got clean and sober in October 1987 surviving 3 marriages. In 1991 he won the WROC/BMG Song Writing Competition out of 2,500 entries from around Australia, released various singles and E.P.’s plus 11 albums in 3 genres. 5 world music albums, 3 blues albums and 3 progressive rock albums with "Cosmic Nomads". His other 60’s & 70’s rock blues good time band "Roadhouse Rebels" was formed in 2007.
